Josh was pissed. The project’s due date was looming. It was a mere two weeks ahead, but changes kept coming, specs changing, computers stalling, and the supervisor getting madder day by day.
The heavy silence hang in the air, and the whole floor seemed deserted, although there were at least 50 people working, hidden inside their cubicle’s walls. It was 10:20 am.
He got up and went to the elevator. Thin, industrial carpet muffled his steps. He didn’t have any clear ideas why he was going downstairs. Whatever it was, maybe to sort out his thoughts, but he went.
Outside, autumn clearly manifested itself by throwing wet drops in the form of a fine mist, and sent gusts of cold wind in the short, circular motions. Although it was Friday morning, his mood was not concentrating on the weekend’s activities.
Josh’s wife, Chloe, who was at home with their 6 months old baby, Hilary, called 30 minutes ago, sounding hysterical, because baby refused to eat, was hot to the touch, and crying. Chloe wanted Josh to come home and drive them to the emergency room, so she wouldn’t feel alone.
Josh stood for a few seconds at the revolving door of the building, and then noticed a cluster of people, pressing themselves to the wall, at the right from the entrance. They shivered and tried hiding their faces by turning their backs to the wet drizzle and wind, all the while trying to smoke.
Josh didn’t smoke. Well, when he was younger, he went through the periods of exploring various venues to the bad for the psyche and health addictions, found none, and happily forgot about the experience and short-lasted joys. Now, 33 years old, he was a man, who made his choices and lived his life happily and quietly.
The waft of a cigarette’s smoke drifted toward him and awakened something vague in his memory.
The security guy came out of the building and asked smokers to move farther away from the entrance. Now the smokers were angry and dangerously talkative. “What a society! Instead of providing a smoking room, they send a person to the rain, cold and wind, so somebody get sick, and subsequently his co-workers will catch it, too. This will result in a lower productivity and morale.” There were also other similarly voiced, but expressed in much angrier tone and peppered with expletives, objections.
Josh walked over to Robin, their office secretary. She was middle aged, thin and drained looking woman, who looked miserable, but managed to have a defiant fire in her eyes. “Robin, may I ask you for the cigarette?” said Josh. Robin’s eyebrows moved up in a surprised motion, but Josh’s posture and absent-minded tone somewhat affected and successfully shut up her stream of questions. She quickly controlled herself, fished out a cigarette from the pack she held in her hand, and quietly gave it to him.
Josh walked away from the group, closer to the road. He stood under the painfully naked young tree, at the edge of the sidewalk, watching cars confidently trading wet road and rolling by with an angry woosh. He turned his head right, toward the intersection, where loud beeps stubbed the thick air with an angry sounds of a bottled impatience. He slightly squinted to see the reason for the commotion.
He didn’t see a little green car briskly, at the sharp angle, changing three lines, skidding in a puddle of water, and plunging to an exact spot, where Josh stood.
Josh never heard Chloe’s message, that the baby is having her first tooth coming out, what doctor said about her condition, and that a project due date is being moved another two months ahead.
He never found out, that a drunk driver, whose alcohol blood level was three times over the legal limit, was in a hurry to meet his buddy to celebrate the happy date they shared: 18th birthday.
The burial ceremony was short, appropriately sad, and attended just by a half of dozen people. Afterward, everybody quietly went to manage their own affairs and lives, which didn’t include Josh, anymore.
Two more things happened in the world: first, Robin abruptly quit 15 years old habit of smoking. To answer the question of “Why?”, she shrugged, and said to no one in particular: “Smoking – kills”.
Second thing was, that in the city’s downtown, hurried office workers continued going in and out of the building, tired of an ugly weather, and nobody really noticed an irony of the change of the scenery: the new billboard across from the building. In a rainbow display of the colors, for all to see, lightly dampened by a gray wetness, floated an image of a tipped, crystal bottle of a new brand of vodka; with no visible slogan, but projecting an inviting promise to taste something fireworkingly exiting.
Just a subtle, sublime reminder of what makes one’s life complete…
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