ST Bycroft

"Meowwwwwww", Thomas howled at the top of his lungs, He was sitting in one of his favorite spots atop the broken fence post by the vacant lot between the two old brick apartment buildings. The lot had tasty mice in it, but he had to be careful of the rats, they were big. The rain had stopped a while before, but the moon light still reflected off the pavement. Dawn would be coming up soon.

"Meowwwwwww", Thomas howled again. He wanted to make sure the the other alley cats knew this lot was his.

"Meowwwwwww", "SHUT UP" someone shouted from a window above. Thomas looked up like a symphony conductor interrupted by someone in the audience joining in with a kazoo. How uncouth he thought. Pausing a moment, he jumped down from the post and headed toward the docks. The fishermen would be coming in soon, sometimes they would toss some scraps his way, fish were tasty too.

"Damn cat", Paul said as he closed the window. He crossed the room and crawled back into bed. He looked at the clock, it was 4:41am, Dawn would be coming up soon. He had not slept much, or better said, he had not slept well. He could fall asleep ok but it was restless and he would wake often, only to stare at the clock. His alarm would go off soon and he would have to go there, the cube farm.

Paul Wilson, worked in a building with what seemed like endless rows of 6 foot by 6 foot low walled cells with the endless sound of tap, tap, tap of keys on keyboards coming from each. It was mind numbing thinking of spending another moment, let alone a third of your life in a self imposed asylum.

But this is how he had ended up making a living. He didn't pick this career, he just went with the flow and ended up there. He worked as a system analyst at one of the big national banks. Spending his days staring at a computer screen typing code, reviewing code, analyzing code. Dealing with 'clients' complaints about one of the many systems used by the company. Endless tickets from the help desk software. They never stopped coming. It was life numbing, or better said, it was sucking the life out of him.

"Ringgggggggg", it was the alarm, it was 6:11am, it was time. Paul reached over and hit the snooze button, it could wait another 10 minutes.

Copyright (c)  ST Bycroft  2015