WORKING LIFE

The office was fluorescent and ordinary.

Cubicle walls. Keyboard clatter. Microwave dinners eaten over the same cheap table every night. No adventure, no drama—just the grind of a working-class life that asked nothing of him except to keep showing up.

Years compressed into the same desk and the same commute. Birthdays came and went without cake. Promotions happened on paper and did not feel like victory. There was no girlfriend, no family in the room, no calls that mattered except Chris's occasional empty ping that never turned into a visit.

Chris was the sole exception from school—messages every so often, never in person, never bringing up other classmates because he did not want to sour the mood. Val never understood why Chris kept reaching out. He answered anyway because answering was cheaper than admitting how alone the thread made him feel.

Alex did not call. Morris did not call. Ashley was a name on a screen in another state. Liz faded the way everyone faded except Chris's habit of almost friendship.

Val learned to want nothing loudly. He learned to come home to an apartment that smelled like instant noodles and detergent and silence that did not judge him for choosing the loud table years ago.

By fifty he could not remember the last time someone had hugged him without obligation. By sixty-one the ceiling was hospital white and the chairs beside the bed stayed empty.

He listened to machines breathe for him and understood, quietly, that he would die alone if nothing changed.

Nothing changed until the light in the room did.