Moonlit Path

For lunch he ate a bit of desperation and stress, for afternoon tea he had a warm cup of anger and for dinner a plate of weariness and exhaustion. He was convinced that working in the office from nine to five was tedious, and yet he had to work extra hours because the finances were crumbling. As the sun was setting in some random location towards the western suburbs, he slowly watched everyone else leave the office, returning to their houses where warm food, wives, children and dogs were eagerly waiting for them. He watched them leave, with a bit of secret resentment, being himself deprived from such pleasures.

Half way through the night he suddenly felt trapped in that little office, a strange sense of claustrophobia that made his anger and fear increase by the minute. The amount of work to do was staggering, and for some reason the piles of paperwork just seemed to replicate and grow, as if driven by some devilish and obscure power. The sounds of the cars passing by tormented him, reminding him of the pleasure of life outside the prison he was trapped in. Even the clock hanging at the wall, with its stupid oval face. Even that pacemaker laughed at him, mocking the time he couldn't afford to spare. Deadlines, deadlines.

Tic, toc, tic, toc.

But it only took him one split second to do it. He grabbed his coat, left the piles behind, opened the door with regained energies, and smelled the fresh October air. He grabbed his bike and started pedaling away. Ahh, the feeling of freedom at last! His bicycle took him to places he had never been before, through sinusoidal paths surrounded by deciduous trees that had started to lose their green coverings. There were no lamps along the way - it was the full moon that guided him. The wind against his face was just enough to dry the tears of joy, those tears of freedom, of peace, of regained liberty, of sustained energy, of a supernatural driving force that could not make him stop. The pedaling felt like music to his body, a song that captured everything, every scent, every sound, every essence of life. He could almost fly - he could feel it now, like an airplane taking off from the beautiful moonlit path he was riding on.

The lonely trees, the moonlit path and the full moon were the only witnesses. He vanished into the air, like a beautiful musical note flying across fields, across valleys and across mountains.

Nobody even noticed the following Monday that he didn't showed up to work. He was free, at last.