New Hope For Small Men: Chapter 24

Robert sometimes wondered if his calls at work were recorded. He knew they were not being listened to directly — he would have been fired or at least reprimanded by now for sure — but what if somewhere in the building (and he pictured a basement) all the wires from all the desks were dribbling down through the walls and filling up electronic buckets of words.

He could imagine being called into a strange office one day — and this would be at the very top of the building. A man he had never seen before would sit behind a large desk. The man would be tall even sitting, and he would be well dressed. He would have on a necktie that spoke of confidence and vision, and even his socks, when he crossed his long legs, would reveal the boldness of his actions.

He would be the same age as Robert, but powerful and successful, having applied himself through life and seized every day and moment, and wrung from it every last drop of opportunity. He would have a large file in which all of Robert’s calls had been transcribed, and the man would drop the file onto his desk and it would make a loud sound, like a body falling there from the sky.

“Explain this,” the man would say.

And Robert would shrug and look down at his hands and then down at his feet that were not far enough away.