Man in the Glass By Chauncy Cavalier Clouds obscured the view from the fifth-floor office window but he knew from memory what was there. Rehearsed this many times. Could barely make out the black silhouettes on the horizon.  Malignant polyps growing from the bowels of the Earth burping gasps of noxious breath from grated sidewalks. The streets teeming, breathing, stinking far below. Would anyone notice him slip out? Would anyone care?  Looking down after, wondering why? Sailing, Sailing.  Jake turned out the light on his desk. He left the office a half-hour early acknowledging the receptionist with a slight nod as he passed the vestibule. As usual, she didn't nod back. On cue, the pair of glass doors - the ones with the words Jones, Hamilton, and Kolias painted in white above a list of cities he'd never bothered to read - automatically parted. Passing the elevators, Jake opened the door to the fire stairs and bounded down, anxious to get out of there for the weekend.  Not that he had anything special planned for the next two days.  It was simply a matter of principle.  This was only his third week with the firm and already he'd allowed himself to fall into that predictable pattern of corporate life that was his reason for leaving his last job. Somehow he'd convinced himself that this would be different.  A new city. A new field.  A new wardrobe to add a physical dimension to his new persona. But the nine-to-five gig was the same no matter where you were. Sometimes it made Jake sick to his stomach, but just as often he marveled at its machine-like precision. Truly a masterpiece of capitalist determination.  Thousands of polished suits marching ant-like each morning to perform duties that in most cases accomplished nothing more than to keep the machine running.  A self-perpetuating nightmare.  Fourth floor.  Mulling this over, Jake began to feel lightheaded.  He wiped a thin film of sweat off his forehead, forcing down the bitter lump of bile that slowly rose in his throat. Third floor.  "God, what have I done?" he thought, loosening his tie.  A feeling of guilt that he simply couldn't place engulfed him. At 30, Jake felt trapped, as if life had already peaked for him.  And worse still, no matter how hard or how often he tried he couldn't remember what being young felt like.  Second floor.  "No matter, it probably wasn't that great anyway." Lobby. Outside. It was dark already.  Stray pieces of newspaper and dried leaves danced on the cool November wind. Jake shuffled to the subway and waited for the southbound train.  It arrived after a few minutes. He hopped in as the doors opened, brushing against two people who were exiting as he did. One, a pretty girl in her mid-twenties with shoulder-length red hair, smiled and gently drew the back of her hand across his stomach on her way out. Certainly it was an accident thought Jake, eagerly following her with his eyes to see if she might look back.  "That'll be the sign," he said quietly to himself.  "If she looks back, she meant to do it, if not then it was definitely unintentional." Jake strained watching her move up the platform away from the slow moving train but lost sight of her as it entered the tunnel.  She hadn't looked back.  "Damn!"  A warm surge engulfed his cock, which had risen to half-hardness from the redhead's delicate touch.  To the outsider, Jake wasn't much different from the other young men in his office.  And they weren't much different from each other.  Most were married.  Some had kids. They golfed on the weekends and talked about golf during the week.  They wore khakis and oxford shirts and smelled of musk aftershave and shoe leather. They were amicable to one another, and yet distrustful.  Talk was limited to matters of truly insignificant proportions - the food at some new restaurant, Sunday's football game, the ass on the new administrative assistant in sales.  Any suggestion of a world outside the mundane tasks of work and leisure risked opening a can of worms simply too big to swallow.  A recognition of the uselessness of it all.  Inside, Jake seethed with anger and contempt for his co-workers' shallowness. It made it easier to forget his own. The rumbling of the old tracks shook the car left to right, left to right as the train painfully gained speed. The seats were pretty full now as it was just about the start of rush hour so Jake stood by the doors hanging on to an overhead reach. Each time the car entered a tunnel he was met by his reflection in the dark glass in front of him. Black hair parted at the side, beginning to gray a bit. Brown eyes.  Shallow cheeks. A half-day's growth of beard.  Indescript.  It troubled him that if he died today no one would ever notice he was missing.  The notion of death destroyed any illusion of his being special.  His Mother always told him he was special when he was a child.  Destined for greatness it seemed.  But she was gone now and with the slowly fading memory of her face went the notion of pending salvation. He tried to visualize the redheaded girl in his mind, but had to make due with a rather vague rendition of her filled in with bits and pieces from his imagination.  The hair was no problem as it was most certainly her most striking feature.  An emerald green business suit and matching shawl complimented her fiery locks - that much he remembered - the skirt cut just below the knee. Her skin was pale.  Did she have freckles? Probably.  Jake amused himself in this way for the duration of his trip. He could almost smell her perfume. Jake wasn't married.  Had never even had a serious relationship for that matter, though he lived with a girl once back in college.  Cute Irish Catholic girl with a face like a china doll.  Jenny.  Both of them relishing the newness of life, the novelty of adulthood, yet secretly hating each other.  After almost two years of near constant mutual contempt she announced she was leaving. The move relieved Jake immensely, knowing in his heart he would never have summoned the initiative to do so himself. He'd lived alone since. Liked living alone, being alone. It made things much easier.  Do the dishes or don't.  Wake up, or stay in bed all day.  The time closed around him without his even noticing. The curtain fell long ago. Celine once said, "To be alone trains one for death." The train screeched to a halt.  Last stop.  Jake walked slowly up the stairs and out into the night.  Chinatown. Nowhere near home. A neon sign advertised "Tarot Readings" next to a green-painted wooden door with the word "Bar" etched in its small glass window. It would be warm inside. A week later, a black man in blue coveralls - an employee of the building management office - carried two boxes of miscellaneous files and office supplies out of Jones, Hamilton, and Kolias and down the five flights to the incinerator.