Long, even beats

I'm exhaling loudly through my nose again. Slow, even long breaths, filling my lungs with air and helping not in the least. I'm that pissed. I'm trying, like I promised my therapist, to be aware of how I appear to other people. My dropped down shoulders rising to every inhale, my feet planted firmly and wide apart, my hands wanting to claw at something, my eyes in slits.

I blink and imagine wide open fields, like my therapist said, sunny all around, not a soul in sight. But the image in my head is a Gilbert from accounting choking into purple, the twin thumbs of mine digging into his adam's apple. But that's self-indulgent. I blink again and shake the scene out of my head.

Mark from marketing walks past me and I smile. He throws me a nod. I give back a shrug and that's the end of that. Socializing without words in corridors. Mark was probably sent to check up on me, how many veins on my skin-head skull is popping; he waits crack, as he administratively holds my section's new budget proposal hostage.

I've decided it's two-for-one month. Mark is joining Gilbert at the back of an anonymous van. The one I haven't used in a year. Because I thought this year would be a good one.

I exhale, relieved this time, the kind of exhale an pest exterminator gives out after examinining a house falling to termites. It'll take a lot of work but it can be done. It will, be done.

I walk to the end of the corridor smiling. Mike sees me again and his foreheard wrinkles up in a question. I throw him a nod and a smile. He's getting what's coming.

And oh am I coming. Am I coming.