Every sound inside of the office was like a monotonous metronome. The clock ticking, reminding him that each second of his life was just passing away. The clack of his fingers on the keyboard entering line after line of information, devoid of any creative spark or meaning that added anything to his life. Every sound lured him into a world that anywhere but the sterile office he found himself sitting in day after day…this day included.

Pausing, he rubbed his eyes that were achingly tired from looking at the screen and his neck throbbed from the bent over position he had sat in for the past four hours straight. Lunch was still an hour away. The phone was quiet, and everyone bustled outside of the office door, as if his his door didn’t exist, anything must a mystical Narnia.

He looked out of his window to the cars passing along the street. Counting them, they added a rhythm to the ticking of the clock. Each person driving, living some mysterious life he would never know. Though he couldn’t see their faces, he would look at their passing car and imagined where they were headed and who they were meeting.

One particular car caught his eye. It travelled slowly down the road- a blue pick up truck plastered with rust along the rims. It hummed and sputtered as it shifted gears through the speed zone. From his chair he could see that the driver was a female, but nothing else. He closed his eyes and imagined her name to be Sydney. She was on her way to an early lunch to meet her father who was about to tell her that he was moving from Allendale to an apartment in Boise. He imagined the look on her face as she stared into her coffee cup, knowing that she would only see him on long weekends and holidays. He closed his eyes and imagined her father, a stout man with a balding head, reaching out for her hands knowing that this would be painful, but the thoughts of staying in Allendale after the death of her mother was too much to bear and it was time for him to move on with his life and start again.

He rocked in his office chair, knowing that the seconds were just ticking away. The creak aligned with the metronome of the news that may or may not come. The blue truck made its way past, the hum growing quieter in the distance.

He looked at computer screen once again, at the endless lines waiting to be filled with information that added no value to his life. Black and white, with empty lines waiting to be filled.