#WordPrompt – Open

He stood in the men’s room, fussing with his cufflinks and tie. He tidied his hair, thinking how tired and drained he looked but now it was all going to be worth it.

He moved out into the thickly carpeted corridor to make his way to the conference room where people were gathered to see him finally being given the promotion of partner to this law firm.

He paused as he saw the crowd through the full length glass window and then further in, he saw the partners together, already with champagne flutes in their hands, laughing together all looking alike in their expensive suits, Caribbean tans and well cut hair.

As he watched them, an extraordinary thought occurred to him, an epiphany even. A door in his mind, which he kept firmly shut through years of study and hard work, was now suddenly wide open. He knew now that he was never going to be like them, never going to be one of them. Just a square peg in a round hole, always different by virtue of a poor upbringing and not a privileged one like the rest of the partners.

His secretary, standing by the conference door, smiled and made a motion with her hand to draw him into the room. He held his hand up briefly in response, returning her smile, before pulling his mobile phone out of his pocket in the pretence that he had an incoming call. He moved back down the corridor, suddenly tempted to put a ‘Gone Fishing’ sign on his office door. He moved swiftly on, not even stopping to pick up his briefcase, before he walked down and across the marble foyer to the door into the street.

As he looked up at the sunshine, he suddenly knew how prisoners felt on their release from jail. It was time for him to build his own life, not one dictated by the whims and vagaries of others.

© 2022 Mary Bishop.