The Man Weeping in the Parking Lot, Dreading Another Day at Work

The tragedy that is a pre-determined life of monotony.

I have been that man.

A couple of years back, when I worked in the HR department of a large multinational corporation. Fresh out of college, full of energy and ambition.

There I was in the parking lot, grabbing my wheel, failing at holding back anymore. I remember it being terribly cold that day; it was winter, hard, bleak, and relentless. There was a fresh pack of snow outside and it was still dark — I left home in blackness, and I returned in blackness. The remaining frost in the corners of my windshield substantiated, in a way, what I felt: utter indifference toward my job, dark depression toward this, my life.

I gripped that wheel like it was my lifeboat, my beloved, my way out of this madness, and began crying hysterically. I didn’t know why, exactly. It felt like a long-suppressed wave, a tsunami of despair rising from my inner depths, finally breaking free and swallowing me whole. Then retreating, leaving emptiness behind.

I felt trapped. As if my every move, my every decision, eve…