Rat Race

by Viper37

          All day long he sits alone. He dwells in this place for eight hours a day, never taking so much as a single trip to the restroom. That would hurt productivity, or so his manager says. No lunch break, coffee break, or any other kind of break. The work must go on. There are papers to be moved, buttons to be pushed, letters to be addressed. At five, he gets up and walks through the twisted maze of misery to the elevator. After arriving in the garage, he climbs into his beat-up 1986 Volvo. At least it starts. At home, he feels lost. He dims the lights, draws the blinds, and eats a piece of cold pizza. After watching several movies, he falls asleep on the couch, the closest thing to a bed in his two room apartment. The next morning he gets up and does it all over again. Five days a week. Fifty weeks a year. He no longer remembers what life was once like. What it meant to be excited about your day. How it felt to break up monotonous routine with social interaction. He hasn’t seen his wife or kids in three years, since the divorce. He pay his child support bill on time and sends money for birthdays and Christmas, but never receives any acknowledgment or thanks. His parents also have long since forgotten him. Friends? What are friends? He hasn’t had one in years, not since he dropped out of high school.

On and on.

                  Never changing.
                                             Years pass.

     One day, after seeing a cool ad on the television, he decides to buy a lottery ticket on his way home from work. Later that night, he is shocked to discover he won. The man quits his job, buys a nice house, and decides to take a nice cruise. It is like heaven on earth. Anything he wants, he can have. The world is at his fingertips. Suddenly, everyone loves him. He sees his ex-wife for the first time in five years. His parents call and ask him to come visit. People he hasn't talked to in a decade are dying to be his best friend. It is too good to last. He wakes up one day to discover he spent too much. Everywhere he looks are people demanding he give them their money. The IRS, ten different credit card companies, several banks, even a small army of people from various stores coming to repossess his life. The next thing he knows, he’s broke. Everything he owns he’s wearing on his back. He returns to the office and gets back his old job, only for half the salary.

          Well, it was fun while it lasted. His life is almost the same as it was before. Same car, office apartment, boring life. He wonders what the point of it all is. Either your poor wishing to be rich, or rich wishing you were richer; all the while searching, seeking something more. He has come full circle. Poor, rich, poor. It is all a vicious cycle for those unfortunates like him. For them, it is impossible to get money and keep it. Not all their stories are identical. Yet still they are the same. They have many names, and many different jobs. Peasant, lower-class, underprivileged family: all refer to the same. They are the names given by those who are well off to the undereducated masses stuck doing the jobs no one else will do. For now, like the past, they are a critical part of society. Who else will sweep the streets, shuffle papers, clean up after the rich slobs to lazy to clean up the filth them leave behind them.

          No one cares. In a way, all the people: rich, poor, from all different countries; all are the same. Despite their motives, desires, wants, need, all are the same. They are all rats in their little mazes. They desperately race around, struggling to be the first, fastest, strongest, smartest. They never seem to realize that once they find the cheese, they will have to do it again.

     And again.

                         And again.

          It is all just one more day in the rat race, with two billion struggling to accomplish something, anything, before the race ends; yet never realizing that the real race has only just begun. For really, despite all their efforts to break free, they are all just rats trapped in a giant cage running around and around and imagining their life has some sort of meaning...