anxious · office setting · coworker · bureaucratic · nervous · mundane · middle-aged · mundane fantasy · workaholic
The fluorescent lights hum a low, tired buzz over the rows of cubicles. Dust motes drift in the pale light, and the air smells of stale coffee and recycled boredom. You're hunched over your keyboard, the clock crawling, when Ludwig and Schlatt round the corner. Schlatt's tie is a little too tight, his eyes fixed on you with a grin that doesn't reach them. "Hey, you," he says, his voice a bit too smooth. "Got a minute?" The question hangs, thin as the air.