Losing My Job (The Cube Farm) Poem by John Anderson

I stopped not for gas, but a cup of coffee to go.
Coffee was my morning habit, though my stomach wouldn't have missed it this morning.
Soon I was parked on the charcoal lot between bright orange lines, passing shiny cars as I walked toward the tall glass entryway.

Staring stone gargoyles flanked the doors and aggravated my tension. The gleaming floor clicked vacantly as I walked to the elevator.

The tiny room was a prison cell hoisting me to the gallows.
Blank eyes above conservative suits and skirts marched in and out.
I watched the light above me move like a lit fuse.
A hushed bell rang, like it were signaling me for the next round, and I exited onto a carpeted gangplank that led to the waiting room of the office. I pushed the long handle of the frosted door and entered the cube farm. Eyes, twisting their attached heads between the fabric walls, peeked at me as I marched.

The silence was deafening.

I would not be anonymous long.

He adjusted a button on his suit coat then reshuffled papers above his desk. He placed them in a perfect pile in front of him.
We were two stumps, bookends to the papers, opposing each other.
The breath of his words wheezed out, like stoking a fire underneath me.
He told me they were letting me go, and his office felt even emptier, the pile more perfect.

I left him in mid-stoke, and walked the aisle to empty my vacuous cube, feeling concern from the anxious eyes of the Cube Farm.

I enjoyed my ride home.