FR 1/10/08: Being Alexander

I get called out to lunch with some of my co-workers, a group about 15 strong.

No one is happy about it. The manager's a prick. Their jaws are clenched, their shoulders are raised, feet are shuffling. No one wants to be there.

What's worse, the venue's a Wall Street power lunch institution, all oak paneling and soft music and placeholders and white linens.

We sit to dine, and boss man proceeds to kill whatever little energy was in the room with his blunt, terse, awkward, inappropriate comments.

Faces fall. Mouths sip from water glasses mechanically. Everyone prays for the next person to talk.

All are rattled.

All, that is, except for me.

I engage. I summon my forces and lead the charge.

I am Alexander, surging forth on the back of Bucephalus ... a thousand armored men at the rear, an enemy mass spreading on the horizon before me.

The wind is in my hair. My body is ignited. My sword is raised high. A battle cry fights its way out of my lungs.

I die, or he dies. No compromise is acceptable.

He meets me on the battle plain with the force of all his malevolence. Unabated.

I deflect it or absorb it as needed. Nothing deters me. I bend no more than is necessary, I strike no harder than is warranted.

He shrinks in size with each exchange we make. Then finally, the lion, tamed into a cub, retreats into a corner of the table. He's scenery. No more than a knot in the wood grain surrounding us.

We're no longer a 30-year-old Asian man and a middle-aged white one. I fill the room. He disappears in a spray.

The others, exhilarated, rush in to fill the space left behind.

I am pleased.

-- Night Job

Great work Night Job! Let me know if you need a new job! J/K

Thanks, Quality. My job is secure, as far as I know. (Knock on wood.)

You'll forgive me if my posts seem to get more and more pretentious as I go along. I'm indulging myself to get more stripped-down, psychological, stream-of-consciousness in my writing. I'm trying to go beyond the schematic and the literal, to tap into the essence of what makes a PUA.

Night Job