הסיפור הזה נכתב כתרגיל באנגלית, בו ניתנות שלושת המילים
הראשונות, והשאר לדמיון.
מוקדש לאחי גלעד

It was after 10 years that I finally understood that this
wasn't going to work for me. It was either that everyone
around me was crazy or that I was crazy, but it didn't
really matter anymore. I was very close to losing whatever
shreds of sanity I had kept up for emergency situations -
now it was more than making other people lose their minds. I
took a small blue bag with me to work that day, not wanting
to be one of those who quit melodramatically, holding their
cardboard boxes open, for everyone to see their framed wife
and kids. I unzipped the bag, on which bold white letters
proclaimed "Diamond Lake Gym." It made me look back to my
pre-beer-belly days, to feel the weight of iron blocks
pushing at my shoulder muscles; I reckon we all had the days
where we were sure that our healthy habits would stay put
forever. So what did I have to put in there? Six colored
pens I had never used, a few unused tissues, my beloved
computer mouse, and a letter. The letter, consisting of
approximately 300 red parting words, told me of sadness and
some other human charectaristics I had quite forgotten.
That, after ten years of sitting in an office, was what was
left of me.

I left, deciding not to say goodbye to thirty people who had
taken the liberty of showing me that no matter how talented,
or friendly or downright hateful I was, they would celebrate
my strangeness at the opening of every new day. So I went
down those mustard-carpeted steps, tried to feel sentimental
(a sense of deja vu), and continued to my car. The car was
nice to me, silent and unstaring, musky yet warm. The swirl
of green-yellow-red and metal play-things on the street
familiarly said nothing to me, and I came to the apartment
building. I won't waste time on descriptions of my apartment
since it was just a bigger version of my empty desk. I
stepped numbly towards the white blinds that had always been
there, staring at a face that I wished was still there. I
waved off the image of warmness as if it were a mosquito.

I drove, staring at the things that blurred bleakly right
and left. I thought I saw a sheep hitchhiking; it was
obviously not. Couldn't be. I had to pull over to let myself
calm down - hell, I was too calm already. Playing a stupid
game wth myself, I dropped my head to the steering wheel. I
let the beeping penetrate the skeletal silence.