N THE MONDAY MORNING FOLLOWING his weekend of sailing and skating, Lou Suffern found himself floating down the hall to the office with the bigger desk and better light. It was Christmas Eve and the office floor was near empty, but the few souls that haunted the halls—dressed in their casuals—offered pats on the back and firm handshakes of congratulations. He had made it. Behind him, Gabe helped carry a box of his files. Being Christmas Eve, it was the last day Lou would have to prepare himself before the Christmas break. Ruth had wanted him to accompany her and the kids into the city for some last-minute shopping, but he knew the best thing to do was to get a head start in his new job.

So down he and Gabe went, to his bigger office with better light. When they opened the door, it was almost as though angels were singing inside, the morning sun lighting a pathway from the door to the desk and shining directly on his new oversized leather chair as though it were an apparition. Having already breathed a sigh of relief, Lou now took another deep breath for the new task ahead of him. No matter what he previously achieved, the feelings of having to reach again were never ending. Life for him felt like an endless ladder that disappeared somewhere in the clouds, constantly wobbling and threatening to topple and bring him down with it. He couldn’t look down now or he would freeze. He had to keep his eyes upward. Onward and upward.

Gabe placed the boxes down and whistled as he looked around.

“Some office, Lou.”

“Yeah, it is.” Lou grinned.

“It’s warm,” Gabe added, hands in pockets and strolling around.

Lou frowned. “Warm is…a word I wouldn’t use to describe this”—he spread his hands out in the vast space—“enormous fucking office.” He started laughing, feeling slightly delirious. Tired and emotional, proud and a little fearful, he tried to take it all in.

“So what exactly is it that you do now?” Gabe asked.

“I’m the business development director, which means I now have the authority to tell certain little shits exactly what to do.”

“Little shits like you?”

Lou’s head snapped around to face Gabe, like a radar that had found a signal.

“I mean, just a few days ago you would have been one of those little shits being told what to…never mind,” Gabe trailed off. “So how did Cliff take it?”

“Take what?”

“That his job was gone?”

“Oh.” Lou looked up. He shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t tell him.”

Gabe left a silence.

“I don’t think he’s well enough yet to talk to anyone,” Lou added, feeling the need to explain.

“He’s perfectly fine,” Gabe told him.

“How do you know?”

“I know. You should go and see him. He might have some good advice for you. You could learn from him. He’s decided to become a landscaper. Something he’s always wanted to do.”

Lou laughed at that.

Gabe didn’t blink, and stood looking at him as if disappointed.

Lou cleared his throat awkwardly.

“It’s Christmas Eve, Lou. What are you doing here?” Gabe’s voice was gentle.

“What do you mean, what am I doing?” Lou held his hands up questioningly. “What does it look like? I’m working.”

“Except for security, and a few stragglers, you’re the only person left in the building. Haven’t you noticed? Everybody’s out there.” Gabe pointed out at the busy city.

“Yeah, well, everybody out there isn’t as busy as I am,” Lou said childishly. “Besides, you’re here, too, aren’t you?”

“I don’t count.”

“Well, that’s a great answer. I don’t count then, either.”

“You keep on going like this and you won’t,” Gabe said. “You know, one of the most successful businessmen of all time, a certain Walt Disney—I’m sure you’ve heard of him, he has a company or two here and there—said, ‘A man should never neglect his family for business.’”

There was a long, awkward silence during which Lou clenched and unclenched his jaw, trying to decide whether to ask Gabe to leave or physically throw him out.

“But then”—Gabe laughed—“he also said, ‘It all started with a mouse.’”

“Okay, well, I’d better get to work now, Gabe. I hope you have a happy Christmas.” Lou tried to control his tone.

“Thank you, Lou. A very happy Christmas to you, too. And congratulations on your warm, enormous fucking office.”

Lou couldn’t help but laugh at that, and as Gabe closed the door behind him, Lou was alone for the first time in his space. He made his way to the desk, ran his finger along the walnut border to the pigskin surface. All that was on the desk was a large white computer, a keyboard, and a mouse.

He sat down on the leather chair and swung around to face the window, watching the city below him preparing for the celebrations. A part of him felt pulled outside, yet he felt trapped behind the window. In fact, he often felt as though he were trapped inside an oversized snow globe, responsibilities and failures sprinkling down around him. He sat in that chair, at that desk, for over an hour, just thinking. Thinking about Cliff; thinking about the events of the past few weeks and about the best day of all with his family, about the lessons he had learned. He thought about everything. When a mild panic began to grow inside him, he turned in his chair and faced the office. Faced up to it all.

He stared at the keyboard. Stared at it hard. Then he followed the thin white wire that was connected to the mouse. He thought about Cliff, about finding him underneath this very desk, clutching this very keyboard, swinging that very mouse at him with wide, haunted eyes.

To honor Cliff—something that Lou realized he hadn’t managed to do in the entire time that the man had been out of work—he kicked off his shoes, unhooked the keyboard from the computer monitor, and pushed back the leather chair. He got onto his hands and knees and crawled underneath the desk, clutching the keyboard close to him. From there he looked out the floor-to-ceiling windows and watched the city go racing by. He sat there for another hour, just pondering, watching people live while he was still and alone.

The clock on the wall ticked loudly in the silence. Gone was the usual hustle and bustle of the office floor. No phones ringing, no photocopiers going, no hum of the computers, no voices, no footsteps passing by. He’d never before heard the seconds on the clock, but now that he’d registered them, the ticking seemed to get louder and louder. Lou looked down at the keyboard in his hands, and then he looked at the mouse. What on Earth was he doing here, again, when everything he loved in the world was out there? It was then that he had a jolt, he felt it smack him in the head for the second time that year; for the first time, Cliff’s message finally reached him. Whatever Cliff had been so afraid was coming to get him, Lou sure as hell didn’t want it chasing him, either.

He clambered out from under the desk, shoved his feet into his polished black leather shoes, and walked out of the office to join the living.