The cafeteria was its own special kind of hell. The air was thick with the smell of stale grease and a hundred overlapping conversations, a wall of noise that made Damien teeth ache. The flourecent lights made his skin look sallow. He'd been mending the frayed cuff of his shirt sleeve under the desk, a small spot of blood from pricked finger had dried on the fabric.
The smell of overcooked broccoli and cheap gravy couldn't quite cover the scent of industrial cleaner. Damien poked at the grey lump on his plate that was supposed to be meatloaf. Five years at Krebbs & Sohn, and he still couldn't identify the daily special.
He was sitting at his usual table,tucked between the overflowing trash bin and the shuddering service door that led to the dish pit. Every thirty seconds, it would bang open,blasting him with a wave of humidity soapy air. It was the reason the spot was always free. He called it his throne.
A burst of laughter erupted from a table of sales guys. One of them,Mark,glanced over, caught Damien eyes and gave a small mocking wink before turning back to his friends. Damien looked down on his tray. He wasn't a person to them; he was a piece of the office furniture.
Just then his phone buzzed.A text from Elira:
'You forgot to take out the trash again. The kitchen smells'.
He didn't reply,he just sigh. Another trouble to solve back at home. He'd been meaning to do that in the morning but Cole had send him a few documents to take care off telling him it's a quick " quick, time-sensitive" data entry job that had taken neary two hours of his time.
Well..basically he isn't granted the privilege of having time in this place. Everything was thrown on his way, ever since he came to work in this place.
Infact this is his life, an unending cycle of disappointment where nothing ever surprised him anymore.
From childhood, Damien had been a target for bullying, a cruel initiation into a world that never showed him kindness.
Born into a low-income family that dismissed him as inconsequential, he grew up quiet and reserved, believing that avoiding trouble would earn him affection from those who should have cared for him the most.
Was he cursed by some god of misfortune? It certainly felt that way. Nothing good ever seemed to happen to him, whether at home, school, or anywhere else; it was as if an invisible barrier separated him from the rest of the world. Integrating into society proved nearly impossible; it felt like living in an alternative reality where he was perpetually isolated.
From kindergarten through university, bullying became the daily ritual—his second nature. Even when he attempted to fight back against his bullies, it only landed him in the hospital for three days. With parents who were indifferent at best, what could he expect?
After years steeped in misery, Damien held onto hope that graduating would signal a turning point in his life, but reality shattered those dreams. The real world proved harsher than he'd imagined; it took an entire year just to land a decent job.
Just thinking about all of this made his teeth ache even more. He quite vividly remembered his first day at work, he was turned into an errand boy right away.He remembered, he was half through his sandwich when a shadow fell over his table.
********
"Hey, Damien. Run down to the coffee shop and get me a latte. Skim milk, two sugars."
It was from Jessica from accounting,holding out out a ten-note bill. She didn't need a coffee, she had a full cup on her desk . This was just the daily tax for just being him.
He looked at his sandwich, then at the stack of of reports he still had to finish by three.
"My lunch break..." he started.
"Oh, don't worry, " she said with a bright meaningful smile. "I'll clock you back in. It'll be like you never left".
It was a lie and both knew it. He'd been docked fifteen minutes,but arguing meant a complaint to HR and HR was Mr. Cole's golf buddy. He took the money without a word. The sandwich would have to wait.
*******
Damien sighed heavily, shaking his head to throw off his miserable past.
"Looks like the king is holding court."
The voice,oily and familiar, cut through the din. Mr. Cole stood over him,his potbelly testing the limit of of his shirt. He didn't wait for Damien to say anything, sliding a thick folder onto the table. It landed with a thud that made Damien's tray jump,splattering gravy onto his sleeves.
"Client manifests from the 'Bergen Account'," Cole said," Needs to be digitized by 9 PM tomorrow. Top priority."
Damien looked at the gravy stain and then at the stack of paper." The Bergen account was archived two years ago,sir."
Cole's lips were thin, lipsless line."Then it should be a nice, quiet project for you. No distractions. A chance to really show your...dedication."
He leaned in slightly,his breath a mix of coffe and mint." And let's not have a repeat of last month's 'misunderstanding' with your timeshare,eh? We're watching."
He straightened up,gave a satisfied pat to his stomach and waddled off.
Damien stared at the folder. Digitizing it was pointless. It was a busywork, pure and simple, designed to eat his evening. He looked at the congealed lunch,then at the stack of papers. His appetite was gone.
As he gathered the papers, he caught a glimpse of the sales team laughing by the window, their chairs forming a tight, impenetrable circle. That was the real work here,he realised that a long time ago. Not the reports, building the fortifications to keep people like him out."
******
Back at his corner office desk, an island surrounded by chaos, he faced mountains of documents and paperwork piled up high like an insurmountable wall.
His workspace was tucked away from everyone else's; it felt like being banished to exile, where no one dared to approach unless they needed something tossed in their direction without so much as a warning.
"Hey! Life... life is just suffering for someone else's happiness," Damien said bitterly to himself as he sank into his chair, burying himself beneath the weighty pile of documents.
In that moment, it felt like he existed independently from everyone else, an invisible ghost haunting this office space.
"Maybe tomorrow will be different," he thought yet again, a faint glimmer of hope amidst the shadows that lingered around him every day.