Gambling on Life

Gambling on Life

His office door was closed. His window was closed. The drawers to his desk and filing cabinet were closed. Every surface in his office was flush with its surrounding surface. Even the papers that had not been filed were arranged into neat piles on his desk, unless they were in the garbage in which case they had been neatly folded and carefully stacked into the waste basket. Cosmo was an accountant, a good accountant, a very good accountant. All his i’s were dotted, his columns correctly tallied and his receipts were in good order.

He had been audited once but his work was so meticulous that the taxman apologized sincerely and vowed to never bother him again. At least that was the rumour that had ran through the company. His work as well as his life were shining examples of what meticulous organization, long range planning, and the uncanny ability to neatly stack papers could do.

He looked around the office one more time and noted that in this sea of harmoniously flush surfaces only his brief case stood out as it hung open. It looked like a pimple on an albino but Cosmo wouldn’t say that. He wouldn’t say anything, he would just close it, which he did. He picked it up, moved through his office door, locked it and moved towards the exit. He then realized that he had not checked his office door, so he immediately returned to find it locked. As he moved back towards the exit, his mind eased itself away from the office and gently settled on thoughts about tomorrow.

Tomorrow was the day. Tomorrow was his freedom day. The one day of the year when Cosmo lived on the edge. Taking chances he wouldn’t normally take, making decisions whose possible repercussions literally frightened him and generally living in a fashion that was so exciting, it could not be maintained for more than one day in the year. A smile appeared on his face and a trickle of sweat followed a path of least resistance as it flowed across his cheek winding its way toward his chin.  Unfolding a handkerchief, Cosmo removed this asymmetrical path from the left side of his face, opened his car door and made his escape to tomorrow.

As the light broke through his eyelids, Cosmo realized at once danger was lurking. Being freedom day, a day of chances, Cosmo had not set his alarm clock the night before and already he was paying for such reckless living.  Judging by the amount of sunlight in his room, Cosmo knew that he was a full thirteen and a half minutes late rising. The excitement began to mount in his body. Lateness to work was not tolerated as clearly stated in the employee hand book on page 7, paragraph 2 and to make matters worse, he had a meeting with the department head, Mr. Dombronski and a very important client at 9 AM sharp.  The mere fact that he had been so cavalier in regard to his position in the system known as Greenwich Mean Time meant that he was now at risk of being late. Lateness in such a case could only mean dismissal and that could set off a chain of events that could leave him unemployed, ostracized and homeless. This thought egged him on to nonchalance. Slowly, very slowly he got out of bed, he did not put his slippers on as was normal, thereby risking foot injury, gangrene and amputation and made his way to the bathroom, risking his life with each step.

Normally he started each day with an 8 minute shower, 5 minutes to dress, a 3 minute shave, then he made 2 pieces of toast and 1 cup of coffee in his special accountant cup ( a cup which never failed to elicit a chuckle from him as it read- accountants are sum kind of guys ). Today however was not like every other day. So he disrupted the order of his regular routine by shaving first and paying no regard to the timing of his endeavors.  His shower actually went 9 minutes, an extra minute of exposure to whatever impurities were in the water supply, in the 19^th century that certainly would have been an invitation to cholera.  Today who knows?   Then when he dressed, he threw tradition aside. Normally he knew the exact order of his clothes as  he had alphabetized his dresser drawers. The top drawer had socks, the next one down t-shirts and in the final drawer underwear and he would choose them in that order. Today however, he wore a blindfold when selecting the drawers. There was no telling what order would be chosen and as a bonus, there was the strong possibility that his socks might clash with his underwear or vice versa.

For breakfast. Fruit. Unwashed fruit. Cosmo could think of no higher disregard for safety than to eat unwashed fruit. Usually he bought prewashed and then washed them thoroughly but not today.  Who knew what he was putting into his body? Probably some tropical disease at the very least. Or chemicals, the residue of pesticides. 25 years down the road he may well pay dearly for such a reckless action. But Cosmo didn’t care for today was freedom day.

Driving to work he refused to buckle up. Here the dangers were on several levels. There was of course the risk of being stopped and fined by the police, there was also the risk of injury to some sort of collision and finally there was the damage to his inner ear from the high pitched beeping of the seat belt reminder.

As he pulled into the parking lot, he noticed that due to his utter disregard for civilization’s rules he was a full 20 minutes later than normal, which meant he was only 10 minutes early. He shuddered at his tight time line. Would he make the meeting? Who knew? But yet who cared? This was freedom day, a day when normal worries are thrown away like twice used bathwater.

Once in his office, he opened the top drawer and removed his file, leaving the drawer open which was tantamount to open defiance of every safety regulation known to man. He then left the office without locking his door and casually made his way down the hall. Cosmo said “Good Morning” to everyone, even if he did not know them and then settled at the meeting table with less than 30 seconds to spare.

At the meeting and for the rest of the day, Cosmo made the ultimate risk, he broke all the rules of grammar. On purpose. Everything. He mixed tenses, embraced ambiguity, and turned a blind eye to syntax. As he often said on freedom day “Out syntax the window toss I”. Because this meeting and all his other meetings really only required him to relate figures, no one noticed his lapses in grammar, but that did not diminish the joy Cosmo felt. Maybe they would ask him a question, and if they did there was no telling what would happen. Double negatives, non-sequiturss, dangling participles were all fair game.  Each meeting, each conversation, each glance brought his heart to a stand still.  Any of these faux pas could end life as he knew it.

And so went Cosmo’s day, a day on the edge, a day of risks, culminating at 4:55 PM when he left the office a full 5 minutes early. So what if it was Friday and everyone else had left. Someone might phone his office and then the cat would be out of the bag. Or worse someone could be dallying in the washroom and would witness his unrepentant dismissal of authority. Such dangers could not sway him from his chosen path though. He left the office without checking to make sure the door was locked and made his way to his car and gently breathed a sigh of relief. For he had survived another day on the edge.