The One-Minute Mulligan

It's all a matter of stealth, Ray reminded himself as he eased his way through the cube farm matrix. Well, cunning and stealth, really; cunning, stealth and ingenuity, if he was going to be totally honest. And, of course, luck. You had to have a thick layer of luck, spread generously like the grape jelly on a PB and J, his daily lunchtime ritual conducted several hours ago. It's memory still sticky, Ray's stomach grumbled.

Slowing as he approached the halfway marker – the office water cooler - his mind attempting a u-turn - the emergency bag of barbeque chips he kept in his desk drawer - Ray realized he hadn't yet devised a plan to scale the wall between himself and freedom - his boss. Cunning, stealth, ingenuity and luck were great, but he still needed a plan, one the gatekeeper hadn't heard before. His next move uncertain, he mounted the aluminum life-spring, pressing his foot hard against the worn pedal sending a cold, refreshing jet-stream across his lips. He straightened up and gargled the entire mouthful down his throat (a healthy portion bubbling over and barreling down his chin and beyond,) before tripping into a choking and coughing fit. Panicked, he covered his heaving mouth with both hands, desperate to muffle his presence far outside his cell – an irrelevant 8x8 cubicle he was convinced was designed as a sleeping aid by some insomniac mathematician. After subduing the convulsions, he toweled off with the dry end of his tie and stood motionless like a bank robber who'd just arrived at the teller window only to realize he'd forgotten the note and the gun. Ah...

"Inspiration, that's what I need," he thought. "It's all a matter of inspiration." (And cunning, stealth, ingenuity and luck, of course.)

Ray stood there for several minutes, protecting the watering hole while staring off into oblivion – the origin of all original thought.

"I know that look," Catherine said, before nudging her zombied colleague aside to take a turn at the well. After a long pull, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, a bad habit she'd unwittingly acquired after years working in an office full of men. "When's your tee time?" she asked. Having worked in the accounting department with Ray "forever," Catherine knew his summertime routine and consequently already had the correct answer to her question. But it was like watching a man wrestle with a condom. Though she knew she would eventually have to step in, it was still fun to watch the preliminary bout even when it was clearly an unfair fight. If only I had some popcorn.

With his probing eyes still fixated on the invisible cosmos, Ray replied, "Three o'clock." (The chosen time of serious golfers up and down the east coast, a mid-afternoon departure afforded enough time to play eighteen holes by sunset. It also required skipping out of work early.)

Catherine glanced at her watch – a masculine shackle of Swiss-forged gold preferred by astronauts and secret agents – and laughed. It was currently two forty-five (seven forty-five in London according to the smaller dial.)

"Crunch time," she said, grinning. "You don't mind if I hang around and observe, do you?"

"Observe what?" Ray asked.

"The master in action."

"Who?"

"You."

"Me?"

"Yes, you. I want to see what ingenious plan you come up with this time. You're an inspiration, Ray. You know that don't you? To the whole office."

Exactly, Ray thought, it's all about inspiration. But as he continued to gaze forward, the bumblebee buzz of calculating calculators and clicking keywords filling the void, nothing appeared on the horizon (or in this case, a wall of vertical filing cabinets.) His stomach grumbled again. Give me barbeque chips!