Derek had sold his life.
Or at least he came to the conclusion that he had, sitting behind his desk on the fiftieth floor, in his navy blue suit, on Wednesday morning. Derek had his own office, which he kept tidy. The two walls furthest from the door were made of glass, as the room was on the corner of the building, and his co-workers envied the view. The northward window overlooked the park, a pleasant square of green surrounded by traffic. The eastward window looked straight into a neighbouring skyscraper, a simple blue plinth of exact rectangular shape made up of thousands of squares of reflecting glass. When the sun went down Derek liked to observe the distant men and women tapping away at their computers, scurrying to meetings and chatting in doorways, like little ants in a lifeless glass ant farm. Or chimps in a lab.
He worked late most nights, partly due to his daytime procrastinations on the internet, and partly due to the strong suspicion that his wife was cheating on him. Derek was forty five years old, with a trimmed brown moustache and a receding hairline. In his youth he had played rugby, and his huge shoulders and stocky neck proudly remained, along with his flattened nose, an everlasting trophy from the years where his life had enthusiasm, energy and potential. Now Derek had a beer belly, and his weekends were filled with typical hobbies like golf, fishing and mowing the lawn. He longed for the end of the world, for the ground to shake and the sky to rain fire. He longed to crash his desk through the window and throw himself laughing to his death. He longed to have the barrel of a gun pressed against his head. He longed to destroy this workplace and rip his colleagues apart by the limbs. There had to be more to his existence than his stable career and brainless pastimes, he longed for it. But there wasn’t. Derek had sold his life.

Derek was paid for his time at work and the work he completed (which took time). Thus he was selling his time. And as his life was ending one minute at a time, he was selling his life. Sure, he could quit, drop everything and become a travelling monk, but what was the point? Besides, he knew he’d just end up a hobo. He was too old to sign up to the army, or any sports team. He had sold his youth. He had sold his life. He had been tricked when he was young into falling in line, and now it was too late. He was a broken spirit. He obeyed his boss, the police, the president, and he depended on them for the continuation of his faceless existence. He was just another anonymous cog in the procession of civilisation.

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