Jerry was hunched over one of a community of cardboard boxes full of files, "Star Trek-The Next Generation" throbbing its scenes from a virtually antique television screen, partially covered by the stacks of paperwork.  He probably knew every California area code along with which cities each applied to.  310 went with, among others, Compton.  714--the Orange County area.  The recently implemented 510 separated the east bay from San Francisco's vicinity.  And so on.
 Employment at the Pana-Pacific Corporation was a tedious venture, to say the least.  Of course working at the bottom tier of the cellular phone industry wasn’t any worse than anything else he had ever done.  This job possessed the unfortunate lot of being his current, and therefore worst.  Today was strange, in and of itself.  A listless Tuesday night had left him a sworn enemy to the crowlike bugling of the two alarms required to get him up in the morning.  He was left to his one and only ally, the snooze button.  Eventually the battle, granted not the war, was won by the other side.  From within the trenches Jerry had emerged finally arriving at the office, giving his default salute to his co-workers.  Today would be an excellent opportunity for practicing the unmastered, but revered art of antisocialism.  Just him, his boxes and Jean-Luc Picard.
 His head was throbbing, but he was unsure where to place the blame.  Was it the redundancy of making sure that each 213 had a companion with which to occupy its respective box?  Maybe it was the irritating scent of mildew or that Scott, the gay guy, was still pestering him about going out for a drink.  Perhaps it was this dead end job and the silence that followed the question "What are you going to do with your life?," posed him only two weeks prior, by a trusted friend.  He finally sighed, content to name the television show as the culprit.
 In this particular episode of Star Trek one of the main characters was under the illusion that she was "slipping away" ("I feel like I'm slipping away," she had admitted).  It made Jerry’s concentration difficult, having to use his brain in the demanding capacity the show’s story required.  Instead he rebelled.
 Valerie came in to check on his progress; she was supervising.  Jerry chiseled, in true-to-Oscar form, a rubbery smile.  As usual she responded with a nod.  “How’s it coming?,” she asked.
Jerry grunted inside and let go of the folder he had been staring at for the last 20 minutes.  He lowered and then scratched his head.  “I forget, does two come before three?”  He hadn’t lost his sense of humor.  Valerie laughed.  He forced his eyes in her direction and then shook his head.  “You should really see a doctor about that,” he muttered, gesturing toward her plump, pregnant belly.  “Of course, that’s assuming the swelling doesn’t go down.”
“Well Dr. Mulligan says we’ll have to induce anyway if I don’t have her by next Thursday.  I’m not too excited about that.”
“Hmm.”  He retrieved the folder from before, which signaled the end of the conversation.  Valerie just stood there for a moment.
“Are you okay?”
“Who me?,” he asked without looking up.  “I’m cool.  Just, wudduyacallit, tired.”
Her question had left Jerry with two choices.  The first and most honest would have been for him to break down weeping, making an earnest attempt to explain his situation.  How he was indeed tired, but tired of everything.  Emotionally fatigued.  How at times he almost felt like he was going insane.  He had chosen the second option, though, and it served its purpose.
As the door closed behind Valerie, Jerry realized he wanted nothing more in the world than company.  He would have killed to finish with Valerie.  He’d even talk to Scott.  But as he had just proven to himself today he was having trouble with even small talk.  Instead he returned to the familiar and comfortable trance which had been initiated at 8:05 that morning.  Jerry’s mind, the area codes, the mildew, the TV show--this comprised his little, quiet world.  They all interacted and even conversed.
 It was noon before he knew it.  Jerry had spent the balance of the first half of his day making small talk with the members of his little world.  The idea had entered into his head that perhaps he was literally crazy.  That he had finally snapped.  He sort of liked the idea.  It gave him comfort, leeway.
When he left the office he noticed that things that he had taken for granted, that had been merely mundane in Jerry’s life--walking, pushing in the clutch with his foot—took on new significance to him.  They became foremost, even interesting, to him.  It wasn't getting to McDonalds; it was flipping the rear view mirror between day and night settings.  It was making sure the knob on the end of gear-shifter was secured tightly.  It was having a mental roaring contest with the engine with each upshift.  Finally, it wasn't merely killing the engine and exiting the car, but finding the button somewhere underneath the steering panel that would permit him to remove the key from the ignition.
There were so many people at this McDonalds.  Too many for Jerry.  It seemed as though everybody was yelling and staring.  He couldn't help but look at his feet.  He would have done his best to get everybody to shut up and leave him alone had he possessed the courage to even open his mouth.  Jerry’s lips were dry.  They were cracking then and there, and no amount of licking would help.  The eyes of a red-haired lady with a blue handbag and a moustache were glued to his lips.  She had never seen such cracking.
 Quickly, in a robotic tone he relayed his order to the tiny Asian woman behind the counter:  "A number two super-sized with a Coke."  As Jerry lifted his wallet from his back pocket and began fumbling in his front pocket for the fifty-eight cents necessary to complete the transaction, he realized that the cashier had developed a fascination with his well-bitten fingernails.  He nervously dropped a pair of coins on the ground and, with clenched teeth, snapped "Dammit" into his open wallet.  He handed her a fourth bill insisting she keep the change.  Jerry’s hands dove into his pockets and he waited.
 Jerry’s foot began to itch and he made his best attempt to scratch it with the other.  His concentration was focused, then diverted when a dark, unshaven man with shiny forehead and cheeks slid two cheeseburgers onto the tray to his left, followed shortly by a 32 oz Coca-Cola.  His eyes were fixed upon the yellow and blue wrapping of one of the cheeseburgers.  "Huh?," he muttered.  The man had said something to him.
 "The fries'll--you'll have to wait.  We'll bring 'em to you."
 He almost surgically maneuvered his tray through the crowd, taking special care to give resistance to compensate for the excess weight placed on his right hand by the hefty softdrink.  He took his place on a barstool, facing the direction of the counter, which he could barely see from behind a tall and broad plastic plant.  Though he had been oblivious to each of the previous chimes, he was somewhat jolted by a sharp clanging sound coming from his right, which Jerry soon realized was the door's "a customer is here" bell.  It was two smaller children--a boy, maybe 5 or 6, and a girl, presumably his older sister--along with whom he assumed was their mom.
 As the group approached the counter, the dark man from before was approaching him with his fries.  It made it difficult to see the children. When the man was almost upon him he said something that Jerry didn't catch and he maneuvered to the best of his ability to overcome his obstacle to his watching.  He'd sway somewhat to the left, causing the man to lean right.  And just as Jerry’s view would begin to clear the man would suddenly overtake it.  It was a frustrating little dance.  But on his final sway to the right Jerry just timed it so that his eyes met those of the boy.  He looked down rapidly, maybe embarrassed, and forced his nose sharply into the mother’s side.
The next thing Jerry saw was the dark man pushed up against the stool to his right.  He wondered if Jerry wanted ketchup.  Jerry scratched his foot again and slipped his hands underneath his legs until the man was gone.  Then he stood up, folding his left leg onto the stool followed by his backside.  From this position he had a good view of the two children and the mother.
The boy had his small hands clenched over the counter along with most of his jaw.  He was rubbing his corduroy pant legs together and his knees were knocking the counter.  His words, which he scarcely made out included evidence that he was deciding between a six-piece chicken McNugget and a cheeseburger.  As he mumbled mostly to himself you could see that the girl was becoming impatient.  She appeared more familiar with the establishment.
Practically scaling the boy she forced her way to the counter and belted her order of a hamburger Happy Meal with an orange drink—not juice, and did they have “any more Anastasia?”  The boy was still unsure of his order.  He diverted his and Jerry’s attention to a shining sheet of thick, rectangular paper he had withdrawn from his back pocket.  The penmanship was in red with some black lettering.  Just then the mother’s hand moved gently to the top of his head, which shot upward immediately.  She was addressing him, ready to relay his order.  After crouching toward his face she rose and asked on his behalf for chicken McNuggets and a soda.  She caught herself—“What kind of soda, dear?”
“Sprite,” he chirped.
“And two small cones,” she finished.  That was the surprise.  That’s also when Jerry figured out what that piece of paper was.  The boy had already replaced and retrieved it once more.  It read “Quarterly Progress Report for:” and was followed by a handwritten name.  It was his report card.  They got their order and as the mother lowered an ice cream to the boy he began to jump up and down.  He followed the other two, carefully balancing the cone in his hand, to a booth immediately to Jerry’s left.  It was such a nice thing to watch.  As Jerry bridled his huge yearning to just reach out and grab the situation, fold it twenty times and stuff it in his pocket, he formed a smile that the boy caught.
Jerry cried.  He couldn’t help it.  He shook his head, almost mad at himself, but he just couldn’t help it.  He even let out one of those embarrassing and limitlessly loud gasps.  That’s what caused the boy to take notice, making it even worse.  He pictured the “Mom, why was that man crying?” conversation that he was sure would follow.  He knew that the boy’s guess would be ten times closer than anything his mother would be able to say.  He thought about the luggage his parents bought him for his high school graduation and how he finally knew what he wanted but it was too late.