Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the clock wink. This small yet seemingly constant movement brought it to his attention that his time at his inferior office job was done for the day, and that it was time to pack up his menial belongings and drive his beat-up car home to a marriage that was in even worse shape than his car. Day after day, this was his routine; work all day at a job that didn’t seem to make any difference in the world, drive himself home along a pothole-filled road past run down houses, and then spend the rest of his waking hours in a home that was filled with tension in the space where love should be. He lived in a stagnant town filled with countless other people who were just like him, and it seemed as though everything there was the same, lifeless shade of grey. His life was like a broken record that continued to repeat the same deadbeat song day after day, but he never tried to fix the needle.
“Have a nice weekend!” a co worker called out to him on their way out the door. It was then that he realised it was, in fact, Friday, and for once he decided to change his plans for the night. Instead of reluctantly going home to a house that needed multiple repairs and a wife who had become uninterested in his lackluster personality, he brought himself to the local bar in hopes of finding a distraction from his tedious life.
Upon entering the bar, he was greeted by an encompassing odor of cheap alcohol and the obnoxious laughs of those who had become permanent installments of the establishment.
“What can I get ya?” asked the bartender while cleaning a perpetually dirty glass with a previously white towel.
He wanted to ask for a glass of vitality, for a bottle of passion, for a shot of fire, but instead settled for a coke with ice. He couldn’t even order an exciting drink. All he wanted was to have a fervor for life, but any sliver of vivacity he may have been born with was stolen from him by a habitual world that seemed to follow him no matter where he went. Or was it he that followed that world?
After finishing off his flat coke, he mechanically checked his watch. In hopes of sharing the sorrows of another person in order to feel some emotion, he scanned the dark, dreary bar with colorless eyes. He eventually settled on a woman who looked like one of the regulars, and made his way over to sit across the table from the somewhat elderly woman.
“Anyone sitting here?” he asked while hesitantly sitting down.
“Well, there is now. Most people ask before sitting down, you know.” the woman replied in a gravelly and unfriendly voice.
The man didn’t quite know how to respond, so he just slumped a little in his seat and again checked his watch.
“You got a name?” she asked him, eyeing him suspiciously and taking a drink from her bottle. She had weathered skin and a wrinkled face with deep laughter lines.
“My name’s Jimmy. And you are?” he said, hoping to start a conversation with the seeming closed off lady.
“Isn’t that a unique name” she said sarcastically. “Folks call me Vivian. Can I help you with something?” She seemed closed off and not in the mood for conversation, so he decided to just move along and go home.
“No. I mean, well, maybe. I guess I’m just feeling down and looking for someone to talk to. I’m sorry for bothering you.” he said sadly, pitying himself for being rejected and yet again, checked his wristwatch. As he stood up and prepared to just go home and continue living his boring and seemingly meaningless life, the woman asked him something that made him think.
“Why d’you keep checking the time? Got somewhere to be?”
The answer was no, it was the exact opposite. He had nowhere to be, but he was constantly interested in the time. He always found that he had one eye focused on the clock, just watching the hours slip past.
“I once knew someone like you.” she said. He felt somewhat insulted by this comment, not sure how to take it but offended that she thought she knew him so well already.
“Did you?” he challenged, sitting back down, suddenly interested in what she had to say.
“Yeah. Always looking for someone to make him feel better. Was one of those time-checkers too. Poor fella’s dead now, though.”
“Oh” he said, unsure of how to feel about being compared to a dead man. “What happened to him?”
“Routine. Was always sittin’ around waiting for something exciting to happen, watchin’ the clock but never doin’ anything to help himself. Waitin’ around killed ‘im eventually”
He sat with a blank expression, knowing that her description of the dead comrade was essentially a description of himself.
“Too many people like that nowadays. Looking in all the wrong places for all the wrong things. The only person who’s gonna give your life some gusto is you. Can’t wait around for life, you gotta make somethin’ happen before your time runs out.” She didn’t seem to be talking to him anymore, but rather to the musky air of the dimly-lit bar.
“Too bad.” he said quietly, gazing at the floor. Embarrassment crept up his face, knowing that he was in the same boat as Vivian’s dead friend, and his boat was sinking fast.
She didn’t say anything else after that, knowing that he had received the message she was trying to relay onto him. She felt it was her job to give some wisdom to the sad saps who wandered into the bar, and this sap seemed extra sad. Making up a story about a dead friend couldn't hurt anyone too much, and after all, she was only trying to help.  All she could do was hope her words had sunk in enough to cause a change in his grey life.
After realising hours had gone by under his normally watchful eye, he quickly hurried out of the bar and drove home with more spunk than he had ever felt before. Vivian had lit a small match under him, and for the first time in a long time, he had a passion to keep it burning. He was finally going to quit his dull job and move out of the dull town. He was going to show his more-than-patient wife that he could be fun and exciting, and he was determined to fix not only his marriage, but his life.
Upon his arrival to his home, he decided he would start his life turn-around in the morning. The house was dark and quiet, and he was so tired that he decided to sleep for what was left of the night on the worn couch that had served as a safe haven for him after one of his many fights with his wife. He slept well, thinking about the mysterious but wise Vivian and dreaming of the better life he was going to make for himself and those around him.
In the morning, he neglected to find his wife in their bed, and while looking around the house for her, he discovered a short, handwritten note on the kitchen table with a small, diamond encrusted ring he had bought many years before laying next to it. Vivian’s words seemed to evaporate as he read the note, as did his plans of revolution and new-found passion for life. The next Monday, he returned to the same workplace, carrying his same menial belongings and mechanically checking the same, worn out wristwatch. This time, when he caught the clock wink at the end of the day and prepared to go home, the only thing left for him at home was a worn out couch that he could sit on until waiting around finally killed him.