A Pillar Sags

He walked slowly and deliberately, stepping delicately as if trying to avoid pain. His hair was pure white from decades of deadlines and eleventh-hour negotiations, and his shoulders stooped from millions of minutes spent in a deskchair ill-fitted for his lanky frame. His digestive system balked from too many dinners of carryout, delivered directly to his desk to avert any interruption of the task at hand. His mind was dulled from too many nights spent viewing nothing more than the four white walls of his office.

By all of the standard measures of success, he was a man of great accomplishment. Power, prestige, influence, respect. Dozens of pliant underlings answering to his every whim. A salary far into six figures and a retirement account which was extremely robust even after the years-long bear market. A well-appointed five-bedroom in a leafy suburb, and a new German sedan every eighteen months. A sharp, attractive wife and accomplished children. Everything.

But something, something more had always eluded him. Perhaps eluded isn't the right word, as that would imply he had actively pursued that fleeting something. Which had not been the case. He had followed the time-worn path, and gotten everything--and more--that they said he should have. But all of it was still, somehow, indeterminately lacking. As he trudged once again to his office, he thought deeply of his life, and how it might have been so very different.