Reality

I always wanted a large colonial house, acres of long green grass, a creek flowing underneath the tree with the big swinging rope - all enclosed by a poplar forest.
I wanted to spend the days walking through the field, laying down on the long grass and gazing at the fat clouds drifting lazily, swinging from the tree and dropping into the creek, sipping coffee out on the porch and watching the sun vanish behind the poplars.

Turns out everything in life costs money. They say money can't buy happiness, they damn well better be wrong. I'm sitting in my cubical staring across the aisle at Bill's calendar. He just flipped it to June, it's a picture of two ranch-hands throwing some hay bales in a rusty old pick up outside a weathered barn, the air is golden with dust from the hay. Tightening my tie I turn back to the columns of numbers, for a few desperate moments I try to arrange them in such a way - so they will equal a colonial house, maybe a small farmstead, a wife? Sapped of strength I sip my burnt coffee and move on to Mr. Halson's account.