The quotidian doldrum of that office world shambled by lifelessly, as days became months, became years. His family may have gained money may have had financial security, yet they had lost a father - sacrificed upon the altar to that dull and insipid world. As he slaved away for their sakes, in that dull office building, he began to lose sight of them. He had wholly thrown himself into that plaster-walled abyss. 

I wanted to make a better life,
To do it for them,
But I'd lost sight of the love
That made their lives better,

Each passing second felt like an hour in that world, and with those hour-long seconds making hours themselves, those mindless hours merged together as they coalesced amid the vivid void. The pollution of that dreary office seemed to affect the sea of memories itself, tainting the vivid colour with tones of hollow grey. The very fabric of reality was made miserable by this place. His family sat on his desk, a happy moment sealed within a picture frame, a moment he could return to if only he mustered the courage to leave this hell and step outside. The illusion of that moment kept him contented though; perhaps kept him sane. 

To him, this was life and always had been. You worked to live, dying on the inside, before eventually being lucky enough to die on the outside too. You could seemingly taste the colour grey upon the air in this place. Under the thumb of that oppressive drive for currency, he too became grey with the world. 

The greys of the office faded into the blacks of night, as the middle-aged man drove through the darkened night. Pulling up before his own home, he barely even recognised the place as he entered, quietly shutting the door behind him. His wife, in a singlet, stood at the top of the stairs. It was getting late. He shambled up the stairs, empty-eyed and dreary. Gone, lost even to her, he wasn't the same man as the one she'd married - claimed by that prosaic world of tickler files and torment. Shuffling with a harrowed gait, as he moved down the hall, she called to him: told him that he needed to leave that place. He couldn't leave it though. He had to remain, for her sake, for the family's sake.

Clambering into bed and shifting onward, the continued drudgery whittled slowly away at his soul. He'd become a different man now. He'd missed his children's childhoods, as his days in the office had mutated into a life in service of the office, a family torn apart based upon the idea of keeping it together. In his heart, he still wanted to hear those words - that he'd fought enough, that he'd accomplished all that his family needed, that he'd finally won against this foul place. He wanted to live, contented with the knowledge that he'd done enough, and that he finally was enough. Instead, all he heard back was the drudgerous ticks of the office clock, the hollow sound ringing out across the expanse. 

The grey walls faded to grey brick, the world reconstituting itself as he stood beneath the twilight, staring out over the cityscape. As the sun set across the buildings, he stared down toward the cars that passed below. He leaned against the banister, separating him from the pavement. After a moment, watching the traffic pass in the world below, he stepped back from the railing. It was a nice view. He would've loved to be a part of it, soaring, fluttering through the clouds. He wanted so badly to fly away from it all. Yet, no wings could free him from this prison: the walls were psychological, encasing not his body, but his very soul. He'd had enough of being a prisoner of himself.

I didn't want to be who I was anymore,
I refused to be a drone, for I was a father,
I gave up on being a prisoner
Of this world, of myself,
Hoping that I would become
The man that I truly am,

As he tendered his resignation, standing before his boss with a smile on his face, the vivid colours of the world began to return again. He didn't know where he was headed from here, but perhaps any place but here was good enough for him. As the vigour of the world seemed to return, the oppressive cloud of tedium finally lifting, the middle-aged man was renewed. He wandered from that office building. He was, at last, a man again.

Sitting down with his kids as he helped them with their homework, he was reminded of his own childhood - of the happy times he'd spent running around the halls, chasing and being chased in that dilapidated apartment, living carefree. He'd missed all that, but he was here now - and as he sat with his children, he could see the smiles on their faces. He had lost sight of that working in that grey world. He could never have been a father from an office cubicle, no matter how hard he tried, no matter how much of his soul he gave away.

He had never had a father growing up, but he was going to make sure his kids did.

Watching his children grow, from youngsters to adults, age began to show in the creases upon his skin. As the once young couple aged, letting their children flourish in the world, the old man grew weak and infirm. Years had probably been taken off his life in that soul-crushing job, the vitality sapped from his very being, and yet - as he watched the fine young people that his sons and daughters had grown into, he'd do it all again if it meant he could help those bright and hopeful children grow into the wonderful people that they'd become. Sitting against those same starched white bed-sheets that his mother once had, the family staring down at him as he faded, he smiled as he spoke to them with a rasped voice.

Don't worry about me,
I'll always watch over you,
Whether it's from Earth or Heaven.

He'd raised those kids as they cried by his bedside, he'd made a family. He'd fought enough - and he was proud of that. Leaning back into those bedsheets, it felt like sitting upon a cloud, and as he closed his eyes with his family standing around him - he had accomplished all that he had to. He was happy with that. As the faint sobs of his children and their families echoed throughout the theatre, his wife grabbed his hand, clutching it in hers - a smile stretching across his face as he faded from life. He heard the rings of an Empyrean bell in his mind, tolling for him as he fell into the blackness of slumber.

The canvas of his soul was finally threaded, and as the apparition of his life faded, I let his memories go. His recollections returned to the scintillation once more - flowing free among the infinite sea of memories, a droplet amid the iridescent waters of the cosmos.