And so, the days passed as Jason sat glued to his chair and monitor, stone-faced.

And nobody noticed.

The fact that Jason’s clothes never changed raised no alarm as no one ever noticed his clothes anyway. Hidden as he was behind a folding screen meant as much to keep his inner demons in as to keep others out, the only movement evident in his pod was the pile of work growing bigger on his desk.

The blue-tooth telephone earpiece stuck to the side of his head gave any who entered his cubed world the impression that he was on a conference call, and just as one fears the consequences of interrupting a wild animal eating a meal none dared break his laser-locked focus.

His pod-neighbors, Susan and Joseph, at first could not put a finger on why their part of the world seemed a little bit more peaceful than usual until they noticed the reason—sweet, welcomed silence.

“Gee, what’s up with Jason lately?”, people asked. “Don’t know”, came the reply, “but this is the happiest he’s been in years.”