5 O'Clock

“Here's to alcohol, the rose colored glasses of life.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned

   The air was filled with the sounds of the many nine-to-fivers who had bustled into the restaurants booze promising walls. Sipping my long-awaited liquid tranquilizer I quickly scanned the room.

   Balding men and suit-clad, middle aged women hunched over appetizers in close, but loud conversations about office life; work-life. My nerves, like a bed of exposed hot-wires, were slowly silencing their current with every sip. Vaguely aware that I was covered in the spit of the thirteen patients I had seen in the last eight hours, I tried to smile winningly at my comrade in arms.

   "So how was your day?' I asked, knowing some sordid tale would follow.