Mort was born on a Tuesday in 1946. He waited until Friday to cry.
The other kids traded baseball cards. Mort held.
Classmates wanted to be astronauts.
Mort wanted tenure.
In 1968 he took a desk at the firm.
He never left it.
Who Mort was, on paper.
A corner desk. A pension. A name plaque. He never wanted to be rich. He never got to be, either. He just never sold.
Patience past all reason. Loyalty: the same desk, the same wife, the same lunch, for forty years. Immune to FUD and FOMO. He never feared missing out, because he never once wanted in.
Waited so long for everything that life mostly happened to him. Never asked for the raise, the dance, or the day off. Expressed love by not leaving.
Tinned peaches. Beige. Carbon paper. The sound of an adding machine. One gray suit for forty years. The only change he ever loved came in coins.
He met Eleanor by the coffee machine. He proposed by waiting until she did.
