Instantly, the clenched muscles in his shoulders released a notch; his poised breath broke for freedom with a gleeful hiss at his nostrils; his eyelids drooped into a brief embrace of his taut, aching pupils.

As the door’s vibrations stilled and her heels continued to click their way down the empty corridor and out of the building, the room paused in suspension before the in-breath and re-focused on the clock beating its unceasing rhythm on the wall, the chair squeaking below his shifting weight, the air squeezing in and out of his lungs.

She didn’t linger over the farewell these days, for which he was obscurely grateful; small talk, never exactly burgeoning, now shrivelled and disintegrated in his presence. Even polite enquiries surrounding Laura’s condition had somehow slipped from its status of 'safe' topic on the office etiquette scale.

Now, at 5.30pm on the dot, he knew to expect the cursory double-tap on the door, the burnished doorknob swivel counter-clockwise and a quick flick of her glossy black ponytail around the heavy wooden door, eyes glancing nervously off the top of his head and a ready-fixed smile.

"Goodnight!"
"Goodnight."

He wondered if she welcomed 5.31pm as much as he did.