The drive back home from the meeting had been difficult for Azeem, a lifetime flickered through his mind during the twenty-minute journey. He had stopped at his favourite caffeine joint for a quick snack, but he nibbled on the cake and sipped the tea mindlessly, it was as if he were operating through a remote. Eighteen years flashed the hard work, late nights, grappling to the top and then retaining the position all this time. The struggle had paid off and the fight had been worth every breath, all had gone according to plan but now it looked like the plateau had arrived; a flat line in the vertical growth that could go in any direction now, it would either be a spike up or down to the shallow, something he had never prepared for. He was convinced that 11WC would be his lifelong employer and he would retire from this company, an organization that had his blood in its foundations.
It had been his usual drive where he would cross the mango orchards, then take a right driving by the mud houses to the highway. A few kilometres down and he would take exit 17 towards his locality and around five kilometres to his home, he would stop by the corner café and his tea would arrive. Why would he do this? this had been a habit developed years ago and it was his way of recapping the day and his strategy for the next.