Free Barking by Tom Holt

office. Nobody around to see him leave, which was a pity; it’d have been nice if all the partners had chosen that moment to come out of a meeting and see him, but no such luck—
    Which told him, he realised as he let himself out into the street, what he needed to know. His decision had been made; because if he still cared about sucking up to the bosses, it meant he’d decided to stay at Craven Ettins, instead of obeying the call of the Ferris Gang. Until then, he hadn’t really been sure.
    Nervously he peered up and down the street, scanning for shadowy forms in doorways. It felt like a silly thing to do, and it occurred to him that a busy, successful lawyer (which was, apparently, what Luke Ferris had morphed into, at some point when Duncan’s back was turned) probably had better things to do after all than stand around in the street waiting to offer a job to a loser who ran away from him while he was buying him a drink - Duncan shook his head and started to walk to the Tube. His head always seemed to be full of shit these days. Some of it came from the job, sure enough, but not all of it.
    Because it was that much later, of course, the Tube wasn’t quite so hellishly jam-packed: another advantage of working late, he realised, and he began to wonder if maybe, just possibly, there was a greater lesson in there somewhere. Maybe (just possibly) his life was wretched because he fought it so much. Think: he made a point of leaving at five-thirty sharp because he had an inalienable human right to his spare time, but he spent those precious hours of freedom watching TV game shows and sleeping, so what was the point? As a result of his obsessive reverse punctuality, his bosses had reached the quite reasonable conclusion that he wasn’t partnership material, and despised him accordingly. As a result, his time at work was nothing but trouble and sorrow. Now: if, instead of sitting bored and lonely in his grotty flat, he could bring himself to sit bored and lonely in his grotty office till, say, quarter past six every weekday, he’d soon come to be regarded as a dutiful predator and made of the right stuff; they’d start giving him the decent jobs instead of the garbage, he’d begin making them some decent money and they’d promote him—
    More of the same magic, he realised, a lie that’d slowly make itself true. But that didn’t really matter. In the country of the lawyers, the selectively sighted man is senior partner; and if you can work the magic and make yourself believe, quite soon what you’re seen as turns into what you are. It was rather like what he’d told Reception when he’d come back from lunch: picture it in your mind, it’ll help you sound convincing . Once you saw it in your mind, seeing was believing. And, on top of that, he’d get to arrive home in three dimensions rather than two, not having been squashed flat by ninety million people all trying to occupy one Underground carriage at the same time.
    Win/win scenario.
    Usually, as he walked from the Tube to his flat, he tended to huddle, as if braced against a mighty wind. Tonight he practically strolled. It clarifies things tremendously once you’ve finally figured out who your worst enemy is, particularly if it turns out to have been yourself all along. And Sally, he realised, didn’t really enter into it at all. True, she’d ruined his life and left him feeling about as valuable as a bounced cheque, but that wasn’t the reason he was a miserable failure in the office. All his own work, that was.
    So: tomorrow, he’d throw himself into it, make believe that all the daily garbage - the accountants and the clients and making sure the bills went out on time and getting the accounts to balance - actually mattered , and that the stuff he did all day was worth doing and a valid use of his lifespan. Only believe; only in faith lies salvation.
    He unlocked his door and moved his