After quickly
consuming a couple of slices of pizza and slugging down my
orange soda, I wiped the tomato sauce off my chin and headed
back to work. My mind was still swimming from the intensity of
Max's discussion. "What am I?" I thought that I had
already answered that. I would really need to examine this
question carefully since I had thought it was exactly the same
as, "Who am I?" That afternoon, I pulled into the
parking garage feeling very full and almost drowsy, as though I
were in a fog. Somewhere in the misty corners of my mind was the
answer to this riddle, but presently the solution eluded me.
After I parked the car, I sat for a moment
just thinking, "If who I am is that which I was
given – so to speak – then what am I must
include everything that I became." I didn’t feel
comfortable with the obvious answer. What I was, was
more than just ol’ James, the accountant. The answer, I
knew, would take a lot of inner searching. Upon entering the
elevator, I hit the button for the 25th floor and breathed a
heavy sigh of submission. Maybe I’ll figure it out later. I
walked out of the elevator, past the receptionist and headed to
my desk. The receptionist, glancing up, stopped me before I had
traveled all the way down the hall.
"James," she said, "Mr. Lee asked to have you
drop by his office as soon as you returned."
