The “Sunday Scaries” were something Lily never thought she would ever contend with in her life. She was raised not to have excuses. “Power through, always power through. To fit in and to stand out, you have to power through,” her mom's voice rang in her head.

There was a time when she thought her mom's words came from an immigrant's survival instinct born of starting life in a foreign environment from scratch. But she knew it was more than that. What it was, she doesn’t know and may never know if she didn’t care to find out.

She did, however, live a life that every middle-class kid in a Vancouver suburb could want. She was captain of the debate team in high school, spent summers camping on Cape Scott Provincial Park with family, friends, and lovers, and didn’t have college student loans to pay for when she started adulting.

But after 8 years sorting files, organizing data, filing reports, taking minutes for meetings, she learned to tune out, warding off the dryness of big heads trying to justify the ethical excavation of gold, silver, and copper in Peru- a thought hit her like the uncomfortableness of wet socks when you’re out running deadline errands on a rainy Vancouver day.

Did I help make myself an afterthought, a bot, who gladly wears a cloak of invisibility? Saying “yes, of course,” “copy that,” and “summaries are finished” used to delight her. Then there were questions to fill the awkward silence that she just couldn’t bear anymore- “How was lunch? “What did you have?” “ How was your weekend?”

Worst of all were the compliments she gave to people around the office, for things she deep down, honestly didn’t give a fuck about. “Your speech was great. I really loved your thoughts on community engagement and outreach.” Saying them made her body shiver and sweat.

Was this it? Staving off promotions, so she didn’t have to add a list of tasks she hates on top of the ones she has begun to fear come Sunday. Voluntarily taking the trips up elevators of million-dollar structures used to give her a sense that she was at the top of the world.

Now, the thought of huddling shoulder to shoulder in the elevator and the fact that she hasn’t stopped herself from doing this for the last 8 years, makes her hate herself. “What are you doing?!” “Do something!” “Why do you do this to yourself?!”

These questions scream in her head as she looks at the cityscape in her towering factory of rigid life rhythms, feeding cycles of repetitive mundanity. For a few moments in her daydreams, staring into the suburbs in the far distance, she tries to locate the home of the birthday she had 10 years ago, where her best friend Stacy’s boyfriend, whose name she can recollect, had a horrible accident.

Not the kind of accident where you’re rushed to a hospital’s emergency room, but the kind that close friends, strangers, and casual acquaintances will take note. Crapping yourself in the middle of a birthday party from having too many Margaritas that disabled your ability to control your bowels will demand attention whether you’d like it or not.

Lily thinks his name is Rob, but she doesn’t even try to remember because she wants to focus on reliving the look on everyone’s face, the collective held laughter, smirks, and uncontrollable looks of shock that are only expressed in raised eyebrows, held breaths, and subtle motions away from the source of everyone’s attention.

This guy, who might have been named Rob, left a memory forgettable to some, traumatizing to others, and, for a few seconds, a source of laughter, nostalgia, and solace to Lily. Then the walls fashioned from reinforced concrete, glass, steel, granite, and marble cave into her mind again. She is back to asking, “What am I doing here?” again.

There are days when she manages to avoid these questions and the thoughts that feel like they are slowly ripping at her identity and maybe even her soul. These are days when she knows she’ll be paddleboarding in False Creek or walking her dog with Stacy by Stanley Park’s seawall.

This escape, however, doesn’t last. For Sunday comes again, a day with sleepless nights, constant walks to her laptop to press play on mindless content, and light puffs of indica-strained weed, highly recommended by Stacy.

The Sunday Scaries! The Sunday Scaries! The Sunday Scaries! All the way up and all the way down. It follows Lily to the highest floors and on walks across the city, where surface greetings are exchanged and the sole focus of their intentions is retail therapy.

“Floors,” she thought to herself. “How did we end up paying for space in the air? Is it pageantry, keeping up with the times, or plain old greed?” Lily didn’t have answers and didn’t want any. She just wanted to get out of the towers.

She didn’t want to gaze down at Gastown, imagining it was the late 19th century again, wondering what it was like when loggers and fishermen threw punches and drank the night away, or pinpointing the exact location in False Creek, where she experienced her first kiss.

She didn’t want to spend days wasting away in the sky anymore, escaping into the past to pass the time and letting her imagination run wild, delaying the dread of a lack of purpose and reason to live. She even imagined breaking through the tempered glass of her shared office space, embracing every second of her free fall to the ground, knowing it would end the misery of her daily routines.

But she knew she could never dive down over 30 floors. The splat, the visual gore, her mother, and Stacy crying her heart out, a saving anchor in reality. Her only hope was to gather bits of courage day by day, chipping away at the dread of modern living.

The same space that caged her with status and life-depleting repetition will give birth to the idea and contentment of letting it all go. “Quitting and starting from scratch,” she wondered when that day would be.

Quitting was not something she was accustomed to or taught was right to do. But the thought of that day coming excited and scared her all at the same time. She had to build up to it. It might be in days, months, or a year. But she was sure there would come a day when she would barge into the human resources office and hand in her resignation.

For now, she would have to continue staring out at the views from the top, waiting for a sign, a feeling, or an uncontrolled impulse. A rainbow across the skyline, a sudden feeling that everything will work out, or the acceptance of embracing the unknown and the possibilities and lessons it would bring.