I am Jack's Fight Club Moment

I walk through the cubicle trenches like a mouse in a maze. The difference is there is no cheese to be found in this experiment (and in all fairness I can cheat, I'm tall enough to see over the walls). I turn a corner and as I cross paths with a fellow maze mate, giving him the customary eye-contact and mildest of smiles - acknowledging that he is in fact a human and we at least have that in common - something happens; we exchange slow and slight head nods. It's the currency of unspoken truths, as subtle and mysterious as the code of a secret society. There is no second guessing, we cross paths and continue marching to the beat of the 9-to-5, Big Brother none the wiser. It was a Fight Club moment.

I could have spotted him long before, had I acquainted myself with his stiffened stagger. The same stagger I was using. The stagger of a beaten footballer. We had cut up the pitch the night before and were now branded with the same ground tattoos and cleat scars. The two of us were on the tall-tale side of battle, but that was out there. I didn't know his name and it wouldn't matter if I did, because I wouldn't be talking to the same person that I ran with on the field. With the ball roped to his dribble, he was a magician, a creator and artist, exercising expression with strokes of finesse and endurance. Inside the maze he was just another EngiNerd, plugged into a computer living in a virtual world of design and documentation. Just like the rest of us. Zombie Clark Kents to his after work flash of SuperMan.

There are no 'Rules of Soccer Club', but in a sense the first and second unspoken ones are the same as Palahniuk's. The two worlds don't speak the same language, and the disconnect is great enough that when it comes to the cubed maze, they just wouldn't understand, 'You do NOT, talk, about Futbol Club'.

As I dipped and dodged my way through the narrow office passages back to my desk I fought the smile. This was the second Edward Norton scene I had caught myself in this week. A few days ago one of my bosses walked by and was wearing a tie, covered in Cornflower-blue, and yes, it was in fact a Tuesday. I draw the line at Project Mayhem. The last thing I need is to know that Bob has a name, and his name is Robert Paulson, his name is Robert Paulson, his name is Robert Paulson...

Like the sanctuary that the Narrator found within the walls of Fight Club, the soccer field gives me escape from the false hope of the indoor-outdoor feeling that 3 walls and no ceiling thinks it can provide - The cubicle laughs at us. An escape that wakes up my body and rewards my mind. An escape that hurls me head on into Life. An escape that only a select few have been able to find. An escape that is worthy of a slow and slight head nod...