Leo Bloom was not a fellow excited about his day. But he managed through it.
Let me emphasize that, just to clarify. He was not a man who bounded out of his bed in the morning, pulled the curtains apart, gazed at the sun and sang "Oh, What A Beautiful Morning" to the sun (Then again, did anyone do that?). His eyes snapped open at 06:30 (he had gone so long with his schedule never wavering, he didn't even need an alarm clock to help him awaken anymore), he got himself into order (took a lukewarm shower, got dressed, got some calories into him, set his papers into order, stuffed his baby blue blanket into his pocket, his daily rituals), and set off to work. Well there, he would work. He would know exactly what he was doing, because it would feel as though he had done it that previous day.
His day repeated itself. He knew it would, because it always had. Nothing ever diverted from the normal, nothing ever changed. He'd dream, and he'd aspire, aspire to be the producer and man he had always wanted to be, aspire to be exactly everything he wasn't, aspire to be able to do the things he never did and never would do, and he'd sigh and he'd return to reality, ignoring his wishes, ignoring his wants, ignoring the fact that he knew that he was miserable for the delusion that he was perfectly content. After all, he made enough money to support himself, he did what he knew to do, he wasn't injured or disabled in any way (aside from his blanket, although that was just a minor compulsion, he could give it up any time he wanted to, of course, though, he'd go hysterical if he tried), and he had…he had friends, of course. Well, not as much friends as acquaintances, and not as much acquaintances as colleagues, and not as much colleagues as…well, people who worked around him. He didn't actually…talk much with them, or, well, work with them. …But he was perfectly content this way!
Or, at least, that was how he would fool himself, every day. Or, perhaps, it was even a sad, inconvenient, depressing truth.
However, he did not let something as foolish as his thoughts bother him. He knew he was a nobody. He knew he was about as good as a calculator, and could likely be replaced by one, should Mr. Marks ever feel effective enough to press the buttons. He knew he was a robot. He knew all of his fr—acq—coll—workmates were robots as well. …At least he knew his purpose, though. His purpose was to count. Even if he secretly wished his purpose was not that, that it was something better, something people could look up at him for, something greater, something grander, something…glitzier.
This day wasn't spent only counting and counting, adding and subtracting, dividing and multiplying as the clocks hands slowly, slowly moved onward, pursuing the numbers they saw at the horizon, though. This day wasn't spent just scrawling the thoughts that weren't your thoughts but the thoughts that were progress toward a solution you weren't exactly rushing toward with your arms out as you wished time would go just a little faster, if only for today.
The diversion from the norm had started with Mr. Marks stomping up to his desk, his regular cigar clenched in between his bulging lips, the veins in his forehead exposing as they always did when he was frustrated (that was, all the time). Leo had looked up at him, barely managing to suppress the immense desire to pull his blanket out of his pocket and smell it, clutch it, rub it over his face to get into safety. Just barely, though. He was slightly worried it had something to do with the income reports for Parrot Umbrellas Inc. from last month; he had suspected that he made an error during calculating the transformation of currency from different countries into the dollar, and it had been on his mind constantly, plaguing him with guilt.
However, fortunately, Mr. Marks' tirade had nothing to do with that. He said something about how he should scramble his spindly little chicken legs over to 234 West 44th Street to the washed-up producer who lived there and damned well do his job there or he'd be out of here quicker than…(here he had struggled for a metaphor)…than a squirrel would flatten rushing into traffic. D'you understand?
Leo had understood, so he was off. Oddly enough, he found he had recognized the address. However, no matter how unbelievable it sounded, he had actually idolized the person living there, one time. He had found his address out, he had stalked down all the information he could find about him, and he had very nearly gone to see him one time, perhaps if just to stutter for an autograph; but then, he had chickened out, tricking himself into thinking he was likely too busy to talk to fans, even if he knew that he really just couldn't bring himself to see that maybe, his idol wasn't what he had expected.
But now, no matter what he felt about it, he was about to see his once-idol. He couldn't back out of it; he'd be flattened. It was his job to see him. It was a purely professional visit. Emotions, heroes and that ticket stub he still had in his wallet, a reminder from that wonderful play he had seen as a child, that glamour and glitter, those amazing steps and those beautiful voices, the actors that, he was sure, hadn't been just acting, had been living it…
…had absolutely nothing to do with this. Ab-so-lute-ly. Nothing at all. He was going to do his accounting, and then he was going to leave, back toward his job, back toward his robotic routines, back to being treated like a nothingness, back to being a puppet, back to being a secret dreamer. Back to everything that his life was.
So he had inhaled, and knocked on the glass pane on the door. "Hello…?" He had asked toward the silence, carefully. "Mister Bialystock…?"
He could never have known, back then, what a world those words would open to him.