Authors note: Hey guys! Sorry for there being such a big lull between updates, but between the stress of not only normal life, but also college life, I barely even have time to myself, let alone enough time to actually write things and get all of my thoughts down. Still, I am here because Fear/Joy (or whatever you youngsters are calling it, lmao) is literal life! Any-who, without a further ado, I present our next chapter!~
Warning: Possible triggers? Mentions depression/depressing subjects.
From the moment the beautiful stranger disappeared from Bill's sight, it seemed as if his entire world had went grey. Not that his life was not already terribly grey before, of course, but now it was a darker, far more strangled mix of black and white. It was as if whatever color was left in his universe had been virtually swept out from under him, like a rug, and the rest of the morning only continued as one big blur for him. A silent film, if you will, with nothing but the dull, back-and-forth shaking of the train cars moving tirelessly along their track, as they played as his soundtrack. The sound was only background noise for him, since he would have not cared anyway.
To be completely honest... the poor man should have just jumped in front on the subway like he had originally imagined. Although he was a coward through-and-through, the concept would have been easy enough. A single jump; just one, simple leap would have ended it all, and yet Bill had stayed in his spot. Why had he stayed in his spot? Had it been the innocent beauty of the tracks which stopped him? How suddenly lonely the rails seemed to the man during such a detrimental moment of weakness? Humph. It was utterly pitiful. He was pitiful.
Bill was such a stupid idiot... Only a man who had mental problems, suffering from a deep depression and a constant fear of everything, could consciously identify with an inanimate object. The thought of this made Bill feel ashamed at himself. He knew that, overall, he had nothing to fear as an adult. He was a thirty-something, almost middle-aged man for crying out loud! What did he have to be afraid of except for late payments? He did not even have a girlfriend to fret over, let alone anyone to care for in that matter, like a mother or a sibling. The brunette had been born an only child, and both of his parents died when he was in his late twenties. Virtually, Bill had no one. He had no one... He was alone in the universe.
But then she had walked into his life, like a bright beacon on a terrible, horrible day. If anything, the strange woman had been a sign from the Heavens that, perhaps, the universe did not hate him as much as he had previously thought. At least, Bill desperately hoped so. He was needing more and more reasons to hope nowadays. She had been an adorably awkward, almost otherworldly sign. The way he felt had been like a scene out of one of those cliched Hallmark dramas. Do you know the one where the main protagonist notices his female counterpart and gradually becomes entranced by her unwitting charm, only to have her disappear from within his grasp? Yeah. The same cliche actually happened, and the man living it was none too thrilled to be at its mercy.
In his chest, Bill felt dull. He felt his mind go numb at the loss building within his heart, and his systems shut down, as a deep sameness took residence within his veins. His blood slowed, and he became instantly bored at his surroundings, yet the man still managed to continue throughout the morning, almost like clockwork. It began with him slowly placing the abandoned sheet of lip-stick stained paper into his briefcase. Then, it proceeded with the man aimlessly stepping aboard his train and falling dumbly into his seat. To which his head slumped into a downward tilt, and his lips morphed into a firm line, but his dark eyes could only stare forward, ever-large but somewhat dead inside. Long, chocolate brown lashes framed both orbs.
Staring with a blank expression was all that the poor temp could do; Bill was so lifeless. Afterwards, there was little else he did, besides the way he began to tighten his knuckles around his briefcase, as he slowly detected his heart breaking from within his chest. The organ could only crack further with each and every hard bump of the track. He felt so numb, like a useless dummy. He was a shell of himself. The man had been hollowed out far more than he had ever been before, and it was all thanks to the weighted yet incredible influence of the amazingly gorgeous stranger, who had asked for the time from him and smiled so flirtatiously in his direction. And still... her blue eyes had held such an innocence to them. It was an overwhelmingly deep sense of honestly that had his mind's eye constantly retrieving the memory and playing it on repeat in the tiny screen within his head. The sight of her would almost make him smile, if not for the sudden sadness which would overtake his mind once he thought of her ruby-lipped grin. Apparently, much to Bill's chagrin, two emotions were continuously battling it out inside his head - Joy and Sadness - and neither seemed to be winning, their feuding only managing to create a jumbled up mess of frustration and mild fear, as the two other emotions attempted to mellow out their polar-opposite counterparts. The last and final emotion, Disgust, could only wonder in the far reaches of his mind if the attractive female had actually been interested in him or not... Because he sure as hell was interested in her! Not that the fact mattered in the grand scheme of things, anyway.
The stranger was gone, and the idea of this made another wave of Sadness rush over Bill. The man was doomed to live a life of lame nothingness. A fitting existence for a terribly lonely and frightened man.
Bill was already spent by the time he finally arrived for his early-morning shift.
Walking steadfast into the temp agency where he was employed, the emotionally drained male sullenly made his way into the company elevator, and pushed a couple of buttons which brought him up to the eleventh floor where his desk was located, along with many other drones performing on stark-white sheets of copy paper. His grasp tightened around the handle of his briefcase. Stepping out onto the already packed work-floor, he self-consciously made his way toward his empty seat by the window and took off his suit jacket, quietly laying it inconspicuously on the back of his chair. He had just managed to come in late this morning... Perfect. Another mark to go on his steadily growing record.
Looking up, Bill was immediately met by the sharp and narrowed eyes of his tyrant-like boss. Instantly, his shoulders cowered in on himself. The man above him merely grunted and threw down a tall stack off papers, before giving Bill a second no-nonsense glare. The younger man gulped, nodded worriedly at his boss's back, and stared with wide eyes, as his employer haughtily stalked his way into his office.
Bill was left in a constricted silence. Wearily, he placed a shaking hand over the first paper in the stack and used his other hand to pull out a pencil. The man paused. All of the thoughts that were whirring around in his brain were fully exhausting him. The weight of his thoughts disabled him and made Bill gradually slip the sheet onto the desk before him. He stared hollowly down at it.
Overall, it was common knowledge that Bill blamed the universe for his problems. Contrariwise, it was also possible that everything was unknowingly his fault. He always seemed to get himself into some sort of trouble, after all, so maybe he was just destined to carry out a semi crappy existence...
This was Bill's last thought, before the lone piece of white paper inexplicably shot out from under him and went flying towards the slightly cracked window beside him. Acting by his natural instinct, the gangly brunette shot forward in order to retrieve the sheet. His fingers grasped it just before the paper went flying out onto the streets of San Francisco, and he felt a small grin of triumph at his seemingly trivial rescue. Of course there were definitely plenty of other sheets in his stack of papers to choose from, but something had made him jump up to his feet in an attempt to save one. It was the same invisible something, an unknown force, which made him look up from the piece of paper and stare out the window, only to stop cold at what he saw.
Believe it or not, Bill could not be convinced of his luck. The idea was simply ironic, given the previous circumstances of that morning. For just across the street, a mere couple hundred feet away, in a room almost level to his own, was the same odd stranger that the man had met at the subway platform that morning...
And she was just as beautiful as she ever was.
