Catherine watched the sunrise at 5am. She had not slept at all and it left her feeling as though her head was submerged in water. Every sensation felt dulled, every movement felt slow, every thought felt clouded and confused. She had already decided that work was a right-off; just the thought of having to try and speak to anyone filled her with a heavy sensation, as though her stomach had turn to lead. Now she sat at the window of her apartment unblinkingly watching the world around her move forward through time as she stayed suspended in this drowsy bubble. She wanted to sleep, she wanted to sleep so badly that she could weep. But no sleep would come and for the first time in a long time she felt an overwhelming feeling of being alone. It swept over her and crashed into her violently like a giant wave and now she felt as though she were drowning in its murky depths as she sat there and watched the world revolve without her. If she were to disappear would anyone notice? If she were to walk out of that door and never come back would anyone even care? These thoughts, as unsettling as the nightmare of the snarling beast, made her feel faintly panicked and suddenly her palms were sticky and her face was burning- she needed some air. The window was no good- it was designed to only open by 2inches, a precautionary measure to prevent people falling from the tower block- plus Catherine needed to feel the air on her neck, feel the breeze move her hair and cool her glowing cheeks. She quickly threw on some clothes and ran down to street level.
Catherine practically crashed through the door and onto the street and as her head emerged into the fresh air she let in a deep inhale from a breath that she had not realised she was holding. The 24 hours of odd alien thoughts, the hopeless, sleepless, nightmare filled night and the past 2 years of quiet, lonely frustration all seemed to flicker away briefly in that one breath of clean, cool air. She had reached a level of giddy tiredness, it was almost like she was drunk on sleep deprivation and she felt happy and calm but out of control. She walked with no idea of where she was going and as she moved further away from her home she neither saw nor heard a thing that was happening around her. All she could hear was the sound of her own breathing, all she could feel was the pleasurable sensation of the breeze on her face and neck, and although she was oblivious to the world around her she felt the happiest she had ever felt since moving to this city. Of course it was delirium that was making her feel this way, a dangerous cocktail of lack of sleep and dehydration had resulted in this dream world of euphoria.
Catherine had no concept of time, so how long she had been wondering around the city in this way we can't be sure but the incident that snapped her out of her euphoric state occurred when the sun was still high in the sky and the day had become hot and the air close and thick. She had been wondering close to the park, trailing her hand across the park railings and enjoying the sensation of the rough metal bumping and scraping below her fingertips. She had turned to cross the busy road, unaware of what she was heading to- which, of course, had been to the subway station to caress that scraped grate with the same enthusiasm- when something caught her eye on the opposite side of the road. Suddenly her tiredness seemed to vanish, it was although she had plunged her face into a bowl of iced water and her hand clenched instinctively into fists with fear and her heart beat faster and faster… It was him. It was the fantasy man with the long black hair. It was the dangerous and wild creature of her hallucinations. He was stood motionless on the other side of the road. He looked like a sentry, as though he was guarding the entrance to the world below the pavement as he stood solid before the dark entrance to the subway station. He was staring right at her! Two blue eyes, unwaveringly staring right at Catherine's face. She felt he might have burned a hole in her insides with that stare.
Her heart was pounding now.
"All in my head." She whispered to herself. As impossible as it sounds she could have sworn that he had heard her. His stare now seemed wild and angry, no not angry, furious.
She was afraid, and yet her feet had pushed her forward. She was moving towards him and the dark mouth of the subway station. Still he did not move. She had to know that he was fiction. She had to prove that he was fantasy and so when she lifted her hand to touch his shoulder she had expected that she would touch nothing but air, that her hand would pass right through the mirage and she could at last admit to herself that it was all a dream. Instead she felt the fabric of his coat and the warmness of his body below it. A feeling like relief washed through her so violently that she felt her legs begin to buckle- he was real. He was real! Suddenly the world tumbled away as she fell into a deep and instant sleep so welcoming that it felt like falling into a warm pool of feathers. The last thing she remembered were two startling blue eyes staring into hers and then a blissful nothingness until she next woke, warm and relaxed in her own bed at home once again.