Everything Is Blue

Chapter 4

Tonight was one of those nights where Kimbra couldn't get her brain to shut up. It replayed her past over and over in an endless loop.

Since she couldn't sleep, she resorted to catching up on paperwork. Time was never on her side. She either had too much of it and felt dreadfully lonely, or she didn't have enough and overworked herself into the late hours of the night. Watching life from the sidelines was something Kimbra had grown accustomed to.

All she ever did was work.

But that was okay because she was helping people. Making the world a better place to live. Saving the environment and countless lives. Kimbra often had to remind herself that her sacrifices were for the greater good. She moved to the city for a chance at creating something bigger than herself.

When she was a little girl, her father, Loren, regularly spoke of St. Canard. He had traveled here for college back in his youth. Although he went back to their hometown afterwards, Loren swore his heart was in St. Canard. He boasted about city life, how well their education system was, and how remarkable the people were.

It was all a load of crap in Kimbra's opinion. The city did nothing for her.

She wanted to think that her life would be different here. Which it had been, but not in the way she preferred. For her, it was lonelier than Brittlesburg. Quieter. Not in the sound you hear kind of sense, as St. Canard was triple the size of her hometown. But in the way that she didn't know many people here. She had at the most a total of three friends. She barely ever saw one of them anymore, and the other two are just co-workers. (If you can call your co-workers your friends.)

In Brittlesburg, Kimbra knew almost everyone. She couldn't walk down the street without someone yelling good morning at her. Dennis McKinnon, owner of the general store, would always ask about her day when she came in to buy her father's writing supplies. Mary Kinney, the post woman, brought Kimbra those famous sugar cookies of hers whenever she dropped off a package. Arthur Canfield, the mayor, liked to tease her and ask when she would finally leave their little hometown. Each friendly face she'd pass by would recognize her and take the time to talk to her.

St. Canard never offered her that. The most she got from the city residents were glares and inappropriate comments. It was too hot in the summer and incredibly noisy during the rush hours. It wasn't home. It was just a polluted city full of creeps and broken dreams.

Kimbra had everything she could ever want back in Brittlesburg. She didn't have that much in St. Canard. Just a job that made no impact on the world. Sometimes she questioned why she even bothered with it.

The canine felt her eyes start to droop. She should probably turn in before she made a mistake. The words on the papers blurred all together, and the charts were becoming fuzzy. Her head was filled with nothing but static, which made it even more difficult to concentrate.

She rubbed her eyes and stood up from the table. After C.O.R.E, Kimbra wanted to go home. Permanently. She had very few things in her life that she actually felt secure about. One of them was her hometown.

She needed to go home.

Back to Brittlesburg.

***

Morning came to the city skyline in the blink of an eye. Kimbra felt like she barely slept. She tossed and turned all night, her own mind troubling her. She kept thinking about past scenarios that made her cringe and of her more current problems. They weren't very pleasant thoughts. She couldn't remember the last time she had a decent one. Probably not since her ice skating accident when she was small.