Vacant place for death[JENSOO]

34

Sometimes what we know is powerless over what we feel.

Summer has come into its own, as always without delay and exactly on time. The Californian sun, with an almost evil grin, fried the streets of the city and people trying to work in it, raising the daytime temperature beyond all possible limits of the norm. In response, Los Angeles residents hid in their homes and offices, exposing their heat-weary bodies to the cool air currents issued by air conditioners, mentally praying for at least some small rain. However, either God was sitting too high, or the city was so mired in sins that there were no prayers to be heard, but the fact remained that all requests were broken against a completely cloudless blue sky and a yellow disk in it. And every morning this huge shining dwarf above our heads with renewed vigor began its next battle with air conditioners. The drought intensified, power plants could not stand it, people — giving up, ran away from the city.

Having clogged the blinds and persuaded the air conditioner to work at the minimum possible, I sat at the monitor, nervously chewing a pen instead of missing lunch.

No matter how hard I tried to focus on my work, the essence of the text I was reading slipped away from me as easily as the sand of time through my fingers, following the same type of days of life slowly flowing past me.

And I'm so tired.

God! How tired I am!

Throwing away the pen and burying my hands in my hair, I forced myself to re-read the draft of the article for the third time, and, still not understanding anything, I squeezed my eyes shut and exhaled heavily.

There was a timid knock on the door.

-Come in.

-Jisoo.- Lisa's head with slightly disheveled hair immediately appeared in the slightly opened doorway.- How busy are you?

-Come in, Lili.- I called, leaning back in my chair and starting to stretch the stiff neck muscles.- Dara asked to edit Song Yuqi's article. I need to reduce it from seventeen thousand words to twelve thousand. So far I have managed to remove only up to fourteen thousand. And it exhausted the hell out of me. So I think I can take a little break.

Since three weeks ago I agreed to help my mother, taking on the duties of the editor of the department, my office has noticeably overgrown with various pieces of paper. And, since I was really missing at work now, it also overgrown my personal belongings. Entering the office and closing the door behind her, Lisa straightened the lopsided poster with the iron man. I dragged it out of the garage last week, drove a nail on my own and hung it here. The next morning, for some reason, it skewed to the left, but I had no time to correct it. After making sure that the poster was not going to return to its original position, she pulled the only chair not littered with papers closer to the table and sat down on the very edge.

Damn, I don't like it at all.

The stomach suddenly, disgustingly clenched into a ball, cowardly went down, rolling under the baseboard.

-Lisa?

Clasping her hands in a lock and sighing decisively, the friend leaned forward, looking into my eyes:

-Jisoo, it's about Jennie...

-Don't.

The voice sounds hard and cold, but even in it I still can't hide the pain that pierces me at the mere mention of her name.

Three weeks...

It's been three damn weeks and three days, and it's not getting any easier. The heart has long since stopped sending anything other than pain through the body. Emptiness and pain have become my usual companions. I smiled when it was necessary, spoke when it was expected of me, and hid in work, because I knew perfectly well that no matter where I ran away and no matter how I poured alcohol into this unfathomable bottomless, aching hole in my chest, it would not help.