six.
As dawn kissed the sky, a tired man woke. His body heavy and his mind blank he blinked slowly and gave his body a chance to reclaim feeling.
The man rolled over gently and glared out the window, focusing on nothing in particular, just looking because he wanted to. He breathed deep.
Although the hours were passing, the sky denied light for just a while longer. The neighboring house, as best it could, stretched its fingers to the sky, reaching for the dark night as it made its departure. Below it the rising morning hoisted it, pushing it up toward the heavens and painting the lower half of the city a paler azure.
With no reason or thought the man began to wiggle each of his toes, gently in turn against the slippery silk duvet, before gingerly swinging his legs off the bed and letting them hang. The carpet was warm and soft beneath his feet, which were placed delicate and flat, his toes erect and saluting the ceiling. Another deep breath in, reaching his shoulders to his ears, and the man rose heavily, stammering slightly.
Drearily and with meek vitality did the man glimpse at a kaleidoscope of deep grey and heavy blue-tinted screens set in a corrugated collage before his eyes as soon as he entered his office. He watched the hazy blue screen in the middle and awaited the small imprecise figure to stir. Stillness touched the display, much to his discontent, so he reached for his wrist, writhing his fingers roughly against it.
Something soft and incoherent left his lips.
The screens grew brighter as he adjusted them, and the blurry person slowly evolved into a more crisp contour. Eyes twinkling, the eager gentleman fanned out his fingers under his chin and watched intently while the figure began to stir.
Delicately, gently, the black silhouette rocked against the fluffy foursquare contour of a bed, its head swishing left and right.
The man breathed, watching.
It crumpled itself into a ball, then released, and recoiled again. It's face was still hazy, but he could tell it registered a look of pain or maybe something of nostalgic anxiety.
He murmured something under his breath, nodding his head in approval. Carefully, the man stretched his arm across his desk and wrapped his fingers around a heavy black pen, thrumming his thumb through thickly blotted pieces of paper in his journal.
Nocturnal Observations:
2012 April 12
"another nightmare"
❀❀
Jane woke late that morning. Her eyes were dreary and fixed on her reflection; one which she laughed softly at, with frothy lips and a skinny toothbrush dangling from them. She used a brush to coax the defiant coils of her hair into a bun while swishing the suds around in her mouth.
She sighed sadly, looking lowly upon the old discouraging off-beige cotton shirt she wore, branded to the Geriatric Health Clinic of Illinois. It hardly touched her skin, lest there were a breeze to influence it, and after five long, galling years it had still managed to escape with minimal flaws or stains.
A large frame of polished glass sat in front of her reflecting only morose colors, an empty frown, and a small cat.
Jane hardly knew who she was looking at; it was as if some other woman had been in the room with her. A woman who'd been putting on a little bit a weight, shimmering gently around the cheeks and forehead, yet still lost and hurting and afraid. The softness of Sage's spotted fur tickled her ankle, kind of like fingers of grass against the wind, and she smiled.
