Trespassing Strangers

Chapter 1

The sun was glossy, the breeze was erratic but timid, and the clouds dawdling in the azure atmosphere would wash away into the setting if you stared at them for any longer than a minute. They were thin, wispy clouds that looked like marshmallows stretched out across a canvass of infinite blue. The temperature was cool, but those who tempted their fate by standing in the high sun without cover for long enough, would have their skin slowly crisp in crimson. It was a Sunday afternoon. The street was almost barren. And the only consistently audible sounds were the chirps of birds perched in the trees rooted in proximate nature-strips; they were tall trees that gently swayed back and forth, as guided by the invisible hand of the coy draft.

A black car with tinted windows rolled up beside the highest tree on the street. As the car came to a complete standstill, a tall, broad shouldered man of about one hundred and eighty five centimetres opened the door and exited, planting his right foot on the ground firmly before letting his left follow. The man wore a black suit with a white shirt and a violet tie; his shoes were the colour of coffee beans, and his facial expression carried an unmaintained air about it. It was obvious that he was someone who generally took good care of him physically. In the present instance however, you wouldn't know that. His arms and chest were solid but his belly protruded from underneath his shirt. From the perspective of an outsider, he looked like a businessman who was out of business, perhaps a second-hand car salesman on the way home to a distraught wife, after having received his final warning for not making budget. He was balding slightly but purely from stress. The furrows on his forehead were all neatly folded, not unlike someone who had recently been through a divorce. All in all, he was a ruggedly handsome man of roughly forty-eight years, though tired in spirit and in body, which showed on his exterior.

He closed the door to the car firmly, but without haste, and his eyes fixed on the ground directly in front. His movements were unhurried and deliberate. Everything about him seemed to scream out with dejection, like he had given up on continuing this life path of his, and was lost for what to do next. Making decisions looked a difficult task for this man. Even deciding something so simple as whether he should stay in the car or make a move for his final target seemed to present itself as a portentous chore. He was caught in a mental limbo and, unlike the majority of people on this earth who hide their internal sufferings as best that they can - wanting to show as little vulnerability as possible - he showed no sign of desire to pull down a veil between his thoughtful emotions and the outside world. He was perfectly content with wearing his ravelling heart on the cusp of his black sleeve.

As he inched across the length of the black sedan toward an adjacent house, the door from the passenger's side swung open. A young girl of about sixteen years exited. She looked up at the poor man with soft, empathetic eyes, as if she had done something wrong, as if she was the cause of his despair. While his eyes followed the floor, extending no further than a metre in front of his lifeless body, hers were engrossed on him. Her full, sad eyes matched almost precisely the colour of the glittering sky above. Their shade was of a sapphire blue, outlined with a hint of deep hazel that hugged at and crisscrossed through the edge of her iris. She was striking. A natural beauty blessed with fortunate genes. Not a sort that would ever be seen on the front cover of a trashy women's gossip magazine, but a kind that would involuntarily inveigle anybody crossing her path. As someone had one day noted, she was a gem at the core, and it was impossible to ignore her shine.

Her eyes followed him still.

The man, momentarily escaping his reverie, looked up and over his shoulder at the girl. He forced a smile; it was a sincere smile, which the girl returned. Rotating back around, his lids fell as he sighed to himself, his only company being the vague smile still at home on his lips. A trivial mass of liquid swelled in the nook of his left eye and a single tear then trickled down his cheek. He paid the tear no heed and kept walking to the door, checking the letterbox sitting at the brink of the sidewalk on his way. A tear identical to the one only a second ago formed and collapsed swelled in his other eye. It also made its way down his cheek; but this time it caused a little sting, which prompted his thumb and forefinger into action. The girl's gaze was still set on the man, and she was completely unable to redirect her focus. She lingered two metres behind him, not wanting to tread too close.