The Man Who Watches Water

Part 1

"Greg!"

Gregory smiled. There is an unspoken obligation to smile when speaking with one's superiors – otherwise, one comes off as uppity, or worse yet, unmotivated. Still, to smile while on the phone with a superior registered in some distant part of Gregory's mind as perhaps unnecessary, lacking the visual component which typically gave the smile its significance. His smile here was thus a bit odd – the usual obligation was seemingly absent, and he himself did not particularly feel like doing so. In spite of this, he kept the smile where it was. Perhaps it would carry through in how he spoke. It never hurts to be careful.

"Jonathan!" Hearing the joviality in his own voice, Gregory decided that, yes, it definitely makes a difference, even over a phone call. "I was just heading into the office; to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Great! A few of the guys and I were just hoping you could swing by Starbucks – you know, the one on Lincoln? – and grab us all some joe."

Inwardly, Gregory's heart sank. He was no longer a junior analyst, he was a full-time analyst, working with a new, respected company – he thought that he had washed his hands of being a gopher. If he agreed to get coffee on this occasion, it was a near certainty that he would be expected to get coffee every morning thenceforth, at least until the company had another new hire, potentially until – if – he was promoted to senior analyst.

Still, one must never say no to a superior.

"Sure, I'd be happy to! What are you all having?"

Gregory took mental note as Jonathan cheerfully listed off four separate orders of coffee, acknowledging in the process that, seeing as the cardboard apparatuses used to carry coffee only held four at a time, and his left hand was occupied with the indispensable task of carrying his briefcase, he would not be able to purchase and carry a coffee for himself. The whole while, he never stopped smiling. This he knew for certain was unnecessary, as he was only listening, and not speaking. He explained it to himself as being important for habit-formation, a topic regarding which he had once read an article on the internet.

"Alright, I'll see you guys at the office."

As he hung up the phone, Gregory increased the pace at which he was walking. While the coffee shop was right along his route to the office, having to wait for multiple orders to be filled would certainly put him off schedule, especially when taking into account the busyness which came in like a tide with the morning. Gregory normally got into work ten minutes early, giving him enough time to grab a cup of company coffee before cracking down on his work starting five minutes before his shift. With this extra chore added to his workload, he would be lucky to get in five minutes early in the first place, meaning he would need to skip his coffee entirely.

Of course, he was certain that Jonathan would profess understanding were Gregory to be late. Yet the reluctant understanding of a superior, even – especially – regarding a situation which they themselves caused to occur, was among the things which Gregory most abhorred. He believed firmly that these situations had a strong effect on the opinions others have of a person, if only unconsciously, and ought to be avoided at all costs. So, the tail of his suit jacket fluttering behind him, he doubled down on his determination not to be late, nor even to fail to be early.

It started to rain.

Gregory cursed his ill luck. He had an umbrella in his pocket, of course; however, it was not possible for him to carry his briefcase, and the tray of coffees, and the umbrella all at once. He would certainly be soaked all the way through by the time he entered the office, and then there would be no way he could prevent Jonathan from being put in a situation where he needed to express sympathy. This guilt could easily transition into avoidance, were Gregory not careful, and that would be an unacceptable state of affairs. With trepidation he looked toward the soreness in his face which he was certain he would feel by the end of the day. Alas, there was nothing for it but to smile, and to nod, and to reassure with all of the sincerity his well-trained heart could muster.

Without conscious effort, Gregory began to smile preemptively; then, he worried that perhaps this would cause him to tire out too soon, and his smile to begin to slip even as he needed it most. Thus came a struggle, whereby Gregory sought to defeat his reflexive smile, to store it in a back pocket for later use, so as to keep its color, out of the dust and chill air. Finally, he succeeded. Alas, he had not even time to taste his victory before he reached the front of the line at the coffee shop, causing the accursed thing to reappear on his face instantly, even as woe sank into the back of his brain.

"What can I get for you, sir?"

"A smile," Gregory said, unthinking.

The girl behind the counter, after a short pause, giggled somewhat nervously. Gregory's heart sank as he realized that she thought him to be flirting, but he knew better than to retract his statement, as doing so would waste time and likely unnerve the girl further. Instead, he gave a very small laugh, and rattled off his memorized order.

"Coming right up." She gifted Gregory with a glittering smile as she turned, which wounded him deeply. He felt certain his accidental affections would hound him in his sleep that night. It was a shame, too, for she was quite attractive, and if Gregory had time for such things at this stage in his life, or in the absence of some other of his endless retinue of excuses on the subject... but no. His deception, small and unintentional though it may have been, would throttle any genuine pleasure he might otherwise gain from interacting with the woman – poison the well, so to speak. Better he do away with the thought now than impose on her the task of attempting to lift him through a budding relationship whilst he remain intractably anchored to the very first words spoken between them.

Gregory made a Herculean effort not to allow his impatience to show in his features as he awaited the fulfillment of his order. In spite of this, his hand tapped unconsciously on his briefcase – an indication which some rational part of him declared effectively undetectable, but which, when discovered, vexed him nonetheless. He stopped the idle motion.

Now still, he dreamt.

His mind wandered to some nonexistent place, a field where books paradoxically mingled in the open air with trees (mothers and their children, he labeled them), a strange mixture of the scents of old pages and wild grass washing over his mind from end to end, drowning out, for a moment, the burnt coffee beans and lingering petrichor. He envisioned a life where he used these books as pillows, free from the fear of rain ruining the pages, the stars his blanket and the grass his mattress. Here, he laughed.

Gregory's eyes widened as he all but physically shook himself awake. Not real – not significant – waste of time. Gregory saw a self-help book once, the synopsis of which talked of the importance of living in the now. Gregory did not read the book – that itself would be a gross waste of his time – but he took what he presumed to be the overarching lesson to heart, that of avoiding distractions and focusing one's will. He began to mentally rehearse all possible proceedings from his impending conversation with Jonathan, ensuring that each line delivered on his end was exact in both inoffensiveness and reassurance. Sometimes, this habit of his would cause a brief conversational hiccup – he would be blindsided by a response which he had not anticipated, forced to deviate from his script; this, however, happened rarely enough (and was minor enough when it did occur) that he still considered it a worthy practice overall.

Gregory did not notice that his finger had begun to tap again.

Finally, the order was finished. Gregory took the tray, noting as he did that it was handed to him by the same smiling woman from the register, wearing the same dazzling smile. His chest hurt. He smiled back, thanking her personally, as he expected she wanted him to. "Come again!" she said.

I suspect I will have no choice, thought Gregory, but he only nodded and rushed out the door.

As Gregory turned right out of the coffee shop, heading down the street to his place of business, he nearly tripped over a crouching figure in the middle of the sidewalk. Caught between fear of his hard-won coffees being spilled, a black anger piling up from the events of the day – and this, only the morning! – and genuine concern for the man's well-being (an old man, Gregory saw now, his hair and beard a brilliant white), Gregory went with, of course, politeness as his motivator for a reaction. "I'm sorry, I didn't – "

Gregory stopped as he realized the old man was paying him no heed. His gray-blue eyes were trained unerringly on the sidewalk in front of his feet, not with the wideness of insanity, but with the calm of careful analysis. Gregory stared a moment longer before he shook himself awake, hurrying away toward his destination.

"I hate the rain," he muttered. Everything else from his brief dream was washed away with the runoff.