It was 6:35 p.m., so James Clayton arrived to the doorstep of his apartment on the edge of town. He set his briefcase down, deactivated the alarm, and sat down at the dining room table. His breathing synchronized with the soft ticking of the generic-looking clock on the wall, each tick begetting a tock as the steady, twitching arms marched on. James sat there, no thoughts in particular going through his mind, for about twenty-five minutes before the day changed to night and a small ding emitted from the clock. It was now dinner time.
It wasn't that James felt particularly hungry. He just knew that eating was a required biological function, and this was a typical time for people to eat dinner. James put together a simple dish of broccoli, carrots, and chicken. James placed himself in the chair adjacent to the TV. He could vaguely sense the heat of the food as he shoveled forkfuls into his mouth, taking notice of the soggy texture and making a mental note that he needs to learn how people like their food's texture. Texture is apparently an important thing, he observed while watching the TV. Some sitcom was playing. James felt around for the remote and turned the volume way up.
What the characters were actually saying didn't matter all that much to him. James simply needed to pay attention to the vocal cues that triggered the laugh track. It always seemed to come on at random times, but he was beginning to observe facial tics and vocal quirks that the actors would sometimes use. James pushed the plate away and sat up straight. While the characters droned on, he waited for the laugh track.
Finally, a laugh track burst out from the TV. James took a deep breath and bellowed out laughter. He made sure to utilize his diaphragm and change pitch. James remembered he hadn't actually smiled in two days, which explained why his facial muscles felt strained and not at all smooth.
With each trigger of the laugh track, he experimented with manipulating his vocal cords so he would emulate what was apparently called a "giggle", which sounded strange to him, but apparently people did it. There didn't seem to be any particular situation in which giggling is a required reaction, but James wanted to have a variety of laughters under his belt, so to speak.
James just wanted to fit in. It had been thirty-two years, and he still didn't understand the way people behaved with "emotions". As far as he could tell, there wasn't really anyone else who was quite this...empty? He wasn't really sure how to describe it. What few emotions he did feel were subdued, muted versions of anger, frustration, and some sort of sadness. Every emotion was nothing more than varying amounts of heaviness in his chest, and every hollow moment felt like a sigh getting heavier every time.
His off-and-on approach to practicing fell way to a more rigorous schedule last week, after a coworker at his accounting firm informed James that he set up a "blind date" between James and some girl in HR. Initially, James immediately declined and went back to work. However, he realized that there were some advantages to this. After all, he did need to put all of this practice to the test, and a one-on-one interaction would be ideal. Also, assuming he passed through every interaction with this woman with a passing grade, they could get married, and he would be able to save on taxes.
And so James had plans to meet Kathy for dinner tomorrow night. He turned off the TV and put the dishes in the dishwasher. He went to the hallway closet to grab a hand mirror and sat down at the dining room table again. This time, he made sure to be sitting directly across from the other chair, visualizing Kathy making faces and reacting to his every move, and himself pretending to do the same for her.
Carefully holding the mirror in his right hand, his eyes flickered between his face in the mirror and back up to where Kathy's face would approximately be if she were sitting here right now. Kathy makes a big cartoonish smile and laughs, then giggles, then chuckles. James splits his face in half with a grin and tries a hearty laugh. He put together a rough script in his mind comprised of different scenes that he's seen in movies where two people have a "date" or some other such one-on-one interaction. The context didn't really matter, since he understood that it's all about the vocal cues and facial expressions.
