espionage [h.s.]

FIFTY TWO

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ONE WEEK LATER

HARRY

When prisoners talk about their experience in jail, they often describe time as their biggest enemy. They state that no matter what they do, no matter how much they exercise, read, eat, draw, study - time always moves by at a glacial pace. The days and the months all blend into each other, and when they finally learn the date or the year, they find it hard to believe that that much time has passed without them really having any awareness of it. Time moves quickly, yet it's somehow simultaneously never-ending. That's how I've been feeling lately.

Every day that Rochelle is gone is exactly the same. I've pretty much abandoned all my training responsibilities for the foreseeable future, so I now spend my days in the conference room rifling through countless pages of information or muddling through intelligence computer software until my eyes burn from staring at the screen for too long. As promised, Connie has been helping me as much as she can in between training sessions, which I'm very thankful for considering she's been the one to calm me down whenever I get frustrated or upset with how little progress we've made. She's definitely become the voice of reason and rationality when I've been losing my head, and during the rare lighter moments in the conference room, often when we're both overworked and overtired, I've discovered Connie has a dark sense of humour which I'm sure compliments Rochelle's natural wit in their conversations. I always did wonder how Rochelle and Connie became such close friends so quickly, but from the time I've been spending with Connie, it's becoming much clearer. They're somehow both similar and different at the same time, and it just makes me miss Rochelle even more.

Needless to say, I haven't been sleeping much. Both due to the emptiness of my bed because of Rochelle's absence, but also because my brain refuses to shut off and surrender itself to the solace of sleep. Thankfully, I've always been able to operate on a little amount of sleep, but seeing as the amount of rest I've been getting lately is pretty much non-existent, I've been struggling more. There have been many times when Connie has walked into the conference room to find me fast asleep on the table or crashed out in the corner of the room, and as previously instructed by me, she gently prods me awake whenever that happens. I'm aware that getting enough sleep will improve the efficiency of finding Rochelle, but aside from the fact that I physically struggle to do it, I also can't shake the feeling that it's just wasting time that I could be using to get her back.

It's morning now, which is probably my least favourite time of day, if any, because it's always tinged with both the knowledge that I have another day of searching ahead of me, and the debilitating fear that not much will come of it. After quickly showering, pulling on clean clothes and then forcing myself to eat a piece of toast because I should at least do something good for my body, I leave my apartment and head back to the conference room. A thick folder of information is tucked under my arm, of which I took back to my apartment last night, where I pored over it for a few hours until eventually throwing it across the room, and then burying my head in my hands and having to remind myself to breathe properly.