Part III

Days and weeks and months pass by in a blur and after a while it all becomes meaningless to her. She's nearly given up on her endless search for her boy; not a single message or call, not one word or a sign. There's no response from him with any type of communication she could find. No internet chat, no email, no phone, not the faintest idea of where he resides and for all she knows he might even have died. Although slightly extreme with her irrational thinking, with each passing day her heart keeps sinking and sinking. Her spirits have not quite degenerated or deteriorated to a state of dire despondency, but those depressed, downcast, and dreary feelings start to appear more frequently. In spite of her solitary sadness, her faith remains resolute and strong. To her, everything happens for a reason and this situation is too special and important for it to suddenly go all wrong.

Restlessly asleep in her room with her head far from her pillow and her white blanket twisted and tangled beneath her right arm, she bolts upright and awake at the screeching sound of her alarm. Slapping a lazy hand down on her clock and dragging herself to the edge of her bed, she sits for a second with her elbows on her knees and her hands on her head. Managing to finally get showered, dressed and eventually out the front door, she shuffles off to work like so many mundane and mediocre times before. As the day wears on the time ticks infinitely slowly towards five and she has to resist the urge to check her own pulse to see if she's still alive. The recirculated air and cramped, claustrophobic office cubicles, the long fluorescent tube lights that cause her head to ache and throb make her wonder why she'd ever accepted this excruciatingly dreadful job. A
fter what seemed like an eternity it's finally time to go home. Had she stayed in that prison just a few moments longer she was sure, like a ticking time bomb, her head would have blown.

She leaves the building and starts to walk home along the same route she takes every day, passing the cobblestone bridge, the rollerbladers, the dog walkers and cyclists along the way. Following the twists and turns along the asphalt path, she gazes down at her shoes and then casually over at a pair of sparrows having a dust bath. Walking home after work usually helps her clear her head after long stressful days; she tries to purge her mind of negative energy and thoughts in various different ways. While she walks further along, she slowly begins tuning things out such as the light and the sound and notices nothing but the wind in her hair and the force of her feet pounding against the ground. Caught in a light, airy daydream with her eyes staring blankly and half glazed, her head's way up in the clouds, completely dazed.

Slowly walking down the tree-lined trail in somewhat of a trance, she doesn't bother to give passersby even the slightest glance. She snaps from her stupor, her half-awake dream, when a bulky, bluish-black raven screeches from its perch near the edge of the stream. As she swings to her right to see the source of the sound, the raven cocks its head to the side and gives her the oddest look, she clumsily crashes into someone briefly glancing at a book.

As they collide and stumble around, they both say their apologies and awkwardly reach out to retrieve the novel from the ground. There's an odd sense of familiarity when their hands touch slightly as they begin to arise, and once again they stand looking into each other's eyes.


(continued...) -edited

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