Goodbye

Page 2

I never thought living alone could be that hard. I needed to wake up early in the morning. No one was going to tell me to get up when I overslept. I needed to take care of breakfast myself. No one was going to eat together with me. Now that I think about it, I was not really that hungry actually.

The train station was kind of cramped. Why was there such a big crowd? Did everyone have to work so early in the morning? Nevermind, I saw children. They were going to school. First day of school, first day of work. Well, would you look at that, I had the same blue astronaut backpack on my first day of school. I did not know they still sold that model. 

I wrote a message to my friend inside the train. I wrote that I was on my way to work. The reply took some time. I waited patiently. The reply was a simple "Good luck". I smiled.

The building I was going to work at was not as big as I imagined it to be. At least it had an elevator. I did not want to walk up all the stairs. The stairs were orange. I did not like the colour. It did not fit. The walls were blue, the floor was white. Blue is a beautiful colour. It reminds me of you.

Some guy in his mid thirties introduced himself to me. He was the head of the marketing devision. He asked a woman to show me around. Long eyelashes, filled lips, hair that was coloured blonde and pink and attention seeking golden earrings. I nodded. She nodded. We both nodded. She introduced herself as Mint. It was not her real name. It was a nickname by which everyone called her. I introduced myself as Alec. It was my real name. She smiled. She liked the name. It sounded like a celebrity name.

"We are coworkers, so if you ever have any questions, feel free to ask." Her voice was kind of endearing. It was high pitched and energetic. She did not seem to fake her voice either. I knew a lot of people that faked their voices in order to appear cute or mysterious. Her voice was just in general like this.

We walked around the whole building. I counted every door we walked past, until I could not keep up anymore. This building had more doors than we used to have in our Highschool building. At the very least ten more and every last one was grey and had a sign on it.

Most doors were closed but some were in fact open. People watched me curiously when I walked past them. It was the usual curiosity everyone feels, when they get to see a new face. At the very least I did not feel like prey to them, even though they all seemed to be much older than me. Especially the women seemed astonished, when they laid their eyes on me.

There was not much to do for me on my first day. Mint helped me out with the paperwork a little and later asked me to give her my number, so that I would have someone to stay in contact with. I had told her that I just moved here a few weeks ago and therefore did not know anybody so far. She seemed really happy, when I gave her my number and instantly saved it on her phone. I did not expect that. Did this mean that I made a friend?

Later that day I got a message. My friend asked me how my day had been. I lay in bed. The last rays of sunlight were warming my face through the open window, as the fresh autumn wind was filling my room. A bird was chirping carelessly somewhere far away. I quickly answered that it was fun and that I made a new friend. I was asked to tell a bit more about my new friend. I answered that her name was Mint and that she was really nice and pretty. Then I was jokingly asked, if I had a crush on her. I smiled and then denied it. As if I could ever fall in love again.

My friend however was not letting me off the hook that easily. Question after question. Every last one showing more signs of dangerous curiosity. When was the last time I got to laugh so much and freely? My friend was hilarious. A comedian by heart. I wanted to keep on chatting like this until the morning. Even when the sun disappeared and the moon was lighting up the darkness of the night, I did not feel like ending the conversation. I had not eaten anything. I had not brushed my teeth. All I did was smile, as our topic changed from my love life to the flowers I could not keep alive all those years.