Greys I - Intentions

Chapter 2 - Cars & Curbs

There's got to be more than this, I don't want to just exist.
As a hollow house for bones, more alone every minute.
Wake up, you're sleeping.
Wake up, you're sleeping behind the wheel.

Senses Fail - Yellow Angels

The rest of my shift dragged by, the clock seemed to be ticking through molasses and failing miserably. I had never felt so alive, so energized as when I saw the lion, with his electricity coursing through me. So in contrast, I felt dead and dull, even more bored with my mundane life now that I knew how I could feel, all because of him.

Him. It's sad that's all I could call him. That or Lion. I wished I knew his name, but what could I have said, 'Hey there stranger, you remind me of the king of the jungle, is your name by chance Simba?'.

I'd probably never see him again anyway, and I'd probably never feel his electricity in my veins again. People like him don't live in my town. They must have just been passing through, like I wished I was.

What I couldn't understand was how someone's presence could affect me in such a way. I had never felt that electricity before and considering that such a strong physiological response could be due to the proximity of a complete stranger sounded insane, even to me.

And the fear? That dark pit that had tried to beckon me down, so complete, spiraling, drowning. I couldn't even remember the last time I had felt fear like that, except in my nightmares. I hadn't even been afraid of the dark as a child, more like comforted by it, like it was covering me, protecting me, hiding me from the white-hot judgments and spotlights of the world. Even so, something in me felt like running and hiding when he looked at me with his too-blue eyes, so dark they seemed black from afar.

I felt trapped by his strange eyes when they had locked mine from across the store like I could only look away once he released me. He gave me a mixture of curiosity, desire, and fear that I had never known before. The curiosity greatly outweighed the fear, though. I felt drawn to him and the danger he seemed to radiate.

But it didn't matter. I came to the same depressing conclusion I always did when I would daydream and get too deeply caught in some fantasy just to realize my world would never live up to it; I would just have to suffer through fifty or so more years of excruciating boredom and disappointment before I could drop dead and either make it to heaven, hell, or cease to exist completely. Anything as long as I didn't have to deal with feeling pulled towards a life that didn't actually exist.

My mind knew that magic, werewolves, and old Nessie weren't real, but it was as if my body, my being, was still trying to pull my mind into believing silly ideas and fantasies. Even so, sometimes I felt like my body knew something I didn't, but then I'd just scold myself for thinking myself into such a dismal rut again. Best to not even dream of more, less disappointment that way.

Each time I thought about things like that it ended the same way anyway - with me depressed at the world for not being more, angry at myself for expecting it to be something it could never be, and once again feeling crazy, like there was something wrong with me because I felt so drawn to the impossible, the imaginary.

I spent the remainder of my shift consciously trying to keep my mind as far from Lion, his followers, and the disenchantment of my sorry world as I could. I threw on autopilot. I worked, rang up customers, and politely said hello and goodbye, but I wasn't really there, everything just happened mechanically. Just like my entire life.

Finally, the clock neared the end of my shift and my replacement got there early. I clocked out and walked to my car, feeling even worse than usual, even less than my normal half-alive state of being. Every blonde I saw out of the corner of my eye as I drove home looked like Lion and I had to double-take to be sure he wasn't sitting on a street bench, or walking along the sidewalk. I felt obsessed.