The Monday morning alarm tediously heralded the beginning of yet another day on the conveyor belt of routine. Elias swiftly turned it off while sulking in bed, already sleeplessly awake. He did it without looking, in such a display of mastery. A mastery from his three years of daily practice in striking the snooze button while conjuring the will to get out of bed.
Every morning was greeted by a silent wince prompted by Elias's contemplation of the soulless workday that laid ahead of him. It felt like a cruel unending repetition of a repetition.
Tilly was a slender brunette clump, still fast asleep, slumped up on her side next to him. Her flowing brown hair covered her fair gentle face and pouty lips that began to utter:
"Mmm morning, babe," she groaned through her pillow-muffled mouth as she began to stretch in bed like a lethargic cat, searching with her feet for cold spots on the mattress to justify staying cozy under her blanket.
"Morning," Elias said through an exhausted sigh and bloodshot eyes as he mechanically got out of bed and headed to the bathroom.
Tilly picked up her phone to escape into the endless entertainment it offered. She was going through apps laterally, Tiktok, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat...not remaining long enough in one app to feel guilty for wasting time. But the dread of the workday began rising. Her fingers twitched as she tapped her phone to read one email after another. Noticing that she'd been unconsciously holding in her breath, she trembled out an exhale before getting up.
She made herself a cup of coffee and looked out at the sunrise over the city.
"It's so beautiful," she said half to herself, half to Elias who was commencing his tedious grooming and other morning procedures. The well-oiled protocols of a mechanically efficient life.
Tilly's smile quickly faded as her wistful eyes were forlornly following Elias with a sort of appeal but were met only by the back of his head as he unresponsively went into the bedroom. It wasn't clear to her if he was actively ignoring her or passively sparing himself something he could not bear, either way, it fell on Tilly all the same. She turned her attention back to the majestic morning over High Park. The splendor of it quickly returned the glee to her face. At least the sun was kind to her...
Elias fully dressed now, poured himself a cup of coffee in his thermos; bitterly black and unsweetened. Black unsweetened coffee tastes like how life feels when you're depressed – why masquerade an indifferent reality with sugar and cream. Tilly approached him slowly. Being careful to avoid spilling coffee from her swaying mug.
"Have a great day at work, babe," she said cheerfully as she leaned in for a kiss.
"You too," Elias thoughtlessly replied as he fulfilled his duty of kissing her, as he did every morning, of every day, before leaving.
Elias stood at the top of the steps outside of his apartment building, thanklessly huffing and puffing the cold October air. Blue Jays were chirping from the high trees, sounding their last call for fall. A song that was peppered with the black cawing of crows adding a shade of sadness to an otherwise splendid composition. He listened with searching ears hoping for a tonic lift but quickly failed to find the rumpus of the bass in a tragic tune.
A disapproving scowl furrowed his entire face as the raucous of the bustling city was loudly coming to life. The racket of the cars, horns, unintelligible city murmurs, and the endless swarm of people bombarded his agitated ears. Ears which only pined for the silent respite of a sleep that never was. There was so much motion, so many humans and after so much a silent night, it was exhausting.
Through the grimace on his face, Elias's lips curled with dismay. He stood there, warily taking in the scene. It eerily looked all too familiar to him. Without a calendar, Elias thought, he would not be able to discern whether it was a Monday, a Tuesday, or any other day of the week for that matter. It was as if the same day repeated itself wearing different clothes. A gnawing twinge of anguish was growing inside of him as he began to feel that he had been living the same day for the past three years.
A distressed sigh percolated out of his angst before he began walking drudgingly towards his office building which was four blocks away.
Meanwhile, in the apartment, Tilly's buzzing phone interrupted the serenity of her meditation by the living room window. She hurriedly placed her cold coffee-stained mug on the kitchen counter and went into the bathroom. Shedding her camisole, her naked supple body stood slenderly in front of the bathroom mirror. She brushed her teeth and began applying light makeup. Tilly was a natural beauty who only ever used a faint layer of foundation with a bright peach lipstick. And finally, mascara to accentuate her already catlike eyes.
Although society had made certain strides with equality between men and women, it was an unwritten rule at her law firm that women should wear dark and dreary colors to avoid arousing the primitiveness of men. Being a cautious intern, yet indignantly disapproving of these remnants of flagrant misogyny, Tilly wore a sleeveless grey fitted dress and not too high heels. Her lively phone kept buzzing with notifications from work. So much so, that the uninterrupted bombardment of notifications transformed from intermittent buzzing into a ceaseless humming. Tilly hastily put on her coat and made her way out of the apartment. In the anxiety of it all, she had forgotten her cold coffee mug on the kitchen counter.
In the big city, the impractical is always made to feel useless. So, on a Monday morning, the totality of Toronto was bustling and commuting to work in an industrious display to prove their self-worth. Tilly stood on the sidewalk right in front of the apartment building for a few moments, inhaling the day ahead. She was breathing frost out into the cold morning air as the warm sun playfully flirted with her smiling face. She slowly closed her cheery eyes to better absorb the sounds of her surroundings. The sounds of the busy traffic of honking cars, of purposeful footsteps striding on the sidewalks, and of the mechanical clanking of streetcars.
She took in a deep breath as if she was conjuring the energy to take the first intrepid steps of some journey. A journey whose momentum should last her an entire workweek before exhausting itself. Slowly letting out a breath, she opened her eyes and then floated into the sea of traffic that was swooshing at the feet of the proud and mighty skyscrapers.
Tilly walked for three blocks heading towards the subway as her heels tapped on the sidewalk with determined strides. As she walked, she kept glancing skyward with big, wonderous, inspired eyes at the tall gleaming towers of architectural poetry; endless stanzas of steel, glass, and concrete. She was looking up with a charming combination of innocence and tenacity. That charming blend of a young woman resolved to make it in this concrete jungle and the pizzazz of a small-town girl with worldly ambitions. "Get it, girl," was her morning mantra; an affirmation.
On her way to work, Tilly deliberately never took the escalator when descending to the subway. Stairs were part of her daily cardio regimen. Underground Toronto was an entirely different city in its own right. In the land of always winter, Canadian urban planners had the wisdom to carve out an intricate system of heated tunnels and underground pathways. Pathways that connected most of the city's buildings, towers, and subway platforms.
So, when the inevitability of the callous winter became hostile to life, commuters found the sanctuary of an underground heated city – the show of commerce must to go one. Over time, in an effort to distinguish themselves from mole people, Torontonians transformed the underground pathway into something of an underground mall. Soon enough, it was sprawling with food courts, designer stores, and retail shops.
After shuffling through the crowd of people, Tilly finally reached her subway platform. She impatiently waited for her train while anxiously mulling over the work that awaited her for the day. Suddenly, the distant melodic echoes of a busker playing an acoustic guitar began to reverberate louder and louder. The busker was passionately singing Landslide by Fleetwood Mac. Tilly never had an all-time favorite band set in stone. Her mercurial taste in music depended on the seasonality of her mood. But as of the beginning of October, and everything autumn about it, her mood was a reflection of the climate that was shaping it...and the Fleetwood Mac that was voicing it.
The lyrical words of the song began to harmoniously echo throughout the halls of the subway. Tilly's train of thoughts was interrupted by the singer's heartfelt magnetism; whose high notes were strumming the strings of her heart. Weirdly, however, it seemed to not affect other people who were tut-tutting impatiently with eyes glued to their phone screens. The singer's stirring raspy voice and her emotional melody moved Tilly. It seemed to her to be the only color in a crowd of joyless business suits.
Tilly drew in closer while rummaging for change in her purse before gently curtseying to put a five-dollar bill in the busker's open guitar case. There was a momentary smile of shared recognition between them. Suddenly, Tilly's train rumbled through the stagnant underground air as it vulgarly trumpeted its horn to announce its arrival. Tilly was immediately pulled back to reality and scurried towards her train, shuffling through the crowd, as she did.
As it slowly began accelerating away, Tilly fixed her longing eyes out of the window at the busker who had given her a tender respite on an otherwise rigid Monday morning. But who had also left her slightly envious of the people who can let their inner selves out to play like that.