Day 3,627
It's Harry's only day off for the week and he is choosing to spend his entire morning with his fingers and wrists caked in clay, his headphones buzzing in his ears and his bare foot depressing the pedal on his pottery wheel. His torso is tucked into a fatigued modest t-shirt, the one that he usually wears when he sits hunched over his machine throwing pots. His black jeans are covered in splotches of dried brittle marks, his forehead and cheeks showing signs of deep concentration with every swipe of his wrist against his face.
The studio is empty on an early Wednesday morning, Harry having arrived here before dawn because he chose to watch the sunrise from his elevated sacred spot. The weather was uncooperative, the sky filled with an annoying light mist that made him feel uncomfortable and damp all over, his hoodie developing a film from the vapor lingering in the atmosphere. The sun looked exceptionally brilliant though as it fought with the foreground of cloud cover with bursts of light making the gloom appear extra distinguished - or perhaps that was just his perspective due to his incurable giddy spirit.
He was in a bashfully gratified mood after his most recent colorful dream that spotlighted you and your explicit red coat, rushing into work an uncharacteristic two whole minutes late on Tuesday afternoon and stuttering over an apology to the kitchen manager. Unlike Harry, he hardly recognized it as an inconvenience. He took one look at him before scanning his frazzled body up and down and slapping his shoulder a bit too hard, bursting into a chuckle when he asked Harry if he had finally gotten laid.
His cheeks flamed an embarrassing crimson, his gaze dropping to the ground as he shrugged and pried his headphones from around his neck to replace on his ears. The kitchen manager recognized his insensitive mishap right away, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth in shame and extending his hand towards him but Harry recoiled and interrupted with another muttered apology for being late before slinking into his dishwashing nook in the corner.
He shook his head at his stupidity; for wearing his emotions on his face and in his muscles that way and for being so shamefully unloved and lonely that an imaginary person can perk his mood a visible amount to strangers. He hiked his sleeves up beyond his elbows and plugged the sinks to begin filling with soap and water, swallowing a lump in his throat and clicking the volume up on his headphones as he counted the seconds until the timer automatically clicked the water off.
He had no idea that his kitchen manager stood behind him with his hip perched upon the sterile metal counter, his arms crossed over his chest as he shook his head with an exaggerated frown on his face. He was almost certain that Harry was an Adroit because he has known exactly one other in his lifetime and their tendency towards seclusion and reticence was almost identical, but he wasn't a snitch and he just liked him too damn much to do anything about it, so he decided to just keep that information to himself.
The population seems to be pretty in favor of turning Adroits in, a hive mindset that is extremely hateful and pandemic but there are a few that turn a blind eye to the entire decrepit situation, choosing the mantra of 'live and let live' for the sake of some semblance of peace. He happened to be someone who empathized with Harry's situation, but if Harry had known about his higher up's assumption he would have quit his job faster than immediately.
Harry's vision of you had been so pleasant that he's felt like he has been walking on air ever since he woke up over thirty hours ago. The way your lips parted in joy when you noticed the photograph on the coffee shop wall and how you stepped closer to it to absorb more detail, your confident strut towards the espresso machine when your order was called and your subsequent spill that he admittedly found endearing. Even without hearing you speak he could tell that you were a thousand licks of the sweetest ice cream, your presence so polished and radiant that he could see it reflecting off of everyone's faces in the coffee shop.
He had resolved not to sleep the following evening the moment that his fog cleared from the dream, deciding that the lingering taste in his mouth was too heavenly to risk destroying. He rolled onto his back with the image of you hanging heavily in his brain, weighing down his hair and shoulders, his chest and his heart. He slipped his fingertips into the elastic waistband of his joggers, his thumb brushing against his happy trail before traveling up his bare stomach and chest and into his hair. He stretched until he felt as though each of his tight muscles would snap, his kitten traipsing across his thighs in search of a thread or string to play with somewhere on his bedspread.
He rolled onto his side once more and wrapped his arms and legs around his pillow, trying to envision what it would feel like to hold someone while he sleeps. He tried to envision how your eyes when staring directly into the depths of his soul, what the ends of your hair might feel like against his knuckles or what fragrance your neck emits when he nudges his nose against it. He imagined that being directly addressed by you would be too overstimulating to bear, he wouldn't know where to look or what to say after all this time and the thought of it made each one of his nerve endings zap like a live wire.
He's so socially out of practice that witnessing your nose scrunch up when you laugh might send him into cardiac arrest, but he likes to pretend anyhow. When he awakens from one of your visits he often lays in bed for hours just watching the ceiling and imagining what you would say if you were laying in bed beside him, how your nails would scratch up the skin of his forearm to pluck a trail of goosebumps behind them, the pads of your fingers halting at his chin to turn his face toward you.
His fingertips traced circles into his pillowcase, his favorite two syllables looping in his mind like an angelic choir while stars formed together and exploded in a shock of electric blue, the light blinding before it was sucked back in on itself to leave a halo of stardust in its wake. His eyes slipped close as he ran through his dream once more before it flattened and turned to dust to get carried away in the tornado of his thoughts. He squeezed the pillow as tightly as possible, a soft groan quivering in his throat and wondering if he prayed hard enough if two arms would magically appear and lull him back to sleep with the promise of serenity.
His mum used to climb into bed and hug him when he woke up screaming from colored nightmares in the middle of the night; sometimes she would fall asleep beside him as she tried to mute the sound of her sniffles in an attempt to hide the fact that she was crying. He would never fall back to sleep after a premonition and still doesn't, but he would pretend for the sake of his mum's fragile compassionate attempts to comfort him.
He crushed his eyes shut and tried to remember how it felt for her to run her fingers through his hair, shushing him quietly while the burn of car crashes, ships sinking and assassinations dulled from his memory, the reverse trickle of blood and the vibration of victim's screams worming their way through his brain like maggots in a rotten apple. He never understood what was happening when he was young until he began to communicate what he was seeing with a bit more clarity, his parents turning white as bleached bed sheets the first time they saw one of his depictions on the news the following day, the newscaster recounting each detail as if Harry had memorized the TelePrompter word for word.
His foot lifts off of the pedal as he reaches for his cut-off wire, his fingers wrapping around the handles before guiding the wire underneath his completed vase. Tall with a slender neck, widening into a becoming hourglass figure towards the bottom. He doesn't consciously realize that your appearance is the muse for each piece he's made today; at least half a dozen ultra feminine designs that he plans to paint in varying shades of ruby and candy apple red once they're retrieved from the kiln.
He adds the vessel to his growing collection on a tall industrial shelf spattered with clay and paint, standing back to admire the contrasts and similarities of each design as he tilts his head left to right for a comprehensive view. He stands over the deep and wide stainless steel sink in the corner of the spacious room, running a stiff brush over his fingernails and wrists as if he were a surgeon preparing to operate, his gaze drawn to the massive window before him.
He's left absent-minded by how much of his brain power is capitalized and depleted by your influence, flashbacks of former dreams involving you racing through his mind as he remembers both big and small events from the span of your lifetime, his curiosity about you and whether or not he was accurate eating him alive. He flicks the tap off, drying his hands with a discarded cloth before leaning forward and folding his arms upon the back of the sink to stare out at the high rises around him. He can see inside of neighboring windows; someone opening their refrigerator in a bath robe and bending over to study its contents, rows and rows of closed curtains and blinds, a projected television screen dancing on a wall with an empty audience.
A curse grumbles in the back of his throat when he realizes he's lost track of time, coughing into his fist to strengthen his voice before addressing the barren room with a soft rasp, "what time is it?" His eyes dart around the ceiling for his answer in the form of an LED projection of a digital clock from his mobile device, finding the white light almost immediately and muttering a string of profanity before rushing across the room to sink his feet into his worn athletic sneakers.
He collects his things, throwing on his hoodie with an image of his favorite donut shop screen printed on the back in a frantic rush before slipping his phone in his back pocket and running out the door. He jogs back mere seconds later, reaching a single hand into the room to flip off the light switch before taking off down the steps and onto the street. He had been so completely lost in his own mind and the work of his hands that he had forgotten that he was guilted by his coworker into making a veterinary appointment for his kitten.
Two weeks ago a sous chef at work had asked Harry why he was taking bits and pieces of food home in aluminum foil and upon revealing his new pet, he convinced him to bring his kitten to the doctor for a check up. He was well aware that stray animals could have an array of illnesses or parasites that aren't necessarily obvious to the naked eye, but didn't have the money for a proper visit to the clinic so he had just been taking care of her the best way he knew how.
His coworker had informed him of an animal welfare team that functioned on a sliding scale based on income way out on the outskirts of the city that perform low cost spaying and vaccinations. He searched the information on his phone and wrote it down for Harry on a slip of cardboard that he tore off of a box of plastic wrap, tucking it into his palm and making him promise to make an appointment as soon as possible. Harry saved up his tips for two weeks in order to be able to afford the check up, foregoing a couple meals here and there to ensure he was well prepared for whatever cost they would surprise him with.
He pulls his beanie onto his head as soon as his feet hit the street, half jogging and half walking through the crowd painted in obnoxious florescent fabrics, muttering dribblings of apologies while he pushes his way to his train stop and up the steps to the platform. He had mapped out his route several days ago because he's anal retentive about groundwork and planning so he knows it will take him at least thirty minutes to arrive there on an express train from his apartment.
The express trains make fewer stops and travel at two hundred and fifty miles per hour; they make Harry a bit nauseous at times so he typically avoids them if he can, springing for the caterpillar trains that hover above city streets and weave from stop to stop at a tolerable rate. His sensitive stomach and lack of desire to travel doesn't hinder his daily life since he doesn't find it necessary to leave a twenty mile radius unless presented with a rare necessity, like a low cost veterinary appointment for a kitten he's beginning to fall in love with.
The train isn't as packed as usual considering he's riding at an hour that is sandwiched between the two peak travel times. It's nearing two in the afternoon, his appointment is scheduled for an hour from now and he starts to sweat at the thought of being late. He absolutely despises being late and finds it to be a poor quality in others as well, but he tends to be much more understanding and accepting of other people's faults than he is of his own. His mum always told him to be gentle with himself and that he was his toughest critic, but he figured she said those kinds of things because she was his mum and she had to say things like that.
When he arrives back to his apartment building, he considers taking the elevator for a total of one second before he changes his mind and cascades up the twenty flights to his floor, his labored breathing pumping through his nose and mouth when he finally reaches his door. He can hear the baby cat creaking little mews from inside of his apartment, her volume rising when he finally finishes wrestling with his lock and flings his door open. He drops to his knees and greets her with a murmur, picking her up and kissing the top of her little fuzzy head before holding her in a hover above his face for a full view of her whole body, her rag doll limbs dangling in the air as she peers down at him with eyes equally as green as his.
He has just enough time to splash water on his face in the bathroom sink and change from his crusty jeans into joggers, stuffing all of the cash he saved from ten shifts into the small pocket stitched into the inner seam. He huddles over the bar sink in his kitchen, forming a cup with his hand to drink water from the tap before cramming an apple into his hoodie pocket for a snack on the train and proceeding to chase his kitten across the room in an attempt to scoop her up.
She runs the twenty paces it takes to cross the entirety of his small living space, spinning and slipping on her feet when she realizes that she has nowhere to hide. She looks over her shoulder at Harry as he tiptoes up behind her with his hands outstretched, muttering the sentiment of "here, wee beast" before leaping forward and grabbing her around the middle right before she can be successful in squeezing underneath his dresser. She struggles a bit in his merciful palms, squeaking her resentment in being captured as he sits on the edge of his bed to scratch behind her ears and calm her with gentle cooing as much as possible.
He doesn't have a proper carrying case or even an empty shoebox to transport her in and he has no idea how she will handle the innervation of traveling at high speeds but he imagines she is probably pretty tough from her short period of time on the city streets. He carries her to his kitchen, pulling her crumpled wrapper of food from his miniature refrigerator and placing her on the counter to nibble away at a few bites of shredded chicken. He knows from experience that she often gets sleepy after she eats, so he is providing her with an opportunity to gorge herself in the hope that she passes out for the entire journey.
When she backs off and licks her lips, rumbles of tiny and satisfied purrs vibrating her body, Harry picks her up and holds the neck of his sweatshirt out to gently lower her inside. He encourages her until she is settled against his chest, her little head poking out to rub against his chin as he holds her in place, "s'good, Pru. You alright?" He takes the second bump of her forehead against his chin as her communicating her comfort, the soft roll of her purrs warm and delicate against his heart.
She cooperates for the majority of the train ride as Harry figured she might, crawling down further into his hoodie once he is settled in a window seat and curling up in a circle against his belly. He could feel her small stomach rising and falling against his, their breaths oscillating in unison and although hers were twice as fast, they happened to sync up on about every third breath.
Harry watches the city whizz by in an icky blur, his stomach screwing up into a knot each time the train decelerated to a stop to let travelers on and off. They were entering an area of the city that he was unfamiliar with even though he has lived here for years, he's only traveled here maybe once or twice out of curiosity or demand. He much favors his habitual routine and takes pleasure in knowing what to expect and who he will see, it helps to ease the unpredictability of his safety and his nightmares.
The tremendous and fantastic neon skyscrapers, signage and dynamic billboards are left behind for quaint alleyways, soft-hued buildings and local businesses. While there are still a ton of pedestrians and nearly as many cars, lots of people in this area travel on scooters and bicycles. The general activity here feels a bit slower and more relaxed and when he turns around and looks out the back window of the car, he can see the contrast between the height of the buildings here and the towers of downtown in the background.
He checks his mobile device to be extra certain of his stop, taking note of the chime that alerts him of his arrival before he cups a hand under his kitten's body through his sweatshirt and files off the train. He joins the flurry of the streets, avoiding pedestrian's umbrellas as they shield themselves from the light drop of rain from the mucky, dismal sky. He carefully studies each block he travels down, deciding right away that he likes being in this district, the calm and the composure of it all compared to the hustle of downtown.
He could see the attraction of living here, but he knows that someone with an affliction such as his is better off hiding in the middle of the masses in intersections and in the back of desolate kitchens in five star restaurants. This neighborhood is too intimate and conspicuous for someone like him and as if that thought weren't poignant enough, Harry passes a Tocsin device on the street corner and stifles a nauseous gag at his proximity.
He dares a glance at the menacing machine; a narrow, emerald green structure that stands just below his brow, a lime green single button with the word "alert" etched into the plastic. There is a shallow receptacle with a flap covering the hopper where zip ties are dispensed in the circumstance where a "good samaritan" is feeling ballsy enough to do the Emissary's work of chasing and capturing a dodger until they can arrive themselves. The entire top of the machine is covered in transparent polycarbonate plastic from which a bright beam of light originates and is shot into the sky and on the back, a circle of several holes where the horrifying, gut-wrenching alarm sounds from.
There are negative legal consequences for those who trigger the machine without just cause and a multitude of rewards and praises for those who trigger it and are successful in aiding the Emissary in apprehension, most civilians fear the power behind it but there are some novices who take pride in the virtue that comes from playing the role of authority.
The pedestrian crossing signal switches to signify permission to walk, the crowd of people who have accumulated on the corner beginning their journey with a slow domino effect forward. Harry rushes past everyone to make sure he is on time to his appointment and also in an effort to get as far away from the evil Tocsin machine as possible, pulling out the neck of his hoodie and glancing down to check on his kitten. He smiles when she glances up at him with her bright chartreuse irises, his blunt nails scratching lightly into her back over the fabric of his sweatshirt in a gentle nudge of reassurance.
Harry mouths the numbers of each storefront he passes, noticing that he is walking in the correct direction and with each block he travels down, the numbers get closer and closer to his destination. He is so caught up in looking at addresses on the buildings that when he feels the familiar bore of pinholes pricking all over his body to alert him of the occurrence of precognition coming to life, he stops dead in his tracks and automatically pulls in a deep breath. His mind reels back to the last premonition that he had and his nerve endings short circuit when he remembers that it was the dream involving you.
He shakes his head and narrows his eyes into a deep frown of bewilderment; he tries even harder to remember what his last dream was because it couldn't possibly be the one of you in the coffee shop with the red coat but upon further mental prying, he reminds himself that he hasn't yet slept since that dream occurred. His head turns slowly to the right and when he recognizes the antiseptic white of the coffee shop directly beside him, the purple tube lighting framing geometric shapes on the walls, a cashier and a customer engaging in friendly interaction and finally sees a spark of red, it feels as though his heart has been carved clean from his chest with an ice cream scoop.
Suddenly he could give a fuck less if he's late or not; a 9.5 magnitude earthquake could tear the ground open and swallow every single thing around him and he would not even come close to noticing. The atmosphere could collapse, the very earth he stands on could implode and suck him straight into the core of the planet but he would just readily melt into the fiery magma with the image of you burned into his retinas for all of eternity, all other pain and happenstance a trivial side effect to the absolute shock and grandeur of your attendance.
He stands before the window without a clue as to how he appears or is being perceived by others, his hands lifting to rub his knuckle into his eye socket before it lands against the glass, his fingers curling against the spotless surface as if he were attempting to grip it. The scene before him unfolds in exactly how his premonition dream did, he watches you admire the art for a second as his brain buzzes like a swarm of agitated worker bees, each one of their stingers bared and poking holes into every inch of his body.
He reaches down to pinch the skin of his forearm with his fingers so hard that he leaves an angry purple mark that will surely yellow and bruise in the coming days. His kitten can sense that something is off, or perhaps since she is nestled against his heart and it is either beating like a hummingbird's wings or not beating at all, it is causing her a bit of alarm as her person stands as frozen as an iceberg on the sidewalk.
When she sinks her claws into his chest he whines and reaches into the neck of his sweatshirt to unhook her tiny nails from his shirt, her painful gesture finally waking him up as he remembers what happened next with your coffee in his dream. His eyes dart from you to the entrance and back a couple times, deciding in a split second that the universe is presenting him an opportunity that he has begged for since he was a child and he would be a complete idiot to walk away from it.
He is vibrating with haste which is the exact opposite of how he normally functions on a day-to-day basis, never once having been given an opportunity to intervene with a precognition and he doesn't know what will happen if he does, but he has less than zero misgivings about doing it. He doesn't have enough time to make a plan but he can't continue to stand here and wait for answers, so when he paces off towards the door to the coffee shop he isn't surprised when his stomach stirs with illness and butterflies, his legs feeling like they will buckle and give out, his feet practically floating above the ground.
The closer he gets to you the more he feels like he is sinking into the depths of an ocean, the immense hydrostatic pressure crushing his bones and organs and if it weren't for the apple he ate on the train on the way here, he might have fainted and collapsed like a ton of bricks in the middle of the coffee shop floor as soon as he step foot inside of it.
His eyes stay superglued to your figure, your scarlet red coat that is much more luminous in waking life, your hair as soft as velvet and your skin so dewy and sunny it's almost as if there were a light inside of you that is constantly glowing and warming the people around you. Without ceasing his footsteps or his stare, he tugs a handful of napkins from the nearest canister, approaching into your personal space and then stopping dead in his tracks when you place your coffee down on the counter and notice his presence.
Your eyes dart to his feet first, your hair covering your face until you brush it away from your cheek so delicately it's as if you were moving in slow motion. Harry's hand trembles as it stays suspended in the air between your bodies, his fingertips curling and crumpling around the paper napkins in his grip. His gaze is trained on your face and when your sight travels up his body to memorize his clothing and lean structure before locking eyes with him, all of the blood drains from Harry's head and seeps into the floor below his feet, his vision going black for half a second before he miraculously refocuses on your features.
He can't speak, he can't move or breathe, he can't tell if his face is ghost white or fire red or sense what you must be feeling or thinking. He doesn't even have any hopes for the outcome of this interaction so instead he just waits for you to pick up the slack and be the divine, perfect, infallible siren that he's always imagined you to be.
Your cheeks sharpen with an alluring smile and it's as if someone had turned the dial up on the light that emanates from within you, your eyes not leaving his in a gesture of utmost regard and respect. You haven't the foggiest idea as to why a stranger has approached you to hand you napkins aside from the fact that he must have the sense that you are clumsy as all hell, or maybe he had extra ones that he felt bad about throwing away and wasting, or maybe this is his peculiar way of attempting smalltalk but either way you find it flawlessly endearing, "oh- thank you! For me?" You reach for them when he merely nods, his tongue leeching out to moisten his bottom lip as you turn to dig your fingers into the lid to begin to pry it off, "I'm sure I'll need them, I almost always-" but when you look up to address him once again, he's gone and the door is slamming shut upon his exit.
How are you guys? Enjoying everything so far?
Much love to you!
Xx Birdie
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