Grey

My life worked like a clock. Everyday, every week, every month went the exact same way, no surprises. I would just move from one task to another like the hands would move from hours to minutes. The mundanity of my life had gone on for so long I no longer questioned it. Its acceptance happened slowly, but surely I leaned into it, accepted it, and continued to live it until one day I wouldn't wake up at 4:43am.

Quiet is never as loud as it is at 4:43 am. The whole world is asleep and the only ones awake are me and Juki. Climbing out my window onto the fire escape and see the once white cat now a dingy grey sitting by it’s bowl. I fill the metal bowl and light my cigarette and listen. Not even a car engine, or the rumbling of a cat in a dumpster could be heard. At first the silence astounded me. Now I just accept the busy city turns on seemingly by flipping a switch.

The last train car everyday is where I enter and sit in the same seat every day. Like clockwork I look up, and across from me is the same fire alarm red face that always sits across from me ruffling through his newspaper never looking up at me. Everyday we coexist on our commute, yet we never make eye contact.

Walking through the crystal clear glass door I pass the security guard with his head back and magazine over his face. Throughout my vast time here his face is always under a magazine and his sleep schedule has never adjusted to his working hours.

The door to the lab is always locked. All the samples I have to examine are waiting for me. Labels forward everything meticulously organised. By whom? I used to wonder, but since I work in this lab alone, I had no one to ask.

After I examine all the samples I am free to leave. Rush hour has passed and the streets are left empty. I step on the last train car to see no one. It’s only 8pm. Where could everyone be? I used to think. Now I just quietly exist.

The traffic light cues the cars to stop and they all heed, but their window tints are too dark to see who is obeying. The towering skyscrapers have some of their windows glowing while others are pitch black, they look like giant honey combs in the night sky. The apartments with their windows a glow hint at life, but the drawn curtains stop its confirmation.

I live on the 8th floor of a building with no elevator, as I leave a floor to walk to the next I can always hear a door shut behind me. As if someone peers out and slams the door in dismissal. When I get home I lay in bed and wait. The phone doesn't ring, no one comes knocking and as I lay and wait for life to show itself to me, I look at the time and like a cold hand on the back of a warm neck the clock says 4:43 am.

Sunday is the only day of the week I don't have to be at the lab. The supermarket is always on the empty side, as I walk down the isles everyone is so engrossed with their shopping ,reading labels, consulting lists that no one looks up at me. I would go home after and look in the mirror, the blue eyes with the thick black hair that would fall over my forehead would look back at me. I wasn't unpleasant looking, so why would no one look at me?

I spent the rest of my day sitting on my fire escape smoking cigarettes looking for people. They never reveal themselves.

I opened my eyes, lit a cigarette, and went to Jukis bowl. Juki was not there. Juki was the only thing with a pulse that acknowledged me, the absence alarmed me. I placed food in the bowl and continued to smoke and wait.

As I watched the fire alarm red face expressionlessly read the paper, All I could do was think about Juki. My thoughts had become dark and I began to worry something bad happened. before I knew it my brain began racing and I loudly blurted out ” MY CATS GONE!”

The entire car went on undisturbed, red face did not look up, he did not flinch. The loss of control had left me anxious. Rushing to work I passed the snoring security guard and headed straight into the lab, and slammed the door behind me.

When I went into the fridge all the plastic containers were there, all in order, labels forward and organised by time of extraction, but sitting on top was a small black notebook with a pen stuck in the middle of it. I looked curiously at it, in the cold fridge. I didn't want to touch it because I didn't know who it belonged to. I would have to move it to get the samples out.

I stepped back for a moment, and observed it. I began looking around the lab to see if there were any other inconsistencies, but no. Just the black notebook. I could no longer wait. I picked up the note book and placed it on the table near the door, in case its owner returned it would be there by the entrance waiting for them.

Only 10% of my attention was on my work and the rest on that notebook. Hoping someone would come to claim it, even just to see the door open a crack and a hand reach in to grab it would have satisfied me.

As I finished my work and arranged my workplace the way I found it and the way I left it. I decided to leave the notebook on the table and go home. As the door just about closed behind me I stopped it. I went back inside and picked up the black notebook and opened it to the page the pen was stuck in.

“ Looking around this lab,I can see it is always the same person who uses it, and is just as regimented as me. All the equipment is placed exactly the same way everyday, almost as if nothing has been moved in years.I will leave and pass the sleeping guard, and get home to find the only eyes that have met mine today are my own when they look back at me in the mirror.”

A part of me doubted this could be real, another life form to confirm a phenomenon that has plagued me? I tore a page out of the book and wrote

“ I have found your notebook, can we arrange a time and place to have it returned to you?”

I looked it over and tore it up and threw it in the trash.I would wait. All night if I had to.I will wait for this person to arrive. After closing the door and locking it, I looked out the window and waited.

When my eyes opened at 4:43 am, the notebook was still there, no one had entered the lab.I turned on the faucet to wash my face and began thinking about Juki, When I heard the key in the door. Quickly drying my face I turned to the door. My eyes were met with two brown eyes staring intently back at me.

“ How are you?” . The first question I had asked in years.