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Justine’s small hands arranged her light brown hair while her eyes scanned her reflection for flaws. Ironed into unflattering smoothness, her clothing hung limply over the delicate curves of her body. Her pale skin looked bleak from a lack of sleep; it reflected the lovers in last night’s movie, small bodies being ripped apart and at once thrown back together by the cruel forces of human nature. Eventually she allowed her hands to fall to her side with defeat, accepting that her curls would not fall as she wished, grimly acknowledging her reflection; the small, powerless body, hung with long, loose curls and indistinctive, ill-fitting clothing, all of it was indeed hers. Her eyes detached from this image as she left her apartment, leaving it in a state of disarray, movies strewn on the floor and a half-eaten bowl of stale popcorn left on the coffee table.
Outside the door to her apartment, there was an entire hallway full of identical doorways, evidence that there were other people in this seemingly empty place. Justine watched newspapers disappear from these doorsteps (some decorated with dismal welcome mats and others left as empty as the beige carpeting implied all was in this building.) She walked, clumsily buttoning her plain black coat and trying to tame a rebellious hair, past these reminders of the existence of a world outside of her frail body when a man walked past her.
The stranger grabbed Justine’s attention, and as he walked slowly down the hall, she soaked in the details of his body and its fluid movements. Black pants and a starched white shirt that was undone at the top button, revealing his long pale neck, covered his long limbs that moved lightly under her stare. Sensing her eyes on his back, he turned around and looked at her momentarily, showing her his bright, black eyes and his calm face. His lips formed a lazy smile, spreading across his white teeth and resting on the sharp dimples of his checks, only to slowly relax as he turned his head forward once again. With grace he walked out of Justine’s sight as his hands ran through his thick and slightly overgrown dark-brown hair.
While she worked that day, her mind wandered back to the image of the man in the hallway. She saw his movements in the papers on her desk as they swayed slightly under her paperweight with the breeze caused by the traffic in the walkway between two rows of cubicles. She imagined him walking through the rows of crowed, small, identical gray cubicles, his beautiful body and movements completely out of place in this office’s bleak setting. He was not the kind of person who she saw here often. Mostly there were whitewashed men in gray who brought her papers to copy, file, or complete. There also were the occasional employees who had not yet given up the fight against the dreary atmosphere after moving up from their local branch to the corporate offices. They had yet to be disillusioned by the sudden change of objective the move up in their career had brought; instead of handing out loans for people to buy their first houses with, they now took the homes back when the payments ceased. Instead of heroes, they were greedy and cruel, as dictated by new job descriptions. Justine could feel from her first glance at the man in the hallway that he was not from this world.
She mindlessly made copies and entered data as this vision of a man walked aimlessly in and out of her cubicle, eventually stopping behind her, clumsily and gently placing his hand on her shoulder as she jumped slightly by the surprise that he had materialized into a solid human being.
“Justine?” She turned away from her computer’s screen, which was crowded with spreadsheets and numbers that meant nothing to her, to see a humbly attractive and honest face furrowed into a look of concern. “Are you okay?”
“Oh, I’m fine, David. You just surprised me. What do you want?”
“I need two copies of the Greer file. They are waiting in my office.” David’s eyes searched Justine for some hidden source of her calm demeanor as he always did when he looked into her slight face. He was usually distracted from his search by the understated movements of her lips that were always impeccably covered with almost unnoticeable pink lipstick or by the soft sent that lingered in the air around her. He realized now that his hand still rested on her small shoulder and that increased his urge to touch her face or to sweep a stray curl out of the way of her green eyes. He moved his hand reluctantly, laughing it off nervously.
“Okay, I’ll bring them right over.”
“Great. And, um, Friday at seven, right?”
“Yeah,” Justine mumbled as she turned around again, re-emerging herself into her world of numbers and unnamed entities that walked uninvited in and out of her cubicle not making a sound.
Time crept by more slowly than Justine would have liked it to as she filled her days with movies and numbers. She walked through the halls of her apartment building slower now, hoping to see the beautiful stranger again. She put more effort into her appearance than ever, killing the will of the disobedient strands of hair by choking them with hair products and unceasing brushing. But the workweek went by without another sight of the man; although every time something moved in her peripheral vision, she imagined it was him, moving slowly towards her, about to introduce himself. She began knowing this creature that loomed forever out of sight. She could feel somehow that he knew what it was like to be her, and she could only imagine this awareness running through his veins when he would one day finally approach her, as she knew that he was destined to do. He was no longer a stranger but a familiar presence in her life whom she had not yet had the pleasure of meeting.
As she walked to her apartment that Friday with her mail in her hands after work, she finally saw him again. Riffling through her mail, she pretended not to watch him unlock the door directly across the hall from her own, acting as if she was engrossed in the small pile of bills and junk mail that lay in her hand while she watched out of the corner of her eye as he opened his door. She glanced upward and found herself unable to look away. His apartment overflowed with a melodic, joyful song, and it was filled with bright furniture. On his couch sat a well-groomed blonde who looked at home, absently reading a book which she quickly tossed from her lap as she jumped up to greet him.
“Michael,” the blonde chirruped as the door shut, leaving Justine absently staring at blank pine as her hand limply held her mail and her purse. She turned and unlocked her door, muttering to herself, “Michael. His name is Michael.” She went inside and absently dressed for her date with David, the name never allowing silence for long.
When she had finished, she found herself impeccably dressed, her hair and clothes formed in the likeness of Michael’s expectant blonde, sitting quietly across from David at dinner. He had prepared their orders ahead of time, carefully trying to find the perfect balance between a meal that would both please her taste buds and impress her. Her mind was still wandering the halls with Michael, boldly touching his hand and looking directly into his eyes without shying away. She ate her food quietly while David watched her in expectant awe, asking her concerned questions, trying to get beneath her surface.
They walked the few blocks back to her apartment after the dinner was finished, both sufficiently full and blissful, Justine heavy with thoughts of Michael, and David, swelling with his admiration for Justine. When he looked at her, he was overwhelmed by her quiet and her calm. He even felt a hint of a deeper person underneath in her eyes, in the sparkling green that always felt far away and dreamy despite his many attempts to catch them with his earnest brown eyes.
Outside her door Justine overwhelmed David’s polite, timid demeanor when finally the events occurring inside her head made their way out. He wasn’t aware that the person underneath the curls and the scent that he had recreated in his mind so many times before at night, longing to see her just one more time to make sure the details were right before he fell asleep, was franticly embracing a man that she had begun to love in her mind, and he was simply standing in the spot Michael was supposed to be in. Her lips that lingered softly on his lips and her small, powerless arms that wrapped around him, spreading comfort, confirmed his lingering suspicions about her; as she led him hastily into her apartment, he was convinced that he had, after so many attempts at forcing small talk that would reveal her soul to him and his carefully laid plans of infiltrating her life, found the humanity of Justine in her sudden affection. When the door shut behind them, their faces momentarily detached, and their eyes met for the first time that night. Justine’s eyes were intensely superimposing thick dark hair, pale skin, and intelligent black eyes over David’s anonymously attractive features, but David mistook her look for one of passion and love. She lead him to her bedroom, and inside those blank four walls, on the bed she purchased at a warehouse furniture store, he allowed her to mould his image with her hands and mind while from his strange vantage point he watched what was in her heart the first intimate embraces between Justine and her deity.
David left early in the morning, full of tired recollections of the beauty of Justine’s quiet smile, her deep fixed gaze, and the geography of her body. When Justine woke a few hours later she once again carefully dressed, recreating herself in the image of all things that she knew that Michael would adore. She patiently smoothed her hair into perfection and adorned herself with sharp black and blindingly bright white, breaking away from her wardrobe of faded staples, dressing to sparkle through the hallways, sure to hold her head upright and look directly into the eyes of Michael. When she left her small apartment, the few rooms that contained her solid, bland furniture and her silence, a ring came from deep within her purse. As she searched for her phone, she heard the noise of a door on the other side of the hall opening. She glanced up to see Michael again, this time his eyes focused on her face, and she hunched over her large purse, searching to silence the abrasive noise of the phone. She found the phone and saw the number that blinked on its neon face; it was David, probably calling to ask her questions in his overly cautious voice about the night before and what it meant about their emerging relationship. She peered at Michael through curls that had already found their way out free, admiring all the things about him that had been embedded into her mind and all the things that out-shown her image of him, and she pressed the silence button. She drew her head up, eager for her first opportunity to approach him. Instead of seeing his face waiting for her as expectantly as hers was, she saw him turning away from her once more, this time with a scowl scarring his previously lighthearted face. His door shut abruptly on her as she stood with her mouth gaping, the word that had been at the very tip of her tongue now falling off with no more resistance.
“Hello,” she mumbled with disappointment.
Her image of Michael instantly dissolved in the face of his scowl. It was David, not Michael, who had held her the night before, so affectionately and carefully. He was the man that walked into her cubicle and carefully touched her shoulder, the man who spoke to her gently with a voice full of concern, and the man whose phone calls she ignored and whose face she tired to turn into the face of a vision of perfection. For the first time Justine tried to recreate David in her mind as she had recreated Michael so often, but she failed to do so, the face she juxtaposed with his prevailing in each memory. She could remember, however, the warmth with which he looked at her, the warmth she attributed to Michael. She also vaguely remembered the sensation of his kindness and some sort of love that crept over her the night before in the shape of his cautious hands.
Justine walked back inside the apartment, and stared at its dingy white walls and her solid, plain furniture; it revealed nothing about her, it being simply a container that fit its function. The movies were still scattered and she tried to remember the faces and names of the characters, but they came up just as blank as her surroundings.
Hello,” she mumbled with disappointment. Her phone rang again. This time she answered it.
“I’m outside your apartment and I just wanted to see you again this morning. Can I give you a ride to work?”
“Um, yeah, of course, that’s fine,” she stumbled over her words as the vision of Michael dissolved from her mind, leaving only this empty hallway and David’s comforting voice, the one that spoke to her with such control and care. She walked slowly down the stairs and out the apartment complex, trying to recreate David in her mind as she had recreated Michael so often, but she failed to do so, the face she juxtaposed with his prevailing in each memory. She could remember the warmth with which he looked at her, the warmth she attributed to Michael. She also vaguely remembered the sensation of his kindness and some sort of love that crept over her the night before in the shape of his reluctant hands.
She passed a familiar lanky body on the stairs on her way out. He was holding on tightly to the blonde woman who had sat on his couch a few days before, the woman who had shaped what Justine believed that she would have to become in order to win his affections. Her voice was harsh and unforgiving as it scolded him.
“Why can’t you understand and just listen?”
Justine passed the quarreling couple and shut the door to the stairwell behind her, cutting off Michael’s unexpectedly high pitched and desperate voice.
“I try, but you-”
“Goodbye,” she whispered to her former deity.
Justine got into his small gray car, the disappointment plain on her face. She imagined telling him the story of Michael, finally arriving on that morning’s events and sharing her realization of the impossibility of dreams and her readiness for her reality in David’s life. He was, after all, the man that walked into her cubicle and carefully touched her shoulder, the man who spoke to her gently with a voice full of concern, and the man whose phone calls she ignored and face she’d tried to turn into the face of a vision of perfection that hardly even existed.
“What’s wrong?” His voice still contained its characteristic concerned quality.
“Nothing. Could you stop right here?”
“Why?”
“I don’t know… I just can’t work today; I think I’m going to call in sick.”
Justine quickly escaped his car stood stunned on the side of the road for a moment. Her sharp clothes felt stiff and uncomfortable, cutting into her slight figure and exaggerating her little curves to an almost ridiculous degree. He pulled her car door shut behind her and drove off slowly, looking in his rear-view mirror for any sign that her mind had changed. The road was empty and long with nothing but hotels and fast food on all sides of her. She slowly took stock of her life as she walked to the nearest motel to call for a taxi. She imagined her apartment, its dingy, white walls and her solid, plain furniture; the apartment revealed nothing about her at all. It was simply a container that fit its function. The movies were still scattered on her floor and she tried to remember the faces and names of the characters, but they came up as empty as the highway she was walking away from.
She imagined taking a taxi to work and collapsing inside her world of numbers again. Now when the papers on her desk swayed Michael’s movements would no longer come to mind, just the familiar sight of his door shutting on her, expectant and emptier than ever. She would be blown through the rows of cubicles, like a dead flower being pushed by the wind, stiffly and powerlessly trying to drag her feet and protest the death of the gray light and the glow of her computer’s screen, and perpetually unable to do so.
She instead checked into the hotel, forgetting her original objective, and lay down defeated on a bed that was haunted by a thousand of nights like last night, a thousand bodies that faked strength and love in the very spot where she lay. She drifted into sleep, thinking that at least now she knew that she was nothing more than one of a faceless group of millions of vacant people, and no beautiful strangers could save her from her own empty life. David, she was sure, would be fine.
Angelicue Chan · Sun Apr 29, 2007 @ 09:08am · 0 Comments |
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