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this is where I leave you
Dec. 31st, 2016 12:04 amThree months and change, and there are times — days, moments — where Therese manages not to think about her at all. Never mind the fact that she could give a precise figure to say just how long it's been, or that it was those photographs, the ones taken mostly of Carol, that got her this job in the first place. At least the job keeps her busy, and maybe it isn't exactly glamorous work, but it's still the Times, a foot in the door, so to speak, the best way for someone like her to get started and maybe, just maybe, have a career doing this one day. She'd said once, before Christmas but what feels like half a lifetime ago, that she would want to if she had any talent for it. She thinks now that she does, and that it isn't just a matter of the subject on the other side of the camera making her photographs look good. Even if that's all she gets out of working here, she thinks it will have been worth it. Nothing's been right since just after New Year's, and yet she feels different in ways that aren't all bad. Maybe it took all of that for her to learn something. Use what's right, throw away the rest — finally, for once, she knows what that means and how to act on it. The life she's been building for herself seems to stand as proof of that.
Today's meeting is one like any other, the photo editors all talking amongst themselves and sharing their work while she stands off to the side taking notes. It's something. It's enough, so much so that she hasn't even noticed the door open before her name is being called, the man standing there with an envelope in his hand that's evidently for her. Crossing the smoke-filled room towards the doorway, curious but impassive, she holds out her hand for it —
Only then, in all of an instant, the man is gone, the envelope, too, her hand meeting only air and her expression quickly shifting into one of concern, barely restrained fear. This is impossible. It should be impossible, unless she's utterly lost her mind, something that seems surprisingly likely when she glances over her shoulder and finds that the office and its inhabitants are gone, too, even if that should have spoken for itself with the sudden lack of noise. There are people, but they're outside, the doorway she's in evidently one of some sort of store, and she's at once not dressed for the weather, her arms wrapping around herself in an attempt to combat a chill in the air far stronger than mid-April should call for.
She should say something. She should turn around, walk a few paces, find a way to determine whether or not this is all just some bizarre hallucination. Maybe she'll wake up at any moment, having fallen unconscious on the floor of the Times's office. Instead, at once, seeing a man with a dog passing by, she steps towards him, summoning up a confidence that she doesn't quite feel. "Excuse me," she says, clear, if slightly apologetic. "I think I might be lost. Would you mind giving me directions?" It's a start, at least. Under the circumstances, that's about all she can hope for.
Today's meeting is one like any other, the photo editors all talking amongst themselves and sharing their work while she stands off to the side taking notes. It's something. It's enough, so much so that she hasn't even noticed the door open before her name is being called, the man standing there with an envelope in his hand that's evidently for her. Crossing the smoke-filled room towards the doorway, curious but impassive, she holds out her hand for it —
Only then, in all of an instant, the man is gone, the envelope, too, her hand meeting only air and her expression quickly shifting into one of concern, barely restrained fear. This is impossible. It should be impossible, unless she's utterly lost her mind, something that seems surprisingly likely when she glances over her shoulder and finds that the office and its inhabitants are gone, too, even if that should have spoken for itself with the sudden lack of noise. There are people, but they're outside, the doorway she's in evidently one of some sort of store, and she's at once not dressed for the weather, her arms wrapping around herself in an attempt to combat a chill in the air far stronger than mid-April should call for.
She should say something. She should turn around, walk a few paces, find a way to determine whether or not this is all just some bizarre hallucination. Maybe she'll wake up at any moment, having fallen unconscious on the floor of the Times's office. Instead, at once, seeing a man with a dog passing by, she steps towards him, summoning up a confidence that she doesn't quite feel. "Excuse me," she says, clear, if slightly apologetic. "I think I might be lost. Would you mind giving me directions?" It's a start, at least. Under the circumstances, that's about all she can hope for.
