It was just Claire, myself and the boss in the office, which was strange, but very comforting. The big office space, that had been made to muffle the sound of several dozen people typing and walking, was now occupied by just three, and the large room just made the silence even more striking.
Most of the day was just analysing some of the data over the festive period, writing simple commands to ease our lives and then yelling at the computer when it didn’t understand us. For a six-hour day, it was tedious, but I wasn’t exactly at the top of my capacity to do anything more than tedium. And, besides, I would be paid the equivalent of twelve, because he really wanted the report by Monday.
Monday rolled around, and I showed up to work early, appearing incredibly prescient when they started showing up and giving me stick. If I had showed up after them, they would’ve all gone at me toghether and I likely would’ve crumbled. I wasn’t prescient, though, despite it sounding like a useful tool to have. I’d just wanted some of that addictive silence that I’d had for the entirety of a day.
The rest of our little group had had the rest of the week off, and while I’d spent the rest of it holed up at my place, alleviating the headache and getting better and better at playing the guitar, they’d spent it having another night of drinks, without me this time, trying to catch any desperate lads for a night that I’d denied them.
The girls gave out at me, calling me a bitch, a hag, a nun, a nutter, and anything else one might think of to scorn a young woman. And, one by one, I listened to them, telling them that I didn’t remember what I’d done that night, and that they didn’t have to ask me out again if they didn’t feel I fit their model of having fun. More time to practice guitar, I thought.
Still, they all expressed a wish to stay on good terms, at least during work hours, and I duly complied, staying for a little unpaid time after work, sharing the latest gossip, trying my best not to peek into their heads out of nothing but a self-made idea of respect. Poking into someone’s emotions was an invasive act, after all, and I didn’t want to be rude.
After the unadulterated chaos that my previous three months were, it was nice to finally have a routine again. Work, socialisation, the commute, guitar, books and dreaming of Aaron five days a week. It felt great, and my appearance quickly started to reflect that, with me almost resembling the summer version of myself.
Sadly, that routine could only last a week and change, as the 17th rolled around, and it was time for a reckoning. The first coordinated attempt to find Aaron. I went over to the Alexanders first thing in the morning, and after a little socialisation, I told Colin everything about the breakdown on Christmas Eve, and any new information I had on the emotion-hearing, which he’d named synesthetic empathy.
“Why the fancy name, doctor?” I said.
“Helps the colleagues appreciate it,” he said, completely deadpan, as he said everything else, other than his passionate rant about the lack of support the system was giving him.
“It’s nearly time,” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “Are you nervous?”
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t,” I said. “Distracting myself helps. That said, are you hiding something?”
“What do you mean?” he said.
“Has something changed about your life? You seem very, how do I put this, forlorn,” I said.
“No, of course not, why would you think that?” he said.
Suddenly, he broke out of his shell, and there it was. Anxiety, clear as daylight, and Laura, having heard it, chipped in with more anxiety, as if neither of them wanted the real answer to come to light. He really was hiding something. “Liar.”
“How do you know?” he said.
“How I know everything. I listen to people,” I said.
“No time now. I’ll tell you after the fact,” he said.
“I can live with that,” I said with a smile. “Shall we, then?”
“Yes, if you would,” he said, and left me to prepare with Laura. I again stripped down, and laid down on their makeshift table, shivering ever so slightly in the cold air which they seemed to forget to heat.
“Whenever you’re ready,” Laura said.
“Just go,” I said, and Laura immediately complied, sending me under to wake up in the subconscious space.
I shouted out for anyone, but no-one was there. Staving off the initial feel of disappointment, remembering that I still had an hour to find him, I again turned to music to pass the time until anyone came around.
The leading instrument was again the guitar, but this time, it was on a whole different level to what I’d ever heard from my subconscious before. Whereas before, it was a single guitar, playing its tune to create music out of nothing, this time there were many.
One guitar started, and another meshed with it in perfect counterpoint, before two more added a bass line to carry the composition throughout. They led and followed almost instinctively, as if they’d done this so many times in their lives. And, for the first time, I felt myself aching to move my fingers in such a way to create such music. I was invading the subconscious realm, and in it, I saw the soul of music.
At the end of their concert, the guitars ended with four chords in perfect harmony, and I felt myself wanting to cry. All of that was hidden in my head for so long, and it just needed to be opened somehow. I didn’t know why it took repeated visits to the subconscious to open it, but here I was, engulfed in the last chords still reverberating in my mind, hearing what I could’ve been, and what I still could be.
As the lump of my own emotion grew more and more, someone else appeared beside me, and I suddenly felt warmth and familiarity. “That was beautiful,” they said.
