Recovery

Lunch was just being served when she got back down.

She'd taken the morning ferry, which arrived shortly before noon. If there had been an earlier trip she would have taken it. She had woken up at four that morning, way too early, but she was just amazed that she had slept at all.

She settled down at a corner table with her buffet plate and tried to make herself invisible.

The past few weeks the days just kept getting longer, and slower. Minutes stretched and the work required to live the next few seconds became almost unbearable.

The last few days she felt as if ants were crawling inside her head. She spent the nights frozen in the dark, staring at nothing, living in the images inside her head.

Her little wonderworld.

One story, two story, five. Every night she tried to breathe life to people she'd never met, and walk in places she'd never seen, in an ironic attempt to keep herself sane.

Sane enough to get up the following day, to shower and dress and eat, to ride the metro to work and sit down in front of her office terminal to do her job.

The same fucking thing every damn day.

And each morning, as she switched on her computer, she could hear a voice scream inside her head. Of fear, frustration, and most probably indignation.

Funny that the voice sounded faintly like her.