Chapter Text
The sun rises in the sky.
A new day, a new tomorrow.
Was life always this monotonous? Just an endless symphony of grey clouds. It is easy to lose track of time when things are like this. It is hard to even tell when it began. One day gray took over and that was it.
You look the same, perhaps a little sharper around the edges. Shapes distort when you look at the mirror. No one has seemed to notice it though—you swear your reflection makes fun of you if you stare at it for too long.
Your bedroom’s walls stare back at you. Long and bored. Exactly how you feel.
You miss the spark, but fail to remember its shape, the warmth of its flame opaqued by the nothingness drawing at your soul—you wish you could at least remember it. It feels so unfair. So tiring. But is it even there?
You pull your laptop open. Perhaps another episode…
It’s been a few days since you started this tv show. You needed something—something you could bear.
Tv shows have always been that reprieve. That light in the storm—though perhaps is harder to reach now—guiding you towards where you can breathe again, to where you can rasp for air that burns in your lungs hard and cold enough to be felt.
You press “Play”. Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries begins to play. You can feel the effect almost immediately if you focus. The way your muscles relax and un-tense, how your breathing elongates and resumes.
The world blurs at its edges with every minute. It is easy to get lost in the screen—it always has been, it is your own very gift—to feel like you’re a part of it and not in the outfit you prepared to feel a little better at college.
You chuckle—like a blue frilly skirt can wash away the moths flying over your head or the rush of blood in your veins every time the world compresses around you.
You shouldn’t think like this.
The episode has already started, someone is dead by now, things have gone missing.
The set up is perfect, you can feel the rush of a good episode.
The world fades out a little more.
It is a funny thing how you can almost feel the case of your laptop disappear.
The streets look more real in this episode—not that they usually don’t, but they feel closer—it is easier to appreciate the details in the buildings, the ends where the paint hasn’t quite covered every bump and hole.
It must be cold there. Miss Fisher always has her coats so you suppose it doesn’t bother her much—you’re not sure it would be the same for you, your bed is full of fluffy blankets to keep your limbs going numb like most of the time.
Actually… even thinking about it you can feel yourself grow colder. Silly.
BEEP!!! BEE-EEEP!
You throw yourself back on pure instinct just when a car screeches past the place you were a second ago—WHAT?
No.
You were lying down on your bed.
Goosebumps grow on your skin, Your burgundy lace top doing little against the wind.
Another car honks and you take another step back onto the sidewalk.
Everything looks darker than usual, your neighborhood usually has more lights than this.
But no, you cannot be outside either. You were in your bed, remember?
Wake up. This isn’t possible.
This only happens to people in movies—they’re either drunk and moved without remembering. And you don’t drink much cause it makes you sick, or… well, they switched universes or something, which you’re not gullible enough to actually believe.
So, something else must have happened that you’re not aware of right now.
Was that a freaking fedora hat?
Uh—alright, think—scientific method.
Ha! if you were drunk could you do that? That's a reasonable thought.
Chill seeps through your feet. You frown, the asphalt is cold and humid. Your sloth stamped socks are certainly a contrast, you could almost laugh—almost.
“And here I thought I was the one doing all of the entrances” the voice is melodic and warm.
It almost sounds… But that can’t be.
You turn around on your tiptoes, the breeze plays with your hair as you do so.
It’s funny how some moments seem to elongate in time, marking a before and after.
Her eyes are already on you, green and magnetic, catching you like honey to the fly.