Gray Green

Alexander has eyes that look like smeared yellow glass. All day they stare at a blank computer screen while figures slip by his peripheral. Some chatter, some do not. Most are simply lost. His own thoughts are white noise.
Hours tick by with no movement, fixated on a screen blank and lifeless as his eyes. Alexander says he does not mind his job, and that he does what he should every day and can’t complain. But he can’t remember his own smile, and his yellow eyes gather more dust every day.
The sun falls and soon it is time to go home. Alexander does not speak to anyone when he leaves today. He is a machine even when he walks out the door. The sadness does not visit him until he is on the bus, far away from the blank screen.
His eyes melt from yellow to gray when he blinks. The window against his face is soothing and lets him feel again. He smiles at first, realizing his aliveness in a jolt, but soon the sadness rolls over him in a wave. A frown melts his face and lament gnaws at him, the guilt of having again stumbled through a day without feeling.
Had he functional tear ducts, they would weep, but long ago Alexander forgot the purpose of crying and did away with them in order to increase his productivity. Now as he sits on the bus, he marvels at the queer gaping hole festering in his ribcage, and vaguely wonders what used to be there.
People march on and off the bus with neutral faces and uncomfortable half-smiles. Alexander meets a pair of gray-green eyes. He nods. The eyes flicker. They are entrenched in a thin face covered with dirt.
“How are you this evening?” He asks.
The words are awkward and make him cringe. She shrugs, or maybe she has not moved at all.
“Same here.” He squawks. “Why are you covered in dirt?”
She glares.
“I-I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it in a-a-a bad way.”
He scratches his shoulder, if only to alleviate tension with movement. She keeps glaring. Alexander smiles weakly.
“Sorry.”
He puts his forehead back on the glass and pretends to doze. Color and light glimmer over his eyelids. Sunlight is warm and safe, but he cannot sleep with those eyes nearby. The bus reaches his stop. Alexander opens his eyes and Gray-Green is sitting beside him. He starts.
“Excuse me.” He slides past her. “H-have a good night.”
Her eyes burn the back of his head as he walks away.

Lena is on the phone when Alexander gets home. Her laugh fills the apartment and she twitters words that do not sound like English. She holds up a finger at him, and he lies down on the genuine leather couch.
Giggling forces him awake. She is almost done with the phone call, but whoever is on the other end does not seem to be taking the hint. Before they were married, Lena did not laugh like that. She did not care about leather furniture or Lily Pulitzer. She wore no makeup, and when she smiled her eyes sparkled. She was beautiful. Now she does not look human.
Lena hangs up the phone and sits by his feet.
“How was work?”
“Fine.” He mutters into cowhide.
“I just talked to Marilyn. The caterers said they were serving steak and at the last minute they switched to seafood! Can you stand it? So now she has to poll the guests and make sure they won’t die if they touch a squid or something!”
“That’s terrible.”
“That’s what I said! I mean, how can she be expected to put up with all of that when there’s a wedding to think of, and family to take care of, and all sorts of other-”
Alexander closes his eyes and sees cloudy gray green. When he wakes up the air smells like chicken. He stumbles into the dining room and there is one empty place set at the table. Lena is in the kitchen washing dishes. The water turns off and her footsteps go into the living room.
Another onset of that terrible quiet sadness rushes over him. Alexander walks into the kitchen, scoops roasted chicken onto a plate, and sits on the leather couch beside Lena.
“Honey, you know better than to eat that in here.”
Staring at the plate, he retreats into the dining room. The table is the best of its kind for entertaining company. It is less ideal for eating alone.
Alexander shovels chicken and greens into his mouth, and drops the plate into the kitchen sink. When he goes back into the living room, Lena is asleep. He sits next to her and watches her still face and soft breathing. His hand grazes her shoulder and he winces at the sadness.

Alexander does not see Gray-Green on the bus the next morning. The only people riding are men in bland suits and mass-produced ties, all bright and all the same. He puts his head to the glass and sighs as all the feeling empties out of him once again.
Work is nine more hours of life in a box with few floating faces feigning interest as they pass.
“How’s Leela doing?”
He does not remember their wives’ names either, so he smiles.
“Fine.”
Alexander turns his thoughts off and churns through another day of data and spreadsheets. The sun goes down again and he winces with the same quiet longing as before.

The winter sunset stretches across the bus window in pink melting to blue-lavender to blue-black. Stretches of cloud reach across, trying to go higher but never moving. He touches the glass.
“Hello.”
He starts and meets gray-green eyes. Less dirt is on her face, but it is smeared. She wears the same clothes as yesterday. Alexander is not sure his voice will work.
“Good evening.” It is still wooden and stilted.
His smile shakes, and to his terror he has absolutely nothing else to say. He puts his head to the glass.
“Where are you going?” She asks.
“Home.”
She kicks the seat in front of them. Twice.
“And where are you going?”
“Home.”
“Ah.”
A man in a suit turns and glares at her. She kicks his seat again.
“What’s home like?” She asks.
“Um, well, it-it could be better. But I suppose it’s fine.”
“Fine.” She kicks again, harder. “Fine.”
Alexander coughs, not knowing what else to do. The bus stops.
“I’ve gotta run.” He says.
She kicks the seat and glares at him. “Fine.”

Fire is in his veins when Alexander gets home. Lena is not there. He goes into the kitchen and opens the refrigerator. There is a Styrofoam box with a Post-It Note, a Sharpie heart.
Alexander does not know what the fire means, but for some reason it is building and he wants to hurt someone. He realizes this is anger, and is again exhilarated and saddened to know his own aliveness.
Lena opens the door and coos, “Helloooooo!”
“Hi, Honey.” His voice is mechanical. “Where were you?”
“Oh, Claire needed help organizing things for the rehearsal dinner, so I thought I’d help.” She kisses him, quick and meaningless. “The centerpieces are going to be gorgeous! They’re shooting for holly and red Cartier crystals, since it’s a winter wedding. It is going to be so-”
Alexander is standing with his eyes open, but he is sleeping.

“Are you alright, honey?” Lena asks while getting ready for bed. “Lately you seem quiet.”
“I’m as fine as I have ever been.”
“Well, you would tell me if something was wrong, right?”
“Of course, dear, of course.”
Alexander wrings his hands on the sheets. The fire has worsened throughout the night. Dinner was silent until the phone rang and Lena chattered for an hour. He ate and sat in front of televised gibberish until she yelled at him for putting his feet on the couch. Then he said he was going to bed.
Lena steps into the door frame, brushing her teeth.
“You sure you’re okay?”
She wears sweatpants, a white camisole, and no make-up, and is beautiful again. Alexander chokes on his own saliva.
“I’m..I’m I’m fine.”
His wife ducks into the bathroom to spit.
“Are you sure?”
He is up now and reaching for her. His wife is warm and clean, and tastes like mint. She giggles.
“I guess you are fine.”
He digs his hands into her hair, blonde and soft if falsely colored, and tastes her skin, lips, cheek and neck. Life pulses and he pulls her closer, wanting to devour every inch of her until her warmth and smell encapsulate him completely.
“We need to be up for work in the morning.” She moans.
“No…” He squeezes her arms, certain he is bruising her. “For God’s sake…”
She breaks from his grasp and disappears into the bathroom again and it is so cold, so lifelessly cold, once more. Alexander buries his face into a pillow to muffle his roaring.

The fire does not go out, not during the night, not during morning coffee, not as he sits on the bus and stares at the gray curdling seat in front of him. He bites his tongue until it bleeds and digs his fingernails into his seat.
“How’s it going, Al!” A hand smacks him on the shoulder.
“GREAT!” He roars, catches himself, and smiles meekly. “..great.”
“Glad to hear it! And Lisa’s doing well?”
“Lisa’s fu…” He clenches his teeth. “Fannnnntastic.”
The bus lurches forward.
“Woop!” The man stumbles. “Mind if I sit with you, Al?”
He sits before he can say no. The bus stops and he is followed into work. His friend chatters all the way to the cubicle.
“Tell your wife I said hello!”
Alexander stares. “I will.”
The fire grows.

Nine hours usually spent in gray daze are the span of a year when human feeling becomes involved. Alexander cannot focus on the computer screen. His eyes grow closer to red than yellow because the fire that will not die is licking at them.
It is an hour before anyone notices he has not moved.
“Hey, Al. Y’okay there, sporto?”
The fire has seeped completely into his eyes now and made even his vision red.
“Al? Hey! Al?”
“Tell Alice I am taking my lunch break.”
Alexander has not taken a lunch break in five years. Eating decreases productivity.
“O-okay, Al. I’ll tell her.”

The wind is bitterly cold, especially when one stands still in it. Alexander has no cigarettes, thus cannot look stylishly jaded like everyone else around him. They sneak side glances at him and expel smoke into the air. It wisps and curls and embodies all that is acceptably rebellious.
The fire grows.
Alexander does not know whether he wants a cigarette or to smash them all in their faces. He kicks the ground, and his foot hurts. Someone muffles a laugh. His face grows hot.
“So this is how we’re supposed to spend a day,” He kicks again, “Silent and cold or silent and stagnant.”
No one says anything.
The fire bubbles out of his mouth in inane laughter. He clenches his jaw to stop it.
“Are you okay, Al?”
“My name,” He twitches, “is Alexander.”

Alexander does not come back from his lunch break. Instead he sits on the bus while it circles the same box-buildings and bland faces three times over. The fiery sun sets over the skyline of boxes, and shoots color and light across the sky. The sight of it makes his own fire liquefy into tears that sting his already bloodshot eyes. Freedom, that most beautiful and fleeting of ideas, is his, for however briefly.
Gray-Green smiles when she sits down. She is missing a few teeth, but it is the first genuine human action he has seen all day.
“How are you?”
He tries to smile.
“I. Am. Dying.”
Hearing himself say it makes the fire pour out of his eyes. Gray-Green’s face falls.
“I’m sorry.”
He laughs in quiet mania.
“What’s killing you?”
If he could stop laughing he would tell her, stop laughing and crying and shaking and scaring the only one who will listen.
“Life. Life is killing me.”
He explodes again into laughter. It is a crazed, awful, hilarious thought. Life is killing you. And itself.
Gray-Green touches his back “You just missed your stop.”
He laughs harder.
“Where’s yours?”
She pulls her hand away. “I don’t have one.”
Gray-Green looks down and wrings her hands. Her hair is a dirty ponytail tumbling over her shoulder.
“I’m sorry.” He says. “I never know what to say.”
She kicks the seat in front of her.
“I don’t either. But I guess I don’t really have to talk that much.”
“Me neither.”
He could say so much more, so many awkward conversation attempts that would probably misfire and offend and fall and splatter on the ground. Instead Alexander watches shadows stretch across his hands, and hopes she doesn’t go away.
“It was cold today.” She says.
“I know.”
She kicks the seat and stares out the window. Dying sunlight hits half of her face. One gray-green eye is illuminated.
“I’m sorry you’re dying.”
“Me too.”
The bus stops.
“I’m gonna get off now. Cheer up buttercup.” She puts a finger on his nose. “Beeeeeep!”
Alexander blinks after she is gone, and his nose tingles. He pulls the stop wire and stumbles off into a surging crowd of strangers on the sidewalk. Without thinking, he shoves and scours. Some glare, some yelp, most ignore. They have hidden Gray-Green with their dull, dark faces.
He finds her crouched in a doorway, threads of a sweater clinging to her knees. She looks at her feet, even when he is inches away. Her lips taste like dust, but they are warm and real. Alexander is a child shaking as he touches her cheeks, smeared with dirt but still soft. Possible accusations fire through his head. Rapist. Child Molester. Demon. None can stop him when tiny fingers crawl across his face.
Her body is a cold wire, but it is hers, not altered or enhanced, alive. He throws his jacket around her and presses her to him, rubs her arms and whispers, “Stop shaking.”
The sun has gone down and Alexander can see his breath in the lamplight. There is never an indictment. Passing eyes barely even fall on them. Soon the surging crowd thins and the stars appear. Alexander counts them and strokes Gray-Green’s hair. His trouser pocket vibrates and he pulls out a cell phone.
Lena.