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The Lonely Man

It wasn't really that cold but people rushing along the street were huddling into their coats as they huddled into their lives. Not one of them could tell you what the person they just passed was wearing much less what they looked like. They certainly didn't notice the man standing alone, not moving, and staring up at the building across the street. The building wasn't really anything worth noting, at least not to anyone on that street on that night.

It hadn't always been that way, the building had been new once and people had noticed it once. It soared into the sky as if a comet was tracing a reverse path from ground to sky. Stainless steel and glass - its line against the purpling sky all arcs, angles and curves blending and bending into each other.

His office had been on the top floor. His view then had been through the glass walls punctuated by the arches that formed the silhouette he now stared at from so far below. It was dark on the top floor, no lights glimmering out serving as a beacon, or warning, that at the top things were happening. It hadn't always been that way - dark at the top.

The alarm went off at exactly four am. Not a moment before and not a moment afterwards. He reached over and touched the small button that would silence that jangling. He was already awake. Today everything they had been working on for the last two years was going to be held up to the world for review. The press had been hounding him for days, they all wanted a statement and they all wanted the story'. Thank God for Rebecca, she had smoothly turned them all around without promising anything but leaving them with the idea they might just get what they wanted if they didn't piss her off. She had a temper and no one who had experienced it would risk a second drink from that well. She had handled the press for him before and almost everything else that was needed to keep the outside world from interfering with his work.

A soft rustle of the bedclothes told him she was awake as well. She had probably been so for a while and had left him to his thoughts. She was now signaling him that she wanted his attention. He turned towards her, a slow smile flicking at the corners of his mouth, and leaned down to kiss her in a manner that left no question what was now on his mind and it had nothing to do with the press or her abilities in handing his business interests. The day began very bright and promising with no hint to how it would end not even a whisper of what it would be like when darkness fell.

Learn more about this author, Renee Soulie.
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