Work Text:
Office life doesn’t suit you. You are an incredibly sensitive instrument, calibrated only for the most complex cases. You should be out in the field, lightning flowing through your veins as you reconstruct crime scenes from scratch in your mind. You should be analyzing a bullet’s path, weaving each string of theories into a web in order to solve something bigger than yourself. The city is calling out to you. You hear it clearly every night, its words present in seemingly everything. But you know too well how that ended last time. The city can wait.
It’s been nearly a year since Martinaise. 358 days, to be exact. The lopsided calendar on the wall to your left tells you this. Each box is marked with a neat red X, one week bleeding into the next with no indication of stopping. An endless smudge of red disrupting your vision. You flip back a few months, revealing a mostly blank page where the red X’s suddenly begin about halfway through the month. After that day, you made it a point to keep track of the days following. Most people would resign from their position after such an event. Quitting while you’re ahead, you had heard it referred to once. Not you though. Too much has happened for you to lose track of it all again.
Three weeks after you had closed that case, you were deemed well enough to return to your original precinct, where your office was left exactly how it was before you left for the Whirling. An untouched archaeological site; a trove of memories waiting to be uncovered. Not that you’d remember any of it. Piles of trash splayed out in every corner, an artificial mountain range formed after eons of struggle and guilt, rather than tectonic activity. A pile of clothes was left to rot in one of the corners. Upon further inspection, you were surprised to see that you had accumulated quite the wardrobe over the years. Whether this played a role in why Precinct 41 is referred to as the “Silk Mill,” you’re still unsure.
You remember finding a picture frame among the chaos; two people standing, intertwined in each other’s arms in front of a flickering neon sign that read “Video Revachol”. The woman’s face was obscured by a crack in the glass of the frame. You hardly recognized the man in the picture, with his short beard and bright eyes, gleaming with the embers of wonder and opportunity. This couple had just begun sorting their life out, unaware of what lay ahead. At the time, you could practically feel their happiness radiating from the photo, which is exactly why you furiously threw it into the ever growing garbage bag next to your door. In some landfill across the interchange, you swear you can still see the beacon of their joy irradiating the landscape.
Your desk is much neater now, despite the work being almost never ending. You estimate that if you were to line up every sheet of paper for every single report you’ve filed since your return, it would stretch across all of Elysium. A continuous flow of data which mirrors that of the natural world. Yet somehow, today feels slow. Your colleagues click away on their typewriters, carriages sliding into place in a harmony of bells. The scent of coffee flows from the break room, cabinets are slammed shut in frustration, and the radio crackles throughout. Beneath the ghostly fog of cigarette smoke, it’s more lively than you remember.
You learned once that the sound of radio static comes from Pale interference. Endless emissions of energy traveling at remarkable speeds, making its presence known to all, only to end up being tuned out by the radio’s operator. You almost feel sorry for it. To rectify this, you’ve started turning on the radio and refusing to tune it. The static quiets the constant hum of ideas between your ears. Like a gavel silencing a lively court, the static keeps you on topic. A stable line of thought in the chaos of the Pale that is your mind. You recall explaining this to Satellite Officer Vicquemare, who just scoffed and walked away. Later that day, you wondered why you were still able to hear the static when delivering a report to his desk.
Still, your skills are as sharp as ever and you’re improving every day, whether you realize it or not. A bad day no longer makes you want to crawl back to your old habits. You still go to sleep wondering what your life could have been most nights, but at least you’re actually able to fall asleep now. The vivid unreality of your unconscious state has finally been dimmed. When the dark grasp of sleep reaches out to you, you embrace it, instead of escaping.
And then there’s Kim. You look forward to working with him in the future, when another monstrous case demands to be solved. For now, he’s just a colleague. Even so, the trust you have built with each other this past year is comparable to that of an aerostatic engine meant for Pale crossing. An effective, ever-revolving machine in which both of you reside; always working in unison with the rest of your precinct. He’s noticed your progress this past year, and he trusts you even more for it. Do not jam the machine. A bond such as this one will shatter you if broken.
In the Dolorian church, a million tiny, bloodthirsty stars litter the floor, each one of them unique, yet expendable. A fraction of the entire picture of reality. Where do they all end up? The path you’ve constructed for yourself will come to suit you just fine. The things you once possessed; a sound mind, a healthy body, a happy partner, no matter how dulled or forgotten these may be, will in fact return. Be vigilant. Stay the course, it’s a long one.