Diana's touch

by Alexshy

1. The Arrow

Author's Note:

Thither are not enough ponies in the first chapter. I know. Kindly asking y'all to be patient.

The air in the underground carriage is dry and has metallic taste. It’s not hot, the air conditioning system does its best, and it doesn’t have any other extraneous smell, but is still unpleasant. The walls of the carriage choke you, suppress. That feeling follows you in every dimly lit enclosed room since about three years ago.

You fixate your sight on the book in your hands and try to read, instead of looking around. That’s a detective story. You’ve stopped reading fiction completely, be it scientific or fantasy, after… Well, you’ve stopped reading fiction.

The carriage rocks lightly and smoothly. This motion is not what disturbs you from reading. You can’t avoid the returning thought of something is not exactly right, and the book doesn’t help you to relax.

So what is it? You didn’t cook or iron this morning and you’re absolutely sure that you have turned off the microwave after you had your breakfast… just in case. The water is cut, the lights are off either. You’re living alone, so you don’t need to bother about someone’s comfort, when you’re not at home. You don’t even have a pet. The mere idea of having a pet disgusts you… No, not entirely right… The mere idea of somebody being your pet disgusts you.

You’ve lost everything: your girlfriend – who would ever date a psycho; your friends – they didn’t share your fears and it was a period you couldn’t probably talk about anything else; your previous well paid job, which to be honest was also your favourite… But there could be no boss, who kept an employee after six months of unjustified absence.

Surely you’ve started regaining slowly during the last year. You’ve got a job, not as well paid as previous one and definitely not as inspiring, but it pays your needs completely. You’ve started communicating with people, mostly coworkers, but you hardly see anybody else anyway. They still keep slightly aloof… perhaps some information slipped in somehow, but they don’t dash aside and that’s considerable progress, compared to what you had upon your return.

That’s probably the merit of psychiatric counseling you are to resort to lately. Exactly your intended destination at that moment and, according to your watch, you’re still coming right in time. Earlier you thought that you reached the phase, when you could cope without it; alas, some events of the recent few months made you reconsider and return to what seemed to help at least. Actually, one particular event, but it turned out mind shattering for you.

You look around once again – there are only a few passengers in the carriage in that time of the day. Noon is not the peak hour at this direction evidently.

An office clerk clinging to his laptop, unable to take a break of his work even during lunch hours. He is nervous, his fingers anxiously tap the keys, perhaps his regular case is not going well this time.

An older man, looking like a bum mostly, he sits in the far corner of the carriage and seems to be overly involved in quiet conversation with himself. Or his imaginary friend… or even praying. You can hear only muffled mumble.

A young blonde with a damned cell phone. She entered one or two stops ago, frowned at the bum, funnily wrinkling her nose, and sat closer to you and the clerk. She is constantly babbling on her phone, which you are already hating with passion. The clerk seems to be immune to disturbances of that kind, but you almost feel like useless words bump your head, making it ache.

“… and then I told him to back off, as that was the only program he could offer for the date… Ahahaha!” apparently she is discussing some poor fellow, who was unlucky enough to fall for this windbag and got dismissed. Now she’s bragging about her practical wit to a similar windbag, while you roll your eyes.

Fortunately your own phone rings. You reach the pocket and answer the call. This is your counselor secretary Judith – a miniature ginger girl with intellect of a mainframe. One can never think that this spry pretty bird can manage all the appointments, patients, etc, etc. Perhaps hearing her ringing voice twice a week adds to the “rescue raft”, which still keeps you afloat above insanity. She reminds you about the appointment after a cheerful greeting.

“Thank you kindly, Judith!” you answer with a wide smile, imagining how she holds the tube with her shoulder, while her hands keep being busy with the documents on her table. “I’m on my way already.”

Finally it’s your stop. With a sigh of relief you leave the carriage and cross the half empty platform. This station is small and you like it, it takes a couple of minutes only to get out. Nevertheless you run up the ascending escalator avoiding the rare citizens on your way and catching a few bemused gazes. The reason is simple and much deeper, than a mere fear to stay in confined space longer than necessary – the last couple of days you can’t get rid of a skin crawling feel that you are being watched. Paranoia? Three years ago you would tell the same and deride any other reasons. A few months in the Sisters’ Castle made the difference.

You exit the belly of underground kraken and breathe deeply. It’s early autumn and the smell of leaves and damp soil from the nearby park fills your nostrils. Even the memories of the certain garden can’t prevent you from enjoying it. Perhaps because you had both painful and peaceful memories of that garden, the latter connected to the younger sister of course. You taste the air like some old wine, despite it being tinted with inevitable city “aroma” of gasoline and other less pleasant stuff. Still better than ventilation and even recycle flavoured air-wannabe from the underground.

You cross the square and enter the office building. Telling the concierge office number and the time of appointment you look around, while he is checking his journal. The staircase is brightly lit by the sunlight, pouring through the wide windows, practically the glass outer wall, and you decide to ignore the elevators and run to the tenth floor on foot, when you get your confirmation. You usually sit too much anyway, so, that will be a useful exercise.

The long corridor has many doors in it and you even your breathing while heading to the one you need. The one you enter twice a week and leave, feeling at least a little less edgy.

“Good afternoon, Judith!” you put your ritual smile on, but perhaps with her it comes out more natural, than with the rest. “Once again.”

She is busy with a computer, some paperwork and a phone call all at once; therefore she just raises her big green eyes on you and smiles with them only, while talking to another patient. Judith nods and makes a wide welcoming gesture towards the double doors on the far side of the reception room.

You breathe deeply and push the doors, entering the sunlit room.

“Fucking ponies, what did you do with my life?! Will I ever get rid of your grasp?” you mutter inwardly.