a plea, a petition, a kind of prayer. WHO: Catherine Gryffiths. WHAT: Narrative and a voicemail left during Day Two, with no real expectation of reply.
Catherine Ingrid Gryffiths had never felt so fucking alone.
Thirty-four years of companionship, of more companionship and company than she ever knew what to do with -- she'd spat on it, she'd bristled from it, she'd shied away from her cloying family members, she'd run for the hills as a result of such stifling presence, the overwhelming awareness of so many connections, so much humanity. She'd considered herself a loner by trade, quiet and introverted, more comfortable in Iain's spacious attic loft with only his mussed sheets and the man himself for company (rather than family, rather than those troves of people).
But this week, stripped of everything, she was rapidly discovering that she wasn't a loner after all.
She needed people. Even walking the hallways of the Library didn't represent its usual solace. There was chaos as the men and women of the institution barreled up and down corridors, each with their own mission, their own problem to attend to. The entire Information department was out of commission, precognitives struck down from the weight of their own visions. The Librarians were all so very busy. They didn't have any time for her (a rookie, a recruit, inconsequential, irrelevant, redundant, dead weight, ballast). Walking through the halls, passing by faces she'd known for years, Catherine found herself standing outside them, unnoticed, like a ghost. (Iain had always seen ghosts. Hearing the forgotten voices, paying attention to the lost few.)
Being in the building made it worse. No one answered when she screamed. And so, reeling, the blonde went stumbling outside in the hopes that it would be better.
It wasn't, of course.
There was a sister, somewhere out there in the tumult, a sister with problems of her own while Catherine was expected to man up, report for duty, take care of things. There was a brother out there, one whose steady, unwavering, bristling company she'd started to find comforting. He would have problems of his own, too. There was a family, blessedly far away, hopefully safe from this roiling storm.
And then there was Cath.
There was -- who else? Friends? What friends, she wondered bleakly, standing outside herself and staring at the conspicuous absence around her, staring at the place where those threads should be. Even before this -- this cataclysm -- she knew that there weren't any to be found. One ex-boyfriend she could hardly stand to look at, one mentor she fairly idolised, and one young female ruffian who she was fairly certain didn't give a damn about her in return. Who else-- A soft-spoken baker she'd handed a journal to, but that didn't count, not by a long shot. Had she truly walled herself off so effectively? Had her latent vision flayed the world open, too bare to her view, exposing the cogs and gears beneath human relationships? Had she avoided them so fucking well?
She was sitting on a park bench. The park was comparatively quiet, aside from the nest of enormous, wriggling snakes (anacondas?) coiled around the playground's jungle gym.
She's lost the emergency number he'd handed her. She didn't have the actual relevant contact information, only his London mobile number, the one out of commission for the duration of his mission.
She called it anyway.
"Hello. Um -- I can't feel you there."
An agonised pause.
"Which is the same as ever, really, except that it's so much worse when you're out-of-country. When you're nearby, I can always see you there, at least, you know? But now--"
A bark of a laugh.
"Everything's terrible. Come back soon. I--"
She seemed on the brink of saying more, but her hands were tightening on the mobile, on the verge of cracking the plastic right open. She let the silence drag on without hanging up, simply staring into space (that conspicuous absence where there should be a presence) and biting her lip.