The World was chilled and black and frozen outside the fifth floor window. Piles sat about the room, stacks of pale white pages stained in dull black ink. The gentle glow of the lamps around the large corner office was comforting in the middle of the deep winter night. Burgundy and tan volumes lined the floor-to-ceiling bookcases along the only non-windowed wall, collections of supposedly useful information. A cherry table stretched along the far end of the palatial office; out on its surface were folders labeled with complex filing codes and smattered with blood-red ink stamp impressions.
In a grey, tight-fitting pantsuit and heavy silver jewelry, Sydney poured over stacks of dense paperwork, glasses on her nose, her hair pushed messily from her face with a thin cordovan headband. Her desk was the only clear flat space in the room. A steaming mug of black French roast coffee sat on a coaster at the front of her desk; tonight was a night for coffee, certainly.
The clock chime startled her, breaking the heavy silence that had previously only been marked by the rustling of papers or the dry click of her black suede heels on the worn marble tiles. The hands read twelve, though it seemed earlier to Sydney. Still, the night was just beginning and with many papers to go through, numbers to be calculated, and briefs to be read over, this Friday night was once again, a work night.
Except for a few young intoxicated partygoers, the streets below were relatively quiet. The soft powdery snow dampened the rumble of the heavy evening traffic, the working-class, on their way home from another day at the office.
Sydney finally left the building at around two in the morning, just as the streets were truly starting to empty for the night. She shut off the lamps one at a time, and took one last look around the office that had become her home. A sudden rush of water came to her eyes and then vanished just as quickly as it had come. An onlooker could have easily missed the subtle tear that now clung helplessly to her cheek. Her stark professionalism soon returned though, and as she locked the glass doors to the office suite, the final one to leave as usual, her expression could have not have been farther from emotional. She tucked her fur overcoat around her as she left the building, passing the night security guard and forcing a smile.
In her car, she turned on the New York Philharmonic’s recording of Gershwin’s Piano Concerto, collapsed back into the plush leather seat, and placed her thick briefcase lovingly on the seat beside her.
The snow was still falling lightly as she drove, but it wasn’t really sticking at all. As she left the lights of downtown behind her, she crossed the Henley Bridge and followed the road onto Waterway Ave. which hugged the shores of Lake LaBelle and passed along the top of the menacing Foster Dam. Behind her, the pressurized encasement of the city slipped away and a new sense of calm surrounded her as she drove in solitary, Gershwin’s incredible composition filling her mind with stories of other days long ago. She had once led a very different existence than she did now, but that was a lifetime and a few thousand miles away.
She continued on as Waterway Ave. ended and the black expanse of the interstate came to meet her. Faint lights twinkled on the hills as the highway wound its way deeper into the valley: porch lights of normal families, long asleep, the only lights cutting through the darkness that engulfed her lone car and all that existed around it.
She stared out the windshield, her body on autopilot, her own slender fingers unrecognizable to her currently. To most who met her, the lack of a wedding band upon her finger was surprising. She was a beautiful woman in her mid to late thirties, solidly employed, compassionate if a little stubborn. But for Sydney, it was an inconsequential fact. She was just not one to settle down and live the perfect little housewife existence; it wasn’t something that overly concerned her. She was the type of person that had become accustomed to spending the majority of her time alone, if not solitary, at least as an individual alongside a crowd of others. Sydney was truly a force in her own right, the type of person who was able to instantly intimidate with her sheer presence. She was a go-getter, a person who got things done. Driving along a road she had driven so many times before, she headed towards a place which she had once called home, many years past.
Her mind was on other things as she drove though, trying to figure out what she felt, if anything at all really. It had been a long time since she had been able to do a lot of things in fact. Days ran together in her mind; she wasn’t sure of the last time that was concretely distinct from the clouded milieu of her life. Nothing from the past three years felt significant in her mind. But then, most of her life hadn’t felt like a truly important existence. It wasn’t so much that she had a bad life. Rather, she had one that was too ordinarily perfect. For once in her life she would have liked to have some hardship, something to awaken her senses.
Her eyes followed the blinking lights of a low-flying airplane as it flew over the interstate. What lives were being lived on that aircraft; how different were they from her own? She had traveled at least fifty miles along the highway in the past hour, but still, she felt numb. It didn’t seem like much of anything had changed in her surroundings. The thick black blanket of night had enveloped her world, removing any trace of diversity in the landscape. All was dark; it soothed her somewhat.
She had grown up the daughter of a wealthy investment banker, her father, and a city attorney, her mother. Aside from the fact that her parents were never really around—work was always their only priority—life was normal, plain, good. In the summers, she would go and stay with her aunt, Janet, an outcast among the other family members, at her cabin on Lake Dillon, far removed from the civilized world. The cabin was an escape, not that she had much to escape from at that point. She went to a private boarding school in the seclusion of Central Montana, a school attended by the over-privileged children of the rich, but certainly not famous. But that was far off, there was so much more to escape from now.
She had reached the far end of the valley. The hushed glow of Silvertree, a town built entirely as a getaway community for the wealthiest of the world to come and forget their problems, brought her unwillingly back to consciousness. It was perfect, wasn’t it? People here seemed happy, that’s why she lived here, presumably. Happy—such a loaded word.
She drove through the delicate, rustic streets of the town that had at one time been a mining haven of pioneers. The rustic aura now stemmed from a place of nostalgia, rather than of purpose. She reached the outskirts of the village and entered the bronze gates of The Villa, a community of elderly operagoers and middle-aged couples that had never had to work a day in their lives. At the end of the cobblestone drive, her deserted home loomed over the town, expansive and solemn. She bought the house on a whim about 5 years back, more out of a sense of obligation and necessity than anything else. 53 Maple Court looked as unhappy about her return as she felt.
This house was just that for her: a place to reside, nothing more. It wasn’t really a home for her. But where was home truly? She didn’t live anywhere, wholly. Did she live at all? She couldn’t tell.
She poured herself a glass of wine and listened to the clack of her heels in the hopelessly empty mansion as she stepped out onto the balcony. Silvertree looked so peaceful in the calm of the falling snow. Sydney wondered if the office was alright—had she filed that brief correctly? Should the wording be revised in paragraph four of section B, subsection K? The only real attachment she felt was to her job. She had never really belonged anywhere; she didn’t believe she ever would. She could do her work anywhere really. Location certainly wasn’t the issue. And neither was this job. Sure, she was attached to it, but only out of habit and proximity. What defined her though? Now that was the unanswerable existential question.
She took a long swig of the cabernet sauvignon and stared out over the village. Tomorrow would be a new day. In the morning, as she drove to the airport and boarded the Delta jet to nowhere, she did not know the path before her. But she was sure of one thing; she was Sydney Munro. And for the first time in a long while, she felt a spark, a flicker of potential, and she knew what she was doing was right.
The Truth Perspective 
One thought on “Something to Hold On To: Chapter 1”