Part II

He started his new job as a shop clerk in the Federal District a couple of weeks after graduating. It wasn’t the job he dreamed… But it brought food to the table and paid the bills, his only two needs. The third need stopped being important some time ago… Whenever it tried to tempt Russell, he would stick a lighter’s flame into his arm in place of a needle. With time, his cravings subsided. Of course, psychology isn’t everything… But the teas and cold packs would help him for some time.

Russell was a bit of an overachiever. He sacrificed the whole Holy Week in order to go to work in his little shop… “Success knows no vacation” he would say… He wished to be successful, and nothing would prevent him from doing so.

On Maundy Thursday, Russell realized his error. Business was going as slow as a turtle… Boredom was his only company in his lonely counter… But he was slowly roused when he noticed his shop’s window. Someone tinted it… It was a gray shade.

At first, he didn’t mind it… But the creepy reflection it gave was unnerving at best. A gray featureless image would appear whenever Russell, and only Russell, looked at the glass. The glass itself would change too, adopting a murky and smoky shade. The reflection was eerie and mystifying at the same time… Russell would spend many hours looking at it, while old feelings came back…

Russell never went out without his lighter but, despite being just a reflection, the gray figure in the glass convinced him to not use it. It felt weird, that thing seemed so passive, so understanding… The young man would feel pain… anguish… for some reason, the figure would trigger those memories. He would stare at the glass with such concentration, that his manager actually had to shake him out of it.

It happened for some minutes… Then hours… Then days. Russell was always looking at the glass. He tried to convince people of the “magic” in the window but everyone saw a common clear window, nobody even noticed the shaded glass. Many would tell him to get glasses, others told him that it were shadows… And a few just asked “What are you on, kid?”

A few complains forced the manager to do a drug test on his clerk. Noting particular came out, save for Russell’s little defect… Upon finding out, he quickly turned into an object of mockery…

“He graduated?! How he did it? “

“Shouldn’t he be on special care or something?”

“He could hurt himself!”