The evening painted the sky tidal colors, black and blue and white in crisscrossing bands, and Lilah was monochrome in their lowering light. Her key in the library lock made such a deep, sepulchral sound, that it was one of the joys of closing the place - hearing it click, the security echoing. It was a comfort. It kept her mind off her solitude.
Five days, she had been told. She had been working like a machine, day in and day out - not only had she completely maxed out her overtime, but she hadn't had a day off in over a month. Her boss told her it was beginning to tell on her personality, but how could she tell the difference? One day melted into the next, every day, no matter where she was - she might as well be productive and happy while it happened.
Still, now she was alone. In the evening. In town. Watching people do what people do, milling about her in clots and eddies, filing into restaurants, theaters, bars. Somewhere down the street a distorted chord set the air on fire, followed by a crescendo of voices. She followed it like a lazy fish, drifting uncommitted with the current.
The current deposited her, thanks to a group of smokers banging elbows in the correct places, inside the open doorway of a bustling bar. A new place, to her, and one she was sure she didn't fit in at, despite having passed it every day on her way to work. Here, people had primped their plumage, painted their faces and were drinking to console themselves to their conversations - nothing she had any personal truck in, or personal resemblance to. She was thin, yes, and she supposed sort of pretty, but her high model's cheekbones were occluded by the thick-rimmed black glasses that kept her seeing, and her soft, healthy body was shielded by a comfortable gray cardigan and loose green silk slacks. When the girls brushed past her, their bodies were practically naked. No, she was a strange bird in this nest.
She meandered to the bar, noted the label on a passing laborer's beer and ordered something similar. She leaned, letting herself stretch out of the curlicue hunch she had acquired over the course of the day, and listened in on nearby conversations. Wasn't that what people did in places like this?