INEWORD P

back, I stepped out into the street which I had carved into memory down to the very hidden alleys that are a no-man's-land, unnoticed and unstopped by anyone.

The trees that usually were in full bloom in early April had started regaining their characteristic pink color after the winter cold had passed. Too bad though, after full bloom you could only see them for about a week, after which they created their own pink path on the ground, to sprout again next year.

The rest of the day didn’t differ from the other crossed out days on the calendar. I finished work at 9pm and was home by 10. I had dinner, and got in my pajamas. I layed in bed, and tried to fall asleep. I tried hard to forget about how sunny the day was today and about the fact that cherry blossoms had started to bloom one month earlier than usual. Rather, I tried to remember about no-mans-land and yesterday with all my might. I was trying so hard that I was seeing a dream of yesterday, and the reality was that today was the only day I hadn’t grabbed the red marker that crossed out today and turned it into another day out of 365 in the year.

“Wait, today’s the first, right?” I said as I looked at the 28th of February being the only day without an X on the calendar, and the date shown on my phone: 1 March, 2020.

Without my noticing, it had become the 1st of March. So why was the 28th yet to be crossed off? Had I fallen asleep? It must’ve been that 4 hour meeting that made me not want to do anything but jump into my bed as soon as I came back home. That’s fine, I’ll cross it out when I come back today. It won’t make a difference, today or tomorrow.

I entered through the front door of the coffeeshop at 8:30 sharp. I sat down and ordered my favorite, the ginseng latte. I opened my bag and got out a book, 1984 by George Orwell. I was in the middle of the second chapter when I felt a wave of heat go through my body. I turned around to see her, the girl that reflected the sun, holding the same book in her hand. She seemed to be very close to the end of it, while I had just started reading the book. As I drank the latte and tried finishing the second chapter, my eyes kept being met with the sunny being. Even though Winston starting his own rebellion against Big Brother captivated me, my eyes saw nothing but how the sun was still tracing her body, forming its very own contour around it. Before I noticed, it was 10am, and I had gotten to chapter 4 in the book. It took no more than 20 seconds for reality to hit me: It's 10 am I usually get to my company at 9:30… I was 30 minutes late.

I couldn't help but compare reading the report in my hands about strategies to develop the company to taking a sleeping pill. The report had touched on all the possible points it could have, and little could be added to it. Marketing, market research, recent trends, customer input, it had it all. The ideas were excellent, and they were probably going to be approved by the higher ups soon. Despite this, no idea, however genius it might’ve been, could have taken my consciousness back from the trip it took this morning to Oceania. It had departed this morning and it wasn’t going to buy a return ticket until I got to page 328 of the book. …

I was somewhere else, anywhere but my office. I was at the cherry blossom street. I was in no-mansland. I was roaming the streets like a man who went where his feet took him. But I was not in front of my computer, submitting the yearly profits and plan to my boss. My ghost was doing that. I left