Saul caught them through Beans & Books' window—Vera and Rod, heads bent close over steaming mugs. The sight stopped him cold, like hitting a pebble at full speed.
He could bail—they hadn't spotted him. But some masochistic impulse pushed him forward, the bell announcing his entrance with cheerful betrayal.
Vera looked up, fingers freezing mid-gesture. For a heartbeat, something wild flickered in her eyes—midnight-Vera, all fire and piano storms—before cooling to polite recognition. Her hand brushed back a curl with practiced precision.
"Saul," she said, voice shifting higher, all traces of her true register gone. "How are you?"
Rod swiveled, checking his watch with theatrical precision. The gesture that once infuriated Saul now seemed pathetically predictable.
"Fine," Saul managed, throat tight. "Just passing."
"Rod's helping with the spring concert," she explained, though he hadn't asked. Her mug trembled slightly before she steadied it with both hands.
Rod's smile suggested territory claimed after months of circling.
"Important stuff," Saul said, the words bitter as coffee grounds.
"It is," Rod replied, another pointed glance at his watch.
Vera's spine straightened imperceptibly, voice softening as she turned to Rod. "Later? Those arrangements still need work."
"Same old slots," Saul muttered, just loud enough to taste it.
"Take care," Vera called after him—distant-acquaintance voice, perfected.
Outside, the sky pressed down like a bruise. "I love you, God, I do" echoed hollow in his chest, a remembered heat now frozen to glass. The encounter should have burned, but instead he felt vacant, watching actors who only resembled people he once knew.
Professor Watson's voice washed over the classroom like static. Saul's pen carved random patterns into his notebook—once neat paragraphs now seismograph spasms. He'd taken the right seat, opened the correct book, yet floated somewhere above himself, watching his body go through motions.
The algebra problem blurred before him. He found himself at the board somehow, marker dangling from numb fingers.
"That's not the correct approach, Mr. Miller," Rod said, emphasis dripping. "Let me steal this marker from you and demonstrate properly."
The way he stressed "steal" wasn't subtle. His eyes locked on Saul's, the implication clear—not just about the marker.
Saul started to surrender the marker when something sparked in his chest.
"First," he said, quiet but sharp.
Rod froze, hand suspended mid-air, understanding flaring into raw irritation. The single word hung between them like a blade.
Saul returned to his seat, watching Rod's composure crumble. The marker squeaked against the board as Rod pressed too hard, red creeping up his neck, voice trembling with suppressed rage.
"This is elementary, really," Rod concluded, jaw clenched tight. The marker clicked against the tray with unnecessary force. "Questions?" The word emerged brittle, fooling no one.
A ghost of satisfaction brushed through Saul, then faded to ash. For a moment—just a heartbeat—he'd felt something real again. Then emptiness reclaimed him, and he drifted back into the fog.
The industrial dishwasher at Grazzi's growled, steam rising in ghostly columns. Saul's hands moved—spray, stack, load—a system he'd once taken pride in. Now his body just performed while his mind drifted elsewhere.
"Low on plates," Terry called.
Saul nodded, reaching for the next rack mechanically. His muscles knew the patterns; he didn't need to be present.
The clock above the sink had stopped at 8:43 last week. Nobody had replaced the battery. Saul caught himself staring at it, half-expecting the hands to move through sheer force of will.
From the dining room came Ott's measured baritone against a sharp female voice.
"You can't rearrange the condiment station," Ott was saying, stretched to his verbal limit.
"Red, yellow, white—it's called color theory," the female countered. "Aesthetics are something you clearly don't understand."
"We've had it by popularity for three years."
"Your system's boring," she declared, nearly colliding with Dutch.
Saul glimpsed her through the window—expensive highlights, designer clothes poorly disguised by uniform, professional eyebrow piercing. A Snapple bottle with amber liquid sat beside her, cigarette smoke clinging despite perfume.
"New girl versus Ott! Round one!" Dutch announced, bouncing on his toes. He spotted Saul and flashed his manic grin. "Hardware store spot tonight—perfect transition. You in?"
The invitation should have sparked something. Instead, Saul just shrugged. "Stuck tonight."
"What's the point of standing still?" the new girl called, eyebrow raised.
Dutch blinked—Saul never refused skating—but recovered. "Your loss."
Saul turned back to the dishwasher. Dutch's energy, the girl's defiance, Ott's irritation—all happening in a reality he couldn't access.
Terry watched him with concern. "You okay? Zombie vibes all week."
"Tired," Saul lied.
"World doesn't end if plates stay dirty," Terry joked.
Saul's hollow laugh made Terry retreat quickly. The shift blurred into itself. Afterward, he passed Dutch, Ott, and the new girl—Kitty—watching a Helmet video on MTV.
"Last chance!" Dutch called.
"Next time," Saul replied without stopping.
Outside, night air hit his face with unexpected sharpness—the first real sensation all day. His car waited, dented and alone, a reminder of a life he was supposed to be living.
The apartment hummed with the aquarium filter. Saul froze at the sight of Vance hunched over a fishing magazine, tracing diagrams with scholarly intensity—his uncle so focused he hadn't noticed him enter.
Saul cleared his throat. Vance looked up, startled, his face holding an unfamiliar depth before snapping back to normal.
"Going deaf at forty-two!" he joked, the laugh not quite landing. "Ancient, right?"
"What's that?" Saul nodded toward the magazine.
"Current patterns," Vance replied, folding it closed, but not before Saul glimpsed complex water-flow diagrams. "These writers couldn't catch a cold in flu season."
"Pizza tonight?" Vance asked, stretching. "No sense smelling that place all shift, then eating there too."
"No plans," Saul answered—the emptiness of it hitting him fully.
They ate in silence. By third quarter, Vance's attention drifted to the aquarium, eyes narrowing at the cloudy water.
"Tank's a mess," he muttered, clicking off the TV mid-play.
Instead of heading to bed, Vance pulled a chair to the tank, magazine open to a specific page. Curious, Saul joined him. The crawfish "king" was nowhere visible, the water murky with yellow tinge.
"These fellas sense pressure changes hours before storms," Vance said, tapping glass gently. "No equipment—they just know."
Saul watched the murky water, searching for the missing crawfish.
"Redfish feel tide shifts before they happen," Vance continued, unusually reflective. "Temperature, pressure, current. These guys might be the same—knowing what's coming."
He described a squall that caught them off-guard—"except Gordon said the mullet were jumping funny. Thought he was full of it until black clouds rolled in from nowhere."
"Whole Gulf's like that—always changing, but patterns exist if you look," he said, tapping a diagram. "Guys who get in trouble fight the current instead of reading it. Like trying to muscle through a hurricane."
His eyes met Saul's, something knowing in them. "Lost a good boat thinking I could outpower what I should've respected."
Vance pointed to water movement around a structure. "Most cast where fish hide, but the smart ones wait in the eddy current." His finger traced the swirl. "Not fighting head-on, not drifting either—like hitting a perfect line instead of just bombing a hill. That sweet spot where forces balance."
He frowned at the cloudy aquarium. "Some folks muscle through everything, some just drift. But there's a third way—finding those pockets where things work."
"Getting philosophical in my old age," Vance said, standing. "Better turn in before I start quoting poetry." At his door, he paused. "Night, kid."
Alone in the blue glow, Saul took Vance's chair, staring at the clouded tank. When had he last cleaned it? Weeks? Months? Vera, then losing her, had blurred everything.
He found the siphon, conditioner, and scraper—forgotten tools for a forgotten task. "No more slots, no more drift," he muttered, slashing the siphon through murky water with sudden energy.
Clarity spread in swirls. The crawfish emerged from hiding, reclaiming its log, pincers hanging in that perfect state—neither aggressive nor passive, just ready. Saul noticed a scar across its shell—evidence of survival, of history carried forward.
He worked until the water cleared, revealing every detail of the submerged landscape. The filter hummed properly, bubbles rising in straight columns. For the first time, he noticed blue patterns rippling across the ceiling—a light show he'd lived under for months without seeing.
Looking at the restored ecosystem, something shifted in him. This emptiness since Vera wasn't a void to fill but a space where something might grow. A slate to scratch something real into.
The crawfish adjusted slightly on its log—not fighting, not drifting, but balanced perfectly at that third place Vance described. Something stirred inside him—not happiness or even hope, but alertness, an opening.
The canvas remained empty, but now with potential rather than absence. In the aquarium's blue light, watching patterns he'd never noticed before, Saul found himself willing to wait and see what might emerge.
This concludes Part 1. Begin reading Part 2 here!
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