Chapter I - The Falling Star
A man was staring at the screen of his computer for the last eighty minutes. The only prizes he got were a headache coupled with a brain aneurysm, and he could do without either.
Thank you very much.
Then again, he was very proud to admit to himself that out of all his… friends, he was the only one who had accomplished the Olympian task of ploughing through the entirety of ‘Monopoly of Thorns’ ninth season.
Quite a downhill race that was. The years had not been kind to the show; but today, on this peaceful Sunday evening, it had finally reached the conclusion. The fate of John Winter ‘The Menace’ got stamped with a big bold period. And the man in the chair had become a witness to it in his cramped room, guarded by mountainous walls of soda cans and cushions of total darkness. Like a Mountain King, he hunkered down on his throne, demanding the computer screen to cough up a non-existent next episode. The screen rebelliously shut down and robbed its master of his last source of light.
Darkness overtook the room. The man in the chair sighed.
Frankly, it’s not that the season had been all that interesting that he was determined to see the end. He only continued to watch to see what would happen to one of the most iconic characters, John Winter himself. The only reason he could bring himself to care at this point was because that name was similar to his own.
John Winter, Joseph ‘Joe’ Snowfield… Now that ‘Monopoly of Thorns’ exited out of his life and the screen went to sleep, the darkness served as a perfect mirror to his mood. Just like the show, the will to live he had in the morning waved its hand and left through the door to buy some milk.
He kept staring at the screen like a dumbass. He certainly felt like one, admittedly. After his usual routine of exercise in the morning, he ordered a takeaway and found himself coldly staring at a stammering college-age courier - who delivered the food half an hour later than whatever time the website swore by.
And after all that, Joseph had no idea what to do. The genius of simply taking a break sounded to him like an ancient conspiracy, especially after the adrenaline rush that the last couple of days turned into, with deadline creepily breathing over his shoulder. The same deadline then reminded him that should the project be not scrapped together by Wednesday, he and only he would have to perform dogeza in front of his loan shark of a boss. The usual, really, but he would rather not flip a bird behind the boss’s back again and get caught… again.
Thank God his boss could be a reasonable man. When he wanted to be.
It was time to crack a whip then; Joe reluctantly grabbed a mouse.
“Argh!!” He forgot to lower the brightness, clearly. He also clearly forgot where the ‘Whoosh’ shortcut was on his desktop. Between rapidly blinking and navigating the minefield of icons, Joe finally found the treasure he was looking for.
Ekaterina and Nick, two of his coworkers-slash-friends showed up online once the ‘Whoosh’ window appeared. That would be a good sign - except, as every good friend (and team lead) should, Joseph was very well aware of someone’s horrible practice of leaving their PCs on while conveniently leaving themselves out of the equation.
A mouse arrow hovered over a ‘Call’ button for a few seconds - until a very, very quiet thought awkwardly knocked into his skull.
…Why would he initiate a work call on Sunday?
It hadn’t even been that long from the moment he finished watching the show, yet he already felt dumb for the third time in a row. Joe gave up on recovering his dignity and fished a phone out of the darkness.
He pressed the ‘Call’ button.
“The number you dialled cannot be reached at the moment, pl-”
He pressed the button again.
“The number-”
He pressed again.
“The-”
Joe changed the tactics. He called another number.
Finally, after a whole minute of brain-tearing rock song screaming into his ear, he heard an actual voice on the other end.
“Hello?… He-ey, Joe… how’s it go-o-ing?…”
A small giggle confirmed his suspicions. The screen flickered after Joe initiated a video call and revealed a human creature with blank eyes, half-covered by messy, greenish, recently-dyed hair. The creature stared past the camera with a dumb smile plastered on the heated face.
Joe resisted the impulse to smash his palm against the forehead and settled for simply laying it there instead. He figured pretty quickly what the reason for their impromptu gathering could be (Kate, the owner of the face in the camera, would never consume alcohol alone) - but his mind was so occupied with ‘Monopoly of Thorns’, incoming deadline, and wallowing in self-pity that he completely forgot about it.
But right now he needed someone who had more than zero percent of their brain left working. Ekaterina didn’t count; this fight was hopeless from the moment she downed the first bottle - and one was not a number capable of bringing her down to that level of degradation.
He could swear he heard a familiar laugh from somewhere beyond the camera. So that left him with a few options.
“Kate, call Nick right now. Please.”
The drunk woman blinked, then slowly turned around and waved to someone. Or at least tried to, as elephants could dance more gracefully than her at the moment. Nevertheless, it seemed that the message had reached the recipient as a blond man appeared in the view, quickly and carefully picked Kate up and carried her over to somewhere before taking her place.
Nicholas’s smile radiated with innocence. “What’s up, mate? What’s the emergency?”
This guy… He could not have done a worse job of hiding his true reaction to Joseph’s call with his right eye twitching uncontrollably. Anyone else would probably be fooled, but Joe had known the blonde man ever since their college days.
“Having fun? Not forgetting anything important?” Oh brother, Joseph could murder himself with the poison he was trying not to spit out right now. Nick’s smile strained.
Stolen story; please report.
“You mean the deadline?… Aw, come on, man. Jack’s birthday is today, so we kinda barged in and… yeah…”
Nicholas glanced behind his own shoulder. “It got a bit wild. Don’t judge the new guy, he wasn’t on board with it too. Besides, it’s Sunday. It’s weekend if you haven’t noticed.”
“New guy, my ass,” Joe growled. “He did more work in two days than you did in three weeks and finished all the necessary tasks within a month. Care to explain that to the boss by yourself?”
The blonde man shivered uncomfortably. Joseph did not hesitate to kick his friend down with words even further.
“I did notice that it was the weekend. I have also noticed that you have been rather… slacking in your job. Tell you what - how about I replace you with Jack at the end of this month? Sounds rather nice, having a responsible adult around for once.”
“Don’t hang me out to dry!” Nick’s mouth gasped in mocking horror. “I’ll finish everything by Tuesday, Sir! I’ll buy you a beer as a bonus!”
“Who’s going to give who bonuses there, you keyboard sloth…” Joseph slightly grinned. Sometimes he envied how this man was capable of simply accepting the flow of life. Joe was not sure what would he, himself, choose if he could ever repeat his life again. Would it be a similar laid-back style of existing? Or the corporate grind he dived into after college?
Regardless of his theoretical choice, he was glad that at least Nicholas seemed content with the way life was going. Joseph himself sure as hell wasn’t.
“Where is my invitation, you dumbass?”
He finally realised that he could use a break too.
*****
He reached Jack’s apartment when the party was already dying down. Most of the guests left already - so, of course, the only reasonable plan of action was to order a few sets of crispy chicken wings, loot whatever drinks were left, and help the owner himself clean the dishes that were too dirty to even look at. Jack insisted he didn’t need help and Joe simply nodded along while wiping a plate dry with a kitchen towel. A dishwasher would be a blessing from God right now, but Joseph was not afraid to get his hands dirty should that ever be needed.
The grease that covered the dishes was a blight on humanity and Joe would fight it until his last breath. Or until chicken wings arrived - which they did, not too long after. He instantly abandoned his duties and returned to the room.
As the only man in fighting condition left standing, he usurped a computer chair all for himself. Nick was… in a weird state between sitting and sliding, on a couch, together with Kate who looked like a ghoul with ruined makeup. Counting Jack, the intern, there were only four of them in the entire apartment.
When the owner of the place returned to them, Joseph was already done with his portion of the wings and was slouching in the chair with an empty glass in one hand and a piece of hum in another. Jack snorted, jokingly bowed and asked ‘His Majesty’ to ‘relocate his heavy backside’. Joe only released an evil laugh and assumed a smug expression. Which he almost regretted immediately when he noticed Nick’s hand raising a chicken bone.
His friend after a moment of hesitation put the bone down and Joe decided not to test his luck any further. He moved to a free chair on the other side of the table.
After a few minutes, Kate finally woke up and sprinted straight for the bathroom. After she returned Joseph pulled his phone out to check the news out of mindless curiosity. He scrolled the feed up and down - and then, one article grazed his attention.
“Huh. Look at that - in a couple of hours, from midnight through 2 a.m. shooting stars will pass near the northern hemisphere and we might catch them from the main square of our town. Sounds cool.”
“Yeah, I guess it’s not too late…” Nick quickly checked his watch. “I mean, I’m all for it. What about this drunk mess, though? And Jack?”
“I want to go…” the mess in question whimpered from the depth of the couch. “But I feel like dying right here…”.
Jack had no objections, so it was quickly decided. After about half an hour, a group of four people stepped out of the apartment and followed other passersby towards the designated place. The sharp northern wind woke Ekaterina up rather quickly, and even with her still rather green face, she felt herself courageous enough to let go of Joe’s arm.
A walk was rather short. The town itself wasn’t really anything special, with a middling and ageing population even during its best days - but Joseph preferred the tranquillity of his current home over London’s boiling pit of rats. No chance he would be able to see falling stars over there either, he inwardly laughed. One point for the town in the middle of nowhere.
Their group joined a small crowd while discussing various things along the way. Nick and Kate prepared their phones while Joseph and Jack hung back a little, still discussing the matters regarding their work.
It didn’t take long for Joseph to hear loud laughter and chatting filling the area all around him. Kate pointed at the sky.
A couple of bright sparks blazed across the darkish canvas, leaving behind trails of light. Joseph smiled - while it wasn’t quite a million-dollar spectacle, he was still satisfied. In fact, he felt surprisingly relaxed after the sight, like he was carrying an invisible weight on his shoulders and only now remembered to drop it off.
“It’s the small things in life, mate…” he said to nobody in particular.
A few more lights cut through the sky. Then a few more. And a few more.
And at that point, Joseph felt something gnawing at him from the inside. The number of shooting stars was a few digits too many, especially when they began to fly in completely chaotic directions. He was not the only one who picked it up - the worried murmurs were gathering strength with each passing star.
“What the fuck is this?!” Nick shouted over the crowd. Joseph had no answer to that. He simply kept staring at the sky, surrounded by flashes of cameras and annoying voices. He stared - until he realised that one of the stars was rapidly growing in size.
And then the invisible line snapped.
Joseph felt like he was swept away by a storm. Despite the small population, the amount of people was enough to fill an average concert hall, and the chaos that followed made it so much worse. Joe felt his heart accelerating; he reacted as quickly as he could, put his arms to the sides to shield himself from panicking people and turned around to run after the crowd.
He felt someone tugging his arm. Recognizing Jack’s ponytail haircut, he sprinted after his colleague, carefully forcing his way through.
He didn’t make it very far. Joseph threw a quick glance at the buildings ahead...
...And that cost him his vision. The intense white reflection forced a scream out of his throat as his feet lost the ground and his chest found it again. His elbow responded with electrifying pain when he tried to get up again, and he tumbled down.
Joe grunted and forced himself to glance back.
He regretted it the very same moment. The eyes screamed in pain at the sight. He instinctively looked away and closed his eyes, but it was futile - the light had filled the space around him. Above, below, behind, or in front - there was not a single safe spot but his own head. It consumed him and swallowed the world around him.
Joseph shuddered. Surprisingly, it felt nice… in a way. The screams of the crowd had completely vanished and the ground also left him hanging. His fingers could not reach anything nor touch anything, he had no smell to describe or anything else to note. Almost like most of his senses shut down completely, leaving eyesight and hearing to do all the work.
Despite the situation, Joe found some strength to quietly laugh. Out of all the ways to go, it didn’t feel like the worst one; quite far from it. It was ridiculous from start to finish anyway - dying by a meteor, on a completely random day of the year, three days before getting his paycheck. Quite a story to tell to celestial bureaucracy.
And was it even a meteor? He felt no heat or air pressure. He was free as a kite in the wind, floating somewhere in this weird abyss-like white space. He would accept it if the space was black in colour, but alas - he still had to deal with his eyes tearing up even behind shut eyelids.
Joe felt his thoughts slipping away. His body was probably somewhere in heaven already as he barely felt any response from it. He tried to stay awake, but the impulse to let himself go and just slumber was too irresistible for him to fight against.
He gave up.
*****
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