I watch people.

I'm not a stalker or anything; I just like to watch them doing what they do. My boss, Gabriel, says that this is what happens when you can't let go. I usually send him an exasperated glare and leave it at that, but I've been seeing ... things lately that make me wonder. Like the lady in the park.

“She's sitting on that bench again,” Al tells me when he notices that I'm there. I sigh, and sit down in the cold, damp grass next to him. Al's my workmate – he used to be a janitor before he died.

“She's always sitting there,” I remind him. The lady in question is sitting on the bench closest to us. She's wearing a khaki-coloured coat and a tatty white hat, and her gloves are puce and have three holes in them. I know this because she was wearing the same clothes yesterday, and the day before that ... now that I think about it, I can't remember seeing her wearing anything else, ever. Her face is pinched and I wonder if she's eaten anything at all lately.

“Why is she doing this to herself?” Al asks quietly. His voice has a raw, almost desperate quality to it. I almost sigh – it's so typical of him to cry for strangers.

“Doing what?”

Al looks at me, brown eyes wide and teary. “She's killing herself.”

I snort. That was a bit dramatic, even for him. “Don't be stupid.”

“No, I mean it. She's not eating anymore. And all she does – all she ever does – is sit on that bench and stare at nothing!”

I'm starting to feel slightly uneasy, and so I start uprooting grass with my hands. “She's not killing herself,” I say nonchalantly, “she just ... misses him, you know?”

Al is quiet for a while, staring at the lady as she stares into space. When he talks again, I can tell he's been weighing his words carefully.

“If she can't get over him,” he says, “then she would have been better of dead.”

It feels as though something inside me breaks, and all I want to do is curl up in a ball and die (again). Al gives me a small, sad smile.

“Maybe she just needs more time,” he says, and it feels like he isn't talking about the lady on the bench at all.

“Yeah,” I say, slowly, “maybe she does.”

Maybe she does.

-fin-

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Postscript: This was written for my English final. It's technically in the Al-verse, but the girl - well, I don't know who she is and I don't know how she got there, but she won't be around in any other stories, as far as I know. (Who is she? Does anyone know? Anyone lost a female character who might behave in this way? Because it's a bit annoying, not knowing who she is.)

Review please? puppy eyes