Sonder

sonder

n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own - populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness - an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you'll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

(Source -- The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows)

* *

John Mendel was on the verge of falling asleep. The late nights he worked in the lab were finally catching up to him. Work made his muscles ache and he was slowly developing a disgust for anything remotely resembling a centrifuge.

He stretched his limbs on the subway, wondering what his parents would think if they knew about the hours he kept lately. Early to bed, early to rise was no longer an option as the biotech company he researched for wanted results faster than proper science would allow it. His eyelids drooped, almost touching the cavernous bags underneath.

The PA system announced his station as the next one, startling him back to reality. His legs expended a lot of effort getting upright, craving nothing more than the somnolence a soft mattress could impart. All his muscles yearned for the same, except his heart which only wanted to see Alyssa again.

"Ah Alyssa!" he exhaled, letting his mind drift to the last time he had spent a meaningful amount of time with her. It was so long ago that he had to think back a long way. He remembered every part of his girlfriend's flawless body. The way she danced from the door of the bedroom all the way to his bed, doing a little pirouette like a ballerina. It was the most sensual sight imaginable.

"Alyssa is one of a kind," mused John, getting out at his stop. It was afternoon, after two straight days of being cooped up in the lab. Normally, John got home in time to see her curled under the covers. He was so happy at getting home early for once that he even tipped the violinist at the gate for his discordant attempt at entertainment.

There was a spring in his step, belying the tiredness everywhere else. He desperately wanted to get back to his apartment. For the moment, it was a small three room affair in the West Village.

"Just till the end of this project," he said to himself, flashing a wide smile at the beat patrol taking two sandwiches from the mobile van outside his building. They looked at each other, confused, but smiled and waved back.

John hummed all the way to the stairs and took them two at a time. His cheer took the other tenants by surprise. He patted his foot rhythmically while extracting his key from amidst the jumble of loose change and other tidbits in his pocket. He opened the door with a flourish, almost simultaneously yelling out. "Honey! Guess who finally got a break off work?"

The words left his mouth, but hung in the air. His eyes went wide, trying its best to block out the visual which burnt into his incredulous mind. It couldn't be true. It just couldn't.

And yet, his traitorous eyes continued to show him the love of his life, Alyssa, cavorting naked on the couch with his older, married neighbour. She shrieked at the unexpectedly early return and grabbed a cushion to hide her luscious, sweaty body. The other man rolled off the couch, holding onto the cabinet for support. His meaty cock hung between his legs, still dripping cum.

"John, I'm so sorry."

John finally found some movement in his legs. He crossed the living room in three strides, landing a stunning punch on the surprised man's face. The impact sent him reeling and he clattered to the ground, breaking the coffee table on his way down. Alyssa screamed hysterically.

"Please, John. I swear it was a one time thing. He means nothing to me."

John wasn't even aware of her existence any longer. He was barely conscious of a strange woman tugging on his arm, but the woman he fell in love with had died. He ignored the pull and went about packing a few essential things into his duffel bag.

"John. Please don't go. Please, I beg you. Yell at me, scream at me, hit me if you want, but don't go."

The bag was almost packed. He retrieved his wallet and some cash from his drawer. Slinging the bag over his free shoulder, he began to make his way to the door, oblivious to the grovelling being hanging off him.

"I love you, John. You're the only man I've ever had feelings for. Please don't leave me alone."

John threw her off and sprinted down the stairs. His mind was numb and his body was on auto-pilot. The only thing keeping any part of him moving was the singular desire to get as far away from Alyssa.

Go where? He hadn't the foggiest idea.

He rushed out and didn't stop running. The same patrol cops he saw earlier stared at the duffel wielding figure running away from them. Everything about him looked so drastically different from twenty minutes ago, when they saw him for the first time.

John Mendel did not stop. Cars, buses, other pedestrians vaguely registered in his peripheral vision but he kept running. Running away from a life he loved. The only souvenir he had from that life was a broken heart.

* *

"What's gotten into him?" asked Shawn Kenefick, staring at the man running away from them, his duffel bag swinging from side to side. He looked at his partner who shrugged back in response.

"Beats me," said Kay, taking a large bite out of her sandwich. The cheese covered tender beef almost melted in her mouth.

"Let's get back to the patrol car," said Shawn. Kay agreed, finishing of her snack before she slipped into the passenger seat. Immediately, she reached over and pulled Shawn towards her face for a kiss. Their lips met for a few seconds before he drew back.

"Not here, Kay," he said with a broad smile. "There are other cops nearby and I don't want anybody finding out about us just yet."

"Wimp," shot back Kay, rolling her eyes. "No one ever enforces those no-fraternization rules and I'm hardly going to report you for sexual harassment. From what I've seen over the past month, I have to initiate it all."

"So the plot thickens," drawled Shawn with a devious chuckle. "I have gone from the harasser to the harassee."

"Don't be such a dweeb," retorted Kay, with a playful punch to his arm. "Find us a nice quiet alleyway where we can have a quick fuck behind the dumpster."

Shawn actually took a moment to look at his partner while his brain processed her request. Kay Wilcox was a walking paradox. On one hand, she looked slim, beautiful and took great pains to keep herself that way. Conversely, she drank copious amounts of beer while cheering for the Giants and casually used curses which would make a sailor blush. She was manlier than all the male rookies combined.

Kay looked at his wondering gaze with a raised eyebrow. Finally, she was fed up enough to spit out with some venom. "Fine, at least let's make out in the car, or is that too much for Mister Catholic?"

Unsurprisingly, Shawn yielded to this tempting offer. He drove around a few corners before he found an abandoned warehouse. The loading bay was still intact with high walls on either side. Carefully and inconspicuously, he backed into the sheltered path.

Scarcely had the car halted, than Kay seized the opening and mashed her lips against Shawn's. There was a raw, almost primal hunger within her and she exuded a desperate arousal from every pore of her body. He kissed her back, albeit with much less ferocity. Their tongues slurped and lapped against each other. She felt her body heat up and a spark traverse through her nervous system, lighting up every nerve ending it passed through.

The combined effect of the kiss and the semi-public setting was potent. Shawn soon gave in to the thrill and let his hands wander down the back of Kay's uniform. Their lips parted for a brief moment while Kay frantically unbuttoned her front. He gazed hungrily on her ample bosom, laid out for his viewing pleasure. Her bra struggled to contain the milky white orbs.

"Need an invitation, Shawn?" she asked coyly. Shawn immediately wrapped his hands around her back and dipped his face into her cleavage. She giggled and held the back of his head with one hand, letting the other explore the rapidly hardening bulge on the front of his pants. There was a sound if unzipping followed by her hands stroking his cock through nothing more than flimsy underwear. She looked at him, her eyes sparkling mischievously while her slim fingers slipped within his elastic and encircled his pulsing shaft.

"Dispatch calling all available units. Robbery in progress at a jewellery store on the corner of Bleecker and Hudson. Respond immediately."

"You have to be kidding me!" spat out Kay vehemently. Shawn groaned too, unhappy that their steamy session was going to have to be curtailed because an idiot decided to steal some jewellery to pay for his next batch of drugs.

"I swear I'm going to shoot this guy when we catch him," he said, speeding onto the main road. Kay took the microphone and relayed their position to dispatch.

"Better button yourself up again," said Shawn with a wink. "Wouldn't want our robber getting the wrong idea."

"That would be a tragedy," she groaned, fixing her appearance.

The cruiser cut through traffic. Shawn barely missed two other vehicles and jaywalkers before the car came to a halt on the pavement in front of the jewellery store. They got out and placed a tentative hand on their holsters, checking to see if the robber was still inside.

Slowly, Shawn led the way through the steel doors. They found the petrified owner standing behind two shattered display cases. There were shards of glass all over the floor.

"There's only one robber. He went out the back door," came his reply. He was still shaking from his experience when he pointed to the open door. The silent alarm under the table was his saviour.

"Cover me," Shawn blurted out, drawing his weapon. Kay nodded and did the same, following a few feet behind him. They walked to the door carefully, checking all the angles outside for any movement.

Shawn went ahead, scanning the alley. The high brick tenements on either side cast long shadows, making it difficult to determine any movement. He used all his training and went slowly, careful to ensure that all possible angles were checked at every step.

A shot rang out from the far end of the alley, embedding itself in the wall to his right. He immediately took cover behind a dumpster, crouching alongside Kay. She shot a quick glance out the side.

"Shots fired. In pursuit of a suspect heading East down 12th," said Kay into her radio. They emerged from behind the dumpster and resumed their chase. Turning right at the next intersection, they caught a glimpse of the suspect rushing into the adjacent alley.

"That's a blind alley. We got him."

Shawn stood against the wall, peering in to the alley. There were several empty crates and boxes inside. Their robber could be hiding behind any of them.

"You hang back," he whispered to Kay, turning into the alley with his gun raised. Quickly, he hid behind a protruding section of the wall and waited for his adversary to make the first move. Barely a few seconds later he saw the desperate robber jump out from behind a crate and open fire. Deftly, Shawn dived to the side and fired his own gun, getting his man squarely in the middle of his chest. He crumpled and fell, his lungs expelling their last bits of air.

"We got him," he said with a relieved smile and turned around. His relief quickly turned to horror when he saw Kay lying at the mouth of the alley. He scrambled over and saw her spread-eagled on the asphalt, bleeding out of her front. The red pool gradually grew around her body, seeping out of her stomach.

"Shots fired. Officer down. Send an ambulance as fast as you can," he blurted into his radio.

His eyes stayed on Kay's. He tried to limit the bleeding by pressing his arm down on the wound, but it was of no use. The blood flowed out relentlessly.

"Don't you die on me now, Kay," he wailed, feeling her warm blood flow onto his hands. "Hang in there."

"It's okay, Shawn," she said with a smile. "There was nothing you could do."

She coughed horribly, expelling more blood from her mouth. Some of that blood stained her beautiful blonde hair splayed across the road. A few passers by encircled the scene, gasping at the horror of what they saw.

"Promise me one thing," she said, coughing out some more blood. "Promise me you'll get over this and go back to being a good cop."

Shawn nodded, barely understanding her words over the rush of blood pounding in his ears. Everything else blacked out around him, except for Kay's supine form. Grief would come later. For the moment, shock and devastation filled his mind with a chilling emptiness.

The ambulances rushed to the scene and the paramedics came out. They thrust Kay onto a gurney and began their attempts at reviving her, but Shawn knew it was too late. Too much of her blood stained the road.

As much as he wanted to go in the ambulance with Kay and hold her hand for as long as it was still warm, he knew he had a duty as a police officer to secure the crime scene and wait for the detectives, forensics and others to reach the alley.

It was what a good cop would do and he had promised Kay nothing less.

* *

"Keep applying pressure on the wound," said Bridget desperately. Her older partner felt the bleeding victim's neck for a pulse.

"Bridget, stop. There's no pulse," he said, checking his watch. "Time of death -- 1:35 pm."

Bridget Klein both hated and loved her job. As a paramedic, she was often first on the scene of accidents and other life-threatening situations. It was the decisions she made everyday that helped save lives. She ensured they reached the hospital, where they would have a fighting chance. Then again, there were the other occasions when she saw the light go out of someone's eyes. Every night, she prayed that the former would greatly outweigh the latter.

Even so, it was difficult to come to terms with the death of the young police officer. Her mind told her that she had lost too much blood to survive the journey to the hospital, but her heart never quite came to grips with the sight of her dead in the ambulance.

"So young," she muttered to herself, stroking the officer's bloody hair. She put her palm over her eyes and closed her lids. Once earlier, she had left the glassy eyes open, staring into space and the vivid memory of it had not let her sleep for days.

The ambulance came to a halt at the NYU hospital. They were greeted by some eager doctors, but quickly confirmed their worst fears. The only place the police officer was going was the morgue.

"Try not to beat yourself up over it," said Bridget's partner with a pat on the back. "Talk to Luke, okay? Don't be alone tonight."

She nodded vaguely and walked off. The bitterness of her existence crept out through every pore. The paramedic's uniform weighed heavy on her. She had not eaten since the beginning of her early morning shift, but she her appetite was gone. She dared not sleep, so as not to see the ghastly visual of the young police officer's dying moments again.

"Get a grip, Bridget. You see people die everyday," she thought to herself. She called the first number one her speed dial, needing to hear her boyfriend's calm, soothing words to give her a measure of peace.

"Hi, this is Luke Gantry. Leave a message and I'll get back to you the second I can."

She held the phone to her ear for a few silent seconds before the call dropped. The voicemail had his rich baritone, but it lacked his caring and empathy. She needed both as soon as possible. She sat down on an empty bench in the hospital waiting room. Her eyes welled up with tears which she quickly wiped. Medical personnel were supposed to be hardened to the point of being unaffected by what they saw everyday.

"Hi, this is Luke Gantry. Leave a message and I'll get back to you the second I can."

"Maybe he's finally decided to dump me," she mused, getting up and slinking towards the locker room for a change of clothes. "Not that I can blame him."

She folded her uniform neatly and put it inside. The mirror on the adjacent locker wall gave her a quick glimpse of her body. Her tanned skin seemed stretched across her angular face. People sometimes complimented her figure, with a special word of praise for her slender waist and plump ass. All in all, she was reasonably attractive.

However "reasonably attractive" never gets to date "smoking hot". Luke Gantry fell into the latter category. He was a year older to her and several rungs higher on the dating ladder. The mere sight of him in the corridors made female students go weak-kneed. His megawatt smile was enough to light up a classroom. Not only that, he was also one of the most intelligent and respected lecturers in his department. His students remained captivated in every class he took.

She sighed and slid her top over her jeans, hastily applying a dash of make-up. If only there was a make-up to cover how she felt, how insecure she was.

Every time Luke stood in the doorway to the lecture hall, he had a bevy of female students surrounding him and talking animatedly. Some of them had strategically displaced tops and others decided to do away with the concept of underwear in the hopes of enticing their lecturer. He smiled and talked amiably, not rebuffing them until they took it too far.

Bridget felt familiar pangs of inferiority as she walked towards the main building. The women she passed were so much hotter than her, so much more desirable, so much more like the kind of women that Luke deserved to be with.

"Hi, this is Luke Gantry. Leave a message and I'll get back to you the second I can."

Now, Bridget was beginning to worry. She couldn't help it. Her daily trips around Lower Manhattan exposed her to the fates that could befall anyone at any time. Sitting in the safety of his own lab, Luke could get hurt, or worse die, in an accident. She kept persuading herself it was an irrational fear and he was probably just busy, but her tingling nervous system refused to listen.

She got on the elevator, terrified for no apparent reason. Her neuroses was worse than ever when it came to someone she loved. Bridget was abnormally clingy, terrified to let her boyfriend out of her sight, even to cross the road because she was afraid of what would happen to him. A trip to the convenience store represented fifteen different ways he could get hurt, so she insisted on accompanying him.

"Hi, this is Luke Gantry. Leave a message and I'll get back to you the second I can."

It was no wonder that she couldn't get a steady boyfriend. No one could tolerate her vice-like grip on their lives. Each of them lasted just long enough to break her heart when they left and she blamed herself each time.

The elevator stopped and Bridget exited, along with the rush of students. She walked through the long corridor towards the main lecture hall of the Computer Science department, ignoring the incessant chatter from both sides. Her heart thudded against her chest as she stood a fair distance from the door.

After what seemed an eternity to her, the wide double doors opened and a horde of students streamed out, animatedly chatting with each other. She waited patiently for the crowd to thin out until there remained a handful of people. Luke came out, discussing something with a leggy blonde student. Bridget looked on, fearful of getting any closer should she hear something she didn't like.

Luke saw her out of the corner of his eye and sent his student on her way. He walked to her, a broad grin visible under his cheerful eyes.