Mr. Babydoll and the journals of his inner blizzard [peterick]

XXII

I continued showing up to work as if nothing happened, although Hayley kept reminding me how closely related that was to lying. She knew that something was very wrong, she never spoke to me about it, but I saw it in the way she looked at me while I was working.

When I first showed up again after my weird train station encounter, she immediately approached me, trying to hide her desperation. "Thank god you're here." she had greeted me. "I thought I've lost you too."

And well that sounded very dramatic, so I asked her what was wrong. She told me that Joe won't react to her phone calls, so she showed up at his house to find it abandoned. Like, actually abandoned. Some windows had still been open. I couldn't figure out why Hayley would be so desperate to find out where he was, but the way she acted so sickly worried made my stomach twist in concerned pain.
Joe was an adult, he could go wherever he wanted. The feeling I had about this whole ordeal wasn't good, though.
Maybe he would come back soon and we would all laugh about this.

He didn't.

Hayley, Gabe and me went to work every day for the next couple of weeks, the sun got stronger everyday and I wrote sad poetry everyday. But Joe seemed to have disappeared into thin air. His car was still in his driveway. No one knew where the hell he was.
We had the idea to track down his boyfriend because Joe hadn't talked to his family in years, so Andy was somewhat of our last resort.
The problem revolved around the fact that we had no clue where Andy even lived nor did we know his phone number or anything else significant.

We skipped trough every single phone book we were able to find and tried our absolute hardest to get our hands on any kind of information when there where no costumers around. Every now and then Hayley would throw a book or whatever had been in her hands before, on the table or whatever was in front of her and came up with horrifying concepts like: "What if he was abducted? He could be held hostage somewhere or even dead! And we're doing what?"

Moments like this made me miss the uptight, optimistic redhead I had known before. For as long as these couple of weeks had been going on, she was nowhere near any positive emotions. She was very nervous, almost frantic and that 24/7. I wish I hadn't been too harsh on her in my thoughts all the time. I wish I could console her, but I was rooted to the floor like an old tree that someone had decided to plant here for unknown reasons. Gabe was better at that than I was. 

"Try to think logically, don't let the panic get to you." he told her. "It makes sense that he's with Andy, considering the tricky situation he's in. But you're right at one point." he laid a piece of a news article to the side that he had just cut out. "It could turn out that we're wasting our time. Give me another day, if I haven't found any of them by tomorrow, we're getting the police involved."

"What if they won't take us seriously?" Hayley asked.

"I mean his car is still there, the windows and lights had been used before he left. It depends on if any of his stuff is missing. I've read somewhere that the police is less likely to get involved when an adult disappears and takes stuff with them as if they're on vacation." Gabe explained to her. This conversation is clearly going on without me.

"But how do they know what's missing?" Hayley probed. "It's not like they have a list of all the things he owns."

I didn't hear the rest of their debate since new costumers walked in. I felt empty and wondered if there's a possibility of sending someone telepathic messages by simply addressing them in your thoughts. You know, addressing in the sense of writing them a letter or similar to that. I heard that it could be- or wait, wasn't that when people were dead?
Whatever was the truth, I dearly hoped that Joe wasn't dead.

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After work I didn't walk the few streets to my apartment. Instead I made my way towards the park where Gerard threw bottles at the icicles a couple months ago- or had it been stones? Boulders?

It was still bright outside and warm enough for me to not wear a jacket. The park was calm and green and completely deprived of human life due to the time of day. Pigeons were crossing my path like my worries usually do, but I let them pass by without trying to scare them.

Behind the tree tops of the acorn trees, you could view the massive church tower watching over the town and for a moment I imagined it's clock to be its eye laying it's sight on me, judging me from afar. The church wasn't far away, just across the park and next to the towns hall, so that's where I was heading.

A child, presumably at the age of 6 or 7, walked out the church as I arrived there. He had a folder of musical notes under his arm. I helped him push the heavy doors aside, so he could walk outside and I inside.

I can't remember the last time I had been inside a church. It was colder than I expected it to be and I didn't like the vibe I was greeted with, although I must admit the mosaic windows looked cool. There was a wooden piano near the altar where Patrick was still sitting. He hadn't noticed me yet, shuffling a stack of paper. I wasn't sure how to draw attention to my presence in this quiet environment, so I decided to clear my throat.

He looked at my direction and although I was all the way on the other side of the "room", I could see a  smile appear on his face. "Oh, you're visiting me?"
The way he said it made me feel safe and all the pain was lifted off my shoulders. The emptiness I felt all day was filled up with warmth to the point where the church didn't feel as cold anymore.

Patrick finished packing his stuff and we walked out of the church together. "You don't look too well." he noticed. "Hard day at work?" I nodded and looked up at the grey sky where single stars were already visible like weak lanterns.
"Want to talk about it?" he offered and I collected all my strength to say the next thing.
"If I can take you out tonight."

I'm sure that phrase itself took enough strength out of me for me to simply not be alive the next day. Patrick stared back at me in disbelief for a second and I saw more stars coming trough. He laughed and agreed.

It was a simple dinner and we ended up talking about average things. I didn't tell him about Joe and the possibility of him being kidnapped because I felt that I needed to wait and not put that sort of emotional weight on him. I really enjoyed his company.

Gabe walked into the shop the next day to let us know that Andy had in fact also disappeared.

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Mr. Babydoll has sat at his desk for hours, sweating profusely in the neon light, pondering  on wether he should use the pocket knife to kill off Andy or if maybe the lighter could do anything like bring light into the dark. But for that he'd have to acknowledge that there is any darkness at all.