3 Friends (1)

Based on a dream that I thought was pretty damned epic.

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Jack was late. He wasn't late in the sense that he'd be meandering in with the other guys who'd missed the 7:30 bus into town. He was late in the way that birds freeze to death in the winter, lost among snowy trees. He'd missed several buses. Missed them, because he wasn't sure if he should go in to work today, or ever. Ever since the thing happened.

He didn't even want to think about it, much less look into those cobalt blue eyes. The eyes of his best friend. Well, one of his two best friends. He admitted to himself that they were probably better best friends with each other, and while that used to give him some pang of remorse, the idea that perhaps he was even the slightest bit further away from the people in question was a blessing.

Yesterday, his best friend (cobalt blue) pushed a man out the window. The man fell seven stories and came to a halt inside the back seat of a taxi cab. The second man, the one doing the more active, traveling portion of this tale, was his other best friend, Mike.

How was it that, even after all they'd been through, he could say Mike's name, but not... his?

The week before, he could've said both of their names, no problem. He could've shouted them from the rooftops, the two young men drunkenly jeering him on, as he had done once or twice (or more, he couldn't remember).

Maybe the introduction of fleece was when it had started going downhill. Or maybe it was the... predicament. Or even earlier, when they first took these goddamned jobs. His ex-girlfriend was right, you never really knew someone until you worked with them. As for Jack, he was content to run rounds on the second floor. He copied things, wrote reports, wrote summaries of reports, wrote memos about summaries of reports. He liked his job okay, because it paid for his okay dates with girls who weren't his ex, and it gave him a roof over his head. Life was good.

Ty (there, he said it), who started off on the second floor, before he got the job on the third floor and was then bumped up to the seventh floor where he pushed Mike out the window, wasn't so satisfied. He rubbed elbows. Licked shoes. Did things he wouldn't talk about unless he was drunk, and then everyone wished he would shut up about it. He got promoted, and then promoted again, and again, until he was almost where he wanted to be.

Mike was the weird one. Like Jack, he was satisfied with life. He was happy. Life was good. He was happy writing memos. He was happy when he got promoted to the third floor, keeping track of statistics. He was happy when he got promoted again to the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh floors, and he would've been perfectly happy on the eighth floor, which was where his new office would've been today, if Ty hadn't pushed him out the window.

To recap:
Jack was a satisfied nobody.
Ty worked hard and kissed ass for his seventh floor job.
And Mike was a genius.

If it wasn't apparent in grade school, or high school, or college, it was sure as hell apparent now. There was something about Mike that people just -liked-. He had a calm, cool demeanor that came from simply not giving a single shit, and people liked that. Even Ty, usually. Especially Ty.

Ty didn't push Mike out of the window because of the promotion. At least, he said he didn't. Before yesterday, Jack would've believed him. Before yesterday, Ty had never pushed anyone out a window.

Of course, a week ago, Jack wouldn't have believed that people had built-in force fields, either. But, apparently, they did.