Frank

Featureless faces featured fairly frequently in Frank's feeble, fearful life, following fierce, frightening formulas for full forfeit of unfortunate freedoms.

Frank couldn't keep the sentence from popping into his mind from time to time. He wasn't sure where it had come from, or even really how long it had been in his head, but it was difficult to argue with the sentence's sentiments. For as long as he could remember, the world around him had seemed limiting, as though it were trying to constrain him and his thoughts. The people he spoke to seemed to speak the same senseless dribble repeatedly, like they were following a script which Frank had had the misfortune of not being privy to. They didn't like the way he expressed a wish to leave his small hometown, and over the years he felt as though he had been pushed to fill one particular role in life, regardless of his own dreams and desires.

With time, the faces that he saw on a daily basis had begun to blur together. He could hardly remember which names went to which faces anymore, seeing as everyone looked the same to him. They were as pawns in a game of chess, moved with little more purpose than to clear space for the more important pieces on the board to pass them by and do more important work. The loss of such smaller pieces was hardly of concern to the players, whoever they might be in this strange and twisted world that Frank lived in. All he could think about was wanting to make it to the other side of the board and be given the chance to trade his miserable existence for a more exciting and meaningful one. But that was hard when the only path forward was blocked by those who did not want to be left behind.

Routine was the closest thing to luxury that Frank felt in his life. Knowing when he woke up in the morning exactly how his day was going to go meant that he could simply follow the motions, and let his mind go to other places that his body could not. He dreamed of better things. Of worlds of freedom, where a person's choices mattered, and where the people around him were vibrant and unique, pushing each other to do their best rather than holding them back so as to never feel outdone.

He sometimes wondered if he could give that support to someone else. If he himself would not feel jealous to see another moving ahead of him. If he would not try to reach out to them and pull them back so as not to be left behind.

Such thoughts scared him. He did not want to be like the faceless monstrosities that he saw around him. The dull and devoid of self. But was it too late for him? Had he spent far too long amongst them already, and been tainted by their actions.

Frank lay awake at night, staring at the ceiling, thinking long and hard about these kinds of thoughts. Wondering if the worlds he dreamed of could even exist. Wondering if he was alone in his thoughts, or if perhaps there were others like him. And wondering if those people existed, what that could possibly mean for him, and if they could work together to achieve something new.

But eventually he would have to sleep, and a new day would begin.