[ WP ] You own a very special sketchbook , where each page has a drawing of the thoughts of the person nearest you . Some of the more interesting drawings were ...

Sobbing. Very mild sobbing. 
 
 Isaac felt his body jerk involuntarily as his mind tore itself away from the brink of sleep. The fleeting imagery of a dream was slowly replaced by his visual peripheral, and the man was left gazing at the sky. He ignored this, trying to recollect the dream. Isaac began mumbling under his breath. *Something about jumping... or falling. And rings. * He ventured to wonder if the sobs were also part of the dimming memory, but at that point the dream was gone already. 
 
 His current perception of reality might as well have still been a dream though. For a brief moment, the chemical irregularities of a sleeping mind as it transitions to a wakeful state allowed Isaac to remain ignorant of the fact that he was staring at what seemed to be a very reflective body of water. However, his brain was only ready to perceive a simple sky. And so it did. Momentarily, he sat slumped over, chin resting on chest. He was comparing the shapes of different clouds to any of the various animals and objects he could remember. Vertigo began to set in when he considered the implications of staring *down* at the sky. 
 
 This nudged him a bit more towards reality. 
 
 He threw his head up, panic tugging at all of his senses. His head snapped back and forth as he took in his setting, and then a great feeling of relief took panic's place. He came to the conclusion that he was on a bus. `` Oh right, I'd fallen asleep'' he whispered. Isaac heard familiar sounds from the front of the bus. More sobbing. He did n't pay this any attention. `` And I was watching something''. On his lap, that something danced with false motion in his sketchbook. His eyebrows strained against his forehead as he slowly tilted his head, an incredulous expression filling his countenance. 
 
 There were the clouds again, or rather, their mirrored image, distorted by the natural ripples of a slow-moving shallow body of water. And the bottom side of a bridge which had gone unnoticed before. Isaac squinted at the animation. *What's this old lady's story? * He sat for a moment, flipping through pages with now still images of other captures. He paid special attention to the older folk it had picked up on. He guessed at his own question. *Death in the family. Possibly a husband? * 
 
 Isaac looked up over his seat at the source of a new sound. A younger female, maybe in her mid 30s. She was consoling the old lady. He observed that she shared the same distraught topography. *Definitely an old husband and father. God damn bummer. * The bus came to a stop, and the younger female began talking to a man in the seat beside her. He was shooting sympathetic glances back and forth between the ladies, his hand resting on the younger lady's shoulder. 
 
 Isaac looked back down at the sketchbook. *Grandma is n't even paying attention to them*. He felt the bus lurch to a stop. The animation took on deep blue hues as defined edges grew darker and more profound. A hushed change of lighting cast away the sky's reflection. In its absence, a face of decaying pallor drifted aimlessly under the river's surface. Isaac was visibly shaken by the sight of this new development. He wondered how long it'd take the new capture to solidify. His thoughts drifted about without any determined path. He flipped to the first few pages where the sketchbook had captured some of his own thoughts while he had been camping, isolated from other people almost entirely. 
 
 And then his breath seemed to become lodged in his throat. He struggled to stifle a gasp. Reluctantly he turned his head to the left and looked out the window at a bridge similar to the animation's own. An identical bridge, in fact. Suddenly the bus shook as the driver stood up and stepped out of his chair. The man hit a button and doors on all sides of the bus swung open, moaning at the hinges. The driver hurried out for his short break. The trio up front stood, and the younger lady spoke, `` Okay..Alright, mom? We're gon na go see Aiden. Remember Aiden? He's gotten so big, a... and-'', her voice cracked, and she hid her face in her hands. Isaac watched, not even trying to be polite about it anymore. Anything was better than what lay on his lap, on those cursed pages. 
 
 Grandma nodded at her daughters words, but did not actually hear them. She was in her own world. Her own bitter, depressing world. They began to leave the bus. `` They'' only included the couple, who made the mistake of assuming that Grandma had followed. Isaac's stomach began to grown and twist. The old lady took a step in the opposite direction. And then another, and another. Her frail frame rattled with each motion. She went out the other side of the bus. 
 
 Isaac closed his eyes. He tried getting up. *Stop her. Stop her now. Do it. Get up you fool. * ***Stop her! *** 
 
 A distant, shrieking voice pierced Isaac's determined thoughts. `` Jeremiah, where is mom?!'' Isaac could hear the driver step back into the bus and sit down. `` Honey where did mom go, she was right behind you, where is m-'' her voice was muffled as the doors of the bus slammed shut. Isaac opened his eyes just as the bus engines revved back up. The decayed, ghost-like face had been replaced by a wrinkled old smile full of love. All around was darkness, biting at the intensifying light tone erupting from beneath the smiling face. Isaac was breathing hard now, and the driver was beginning to stare at him suspiciously. He looked out the window to his left again and saw the old woman standing on the ledge of the bridge. Her back faced the water, and she gazed upward at the sky. The bus began to move forward. Isaac bolted upright, sending the `` sketchbook'' tumbling to the floor. Isaac pounded on the window with both hands. The bus kept rolling. He heard the daughter yelling for her mother as the husband shouted at the bus, pleading for it to stop. 
 
 And then the old lady tilted her head back down, settling her gaze on Isaac as she straightened out her body and put both arms out. `` NO, STOP! PLEASE DO N'T, JUST DO N'T PLEASE!'' Isaac bellowed. The driver slammed on the breaks as he yelled obscenities at his only passenger exiting the bus through a window. Isaac toppled against the ground, crying now. He tried forming words, but the fall knocked the air out of him. Her eyes were locked on Isaac still, he felt as though the intensity of her stare was the reason for his choking. She let her head fall to one side, as she shifted her weight backwards. Gravity did the rest. 
 
 He almost vomited at the thought of how shallow the river. *Of all things to cross my mind, why the fuck-* 
 
 He heard a thick ***thud*** and a splash. And then he did vomit. A shrill scream ripped through the air. A daughter had just watched her mother commit suicide. `` HEY!'' barked the bus driver. Isaac finished vomiting before looking up behind him at the bus driver. `` You forgot your fucking sketchbook''. Isaac flinched as the man threw the sketchbook at him. Before storming back to his seat he let Isaac know that he should n't bother getting back on the transit system for awhile....'' and more, but Isaac had n't picked up a single word. He stared blankly at the now solidified image which the sketchbook *happened* to open to as it settled against the ground. There sat an illustration of what would haunt Isaac's nightmares for years to come. A gray scale sketch of an old woman who had just begun her descent, her demise. A bone-chilling stare worn on a broken face, head hanging loosely to the side. The husband walked up behind Isaac and patted him on the back. `` Kid, relax. You're okay, right? Relax, just breath.'' He sat down next to Isaac. `` I'm Jeremiah'' 
 
 Isaac nodded. `` Hi''. His voice was strained and scratchy. He picked up the sketchbook and looked at his latest memory. Wiping the tears from his eyes, he caught one more detail he'd been too terrified to notice, his vision too clouded by tears. 
 
 `` Jeremiah?'' 
 
 `` Yeah? What is it?'' 
 
 `` She was smiling. She was grinning, actually. What the hell..'' 
 
 Jeremiah seem to wince at his next statement. `` It was another episode, then'' A long silence dragged on for several seconds, until Isaac asked, confused, `` What do you mean?'' 
 
 `` Another episode. She had schizophrenia, it'd been getting worse. A few months ago..'' 
 
 Isaac looked Jeremiah in the eyes, pleading for anything but silence. 
 
 `` She had an episode a few months ago. Her husband called us, worried sick for her. He was telling us,'She's god this damned smile stuck on her face, she just keeps staring at me with it' when he just stopped, mid-sentence.'' Jeremiah heard Isaac flip a page in what appeared to be a notebook. He saw that the young man's attention was focused elsewhere, it was for the best too. He swore under his breath at himself for almost giving someone, who was most definitely scarred enough already, more nightmare fuel. So he got up and left. 
 
 Isaac stared at the new image, now frozen onto the newest page. It had warped itself into shape just as the husband began speaking about the old woman's episodes. It stayed there as he walked off. Isaac put the sketchbook down. He stopped thinking about it, about this ordeal, about everything. He too walked off. 
 
 So there it sat, its newest edition. An elderly lady, ending the life of her best friend, the man she loves and treasures. The blade sat wedged deeply into his throat, blood pouring from severed arteries and veins. It really was a fine piece of work, the cheeky grin rested on her face depicted dementia perfectly. It really did justice for the morbid reality we live in, that we are hopelessly subject to.
