Something quite different from yesterday! The prompt today is racket, and I opted for perhaps the more obscure meaning of the word. Here goes:
--
He sat alone, surrounded by demons.
All around him, milled the people. The murmurs, the mutters, the chair skidding, the door sliding, the curtains rustling, the papers flipping, the greetings shouting. All around, incessant, inexorable, unbearable. The infernal racket.
And he was furious, and he hated, and he hated viciously. And he knew, that upon the faces of the nonchalant people around him were hung the faces of monsters, hateful devils from the depths of his own soul.
He was alone. And yet he was Legion. He was trapped with himself. The sound would not subside, the noise would not relent. He could stomache it no more. The racket rang and rattled and battered his very soul.
He was breaking. Perhaps he needed to be alone. Perhaps he ought never, ever to be alone.