Unknown Novella Start

A thought on the moments of youth, drugs, alcohol, rock and roll and the life lived on the fringes of society

It was summer. Or fall. It didn’t matter. It was a time of change, a time for growth and fate. The air, pregnant with expectation and fear for the weather ahead, lay heavy on our shoulders as we sweat beneath its neuroses. T-shirts clung to our backs, wet with the heat resplendent in its mortality, the cooler air snaking around the backs of our necks to pinch us with foreshadowing goose bumps. Our noses tickled with the scent of desperate wallflowers, blooming for all they were worth, though they would only fade away with the frost clinging to the slim hope that they could anchor summer with their trembling foliage. The very old would remark on the despair to come, their bones weary with life’s truth, creaking as they whittled the last of the brilliance away with jaded wisdom, faded like the photographs on many of their nightstands. The very young would pretend to not notice the shift, preferring to live in the alternate reality of immortality that only the young can perceive in their naivety. It was up to us, the somethings�"the twenty-, thirty-, and forty-somethings�"to revel in the change that brought us relief from the tedium of our dreams and schemes.

These dreams and schemes were where the rote wrote the history in all its forms upon our fate through the winding and grinding of routine that brought us only to the point of disappointment in our souls with each and every breath. It was only in the times such as that particular day that we could truly live and imagine our potential. That day, and many others much like it, made poignant only by being a day of possibilities. No stars aligned, or meteors hit. It was a day like any other, except on this day, we awoke inhaling the sun and exhaling yesterday.

One may point out that inhaling and exhaling is a condition of our existence, something that is not thought of or striven for, and one would be right at first glance. But the significance of a simple switch of the inhale and exhale on a crucial moment must not be overlooked. For most of our lives are spent inhaling memories and exhaling hypotheses of what may be. Imagine then, the importance of this day where when the moment we are conscious, we inhale the present and exhale the fumes past. What a specific and curious day, indeed.

So what was the possibility in this day, and how would we choose to utilize its power and its uniqueness? How would it affect our lives, and what ideas would be wrought in the wake of this momentous prick in the fabric of our time here? The answer simply would be that nought of great import would happen, yet we would gain everything from this gift of perspective and hope. It would be as if the box never opened for a day, a short and arbitrary speck of time, and Pandora would leave the rest of us holding it and wondering what was within. It was an extraordinary ordinary day like any other day that wasn’t because both wonder and hope would wake us and intertwine our hands with theirs. There we could exist, reflecting in awe at the amazing capacity of our psyches; there we could do nothing and create everything.

He awoke; she awoke; they awoke, and in a synchronization of their essence, they became we. When he opened his eyes to the cracks of light eking around his blackout curtains, hers opened to the slivers of light protruding their way through the blinds. Singles awoke to light cascading across their faces while they realized they had crashed on a strange couch, and couples awoke wrapped in each other’s arms the light splayed between them like so many fingers. Even cats slit their eyes open for a moment as the dog’s yawned, each acknowledging their lives; their very existence. As feet slid out of sheets, off of leather, unwound themselves from another, they all found their way to a worn hardwood floor, a slightly off-set tile or a well-worn carpet. Solidified in existence, we began this day with a simplicity we often took for granted. Today would be the exception.

~~~~~

His head pounded with a ferocity that led him to conclude that he had been into the whiskey again. The light insinuating itself into his fortress of solitude was unusually persistent this morning, and he lay in bed watching the dust motes in his bachelor suite play through the air as if they were in a tiny mosh pit. As he observed them toying in and out of the darkness and the light, he began to let his mind wander, not something he often let himself do. Imagining the dust as miniscule fans he began to sing a melody so soft that one would have to almost be inside his head to hear it, his fingers strumming a far off guitar in rhythm. As he watched the swirl of his fans, he became more and more inspired, until he was playing air guitar in such frenzy he caught himself in the mirror, and laughed, the crack in the corner splayed his mouth open in a comic way, like one of those fun house reflections. As he played one final solo, he thanked his fans, the dust motes of apartment 4, and told them without their support he wouldn’t be where he was in that moment.

Though they whirled for an encore, he knew he must let his fans down, and he sighed as he flopped over on to his stomach and wiggled to the edge of the bed. Grasping onto the edge he pulled himself over just enough so he could peer under his mattress without his hair getting in his face. He reached his hand over the crate propping up the corner and snaked out a tshirt he’d discarded carelessly the week before and smelled it. Wrinkling his nose, he pulled it on over his torso and grabbed the jeans he’s left sprawled across his living space when he’d stumbled to bed the night before. Threading one leg through and hopping to get the other one in and the jeans secure enough around his waist, he grabbed his bottle of axe leaning against his records and doused himself, his version of a shower and laundry in a pinch. Today just seemed too important to waste on the mundane features of his life and he wanted to grab hold of his inspiration while it still lingered around his fingertips.

He reached into his empty cupboards and with a bit of rummaging, managed to find some cookies, and he popped one in his mouth and grabbed two more to throw into the pocket of his old plaid jacket. The cookies felt solid against his thigh, even as their rainbow colored chips worked themselves loose of their crumbling bindings. Opening his fridge, seeing only a beer and a carton of milk that was best suited for a game of Russian roulette at this point, he snagged the beer, cracked open the top against his rings and chased down the remnants of his breakfast. Seeing that there was still a significant portion of beer remaining, rather than waste it and suffer through his hangover, he tipped the bottle down his throat and sucked back the memories of college and skipping classes in high school, then he tossed the beer in a box with the other empties and headed over to Lou’s, knowing that he would be inspired as well, albeit a bit green around the gills. The door to his home closed with a solid click, not burdened with the mistrust of other doors in the building, as the lock had always been broken, and Alex would never be the one to fix it. Small town habits live on in city styles.

~~~~~~~

S**t. She was running late again. She swore she had only just got to the underground party, yet here she was with only enough time to rush home, shower, change into her uniform and head off to work her new day job. She hated her job. Hell, it didn’t even look like it was daytime at all, the windows blacked out as they were. She looked back at the game of Omaha her friend was playing and thought about what was important: memories or money. She excused herself from the table, found a secluded corner, and proceeded to call her boss. It was quiet enough in here that it would sound like she was at home, and she’d been surrounded by smoke enough all night to sound hoarse and unwell. She listened to the ring tone, once, twice. She held her breath for the machine. As the beep sounded, she breathed out and let that b***h know that she was unwell, adding details like diarrhea, vomit and stomach pains. As she apologized profusely, she offered to come in anyway if they really needed her and then hung up. She would be fine for the day.

As she started to stand up, she felt a stream of light cross her vision, and she paused out of curiosity to see where it originated from. Up in the darkest corner of the entire space, a pinhole of light seeped through. She devoured the irony of the purity of the light invading the seedy character-filled space, and she felt whole for a moment. As she turned to walk back to the poker table, a person of undeterminable age or gender smiled at the transgression of the sun, and even through the foggy haze of their mental state, they whispered, “Do you feel it?” She locked eyes with that human being and nodded. This is why she was still here, THIS exact sentence was her importance in the moment. She smiled and extended her hand, knowing that touch was the most significant way to affect the universe. As the person grasped her outstretched fingers, she asked their name.

“Chloe.”

“I’m Andy. It’s a beautiful day isn’t it?”

~~~~~~~~~

They woke up with a start. That’s how they always did it. Only this time, it was as if something else had whispered good morning in their mind. It was pleasant, having someone else there to talk to. Gazing at the bar covered windows; the sun streaming in was a beacon of hope, and today, of freedom. They were being released. They scratched their elbow feeling itchy from the starchy sheets, feeling sullied by all the purity. Soon, they would be in the sun, barefoot in the grass with nothing but the air between them and the melodies streaming through their vessel.