Chapter 2, Hung from the moon.

    I used to be so creative. I used to aspire to things greater than myself. My life used to be a whirlwind of inspiration, but now it's a blackhole of intellect and lies; a connundrum of mindsets furthering me to not care one way or another. When I was younger, life had depth and meaning, everything would always turn out for the better. A pool filled with young children playing made me smile, fill my heart with the subtle bounciness of love, but now the only thought I have is 'what will their mothers do if they don't resurface?'. Funerals aren't cheap unless nobody knows you're dead, but that's hard to ignore when the water is crystal clear.
    At least I'm not the only person with a cancerous growth of apathy. The four of us have had numerous evenings spent on the shoreline watching the sun retreat to lands we'll never have the privilege of visiting, reminiscing over our childhoods and destorying waves of nostalgia with laughter and hopeless seniments.  As far out as existance has thrusted me, with these people I feel loved. Wanted even. I just hope they don't prove me wrong.
     We sit around the improvised campfire, twilight hanging high over head, and Noah reads us a page from his life. Felix gives an intrigued look as he opens his mouth, for this is way too out of the norm. Noah only looks forward, and because of this, he tends to be an entity of mystery; a capsule of dark magnitude. A couple walks past us holding hands, admiring the beauty of the sunset.
    "When I was a child," he begins, a soft smile on his lips and a gaze of empathy in his eyes, "my father took me out fishing. We always did stuff like that, and I always tried to make excuses to avoid it..fishing just wasn't my thing." I shoot a look over at Carys, hinting I had a situational comment in mind. She looks back and receives my message, gives me a smile and  softly shakes her head no. "I always felt bad, ya know? I was young, but even at that age I understood all living things had feelings." Noah is focusing intently on a tiny piece of string torn from the hem of his jeans as he speaks.
    "We got to talking back and forth, sitting on the end of the dock waiting for a bite.. He knew I still had my issues with it all.." He smiles a little bit. "He explained to me that all living things must die, it's just how nature works, but they should never die in vain. So we catch the fish, we eat them to survive. How f*****g right he was." We all laugh a bit at this, pretending it didn't hit us deeper than expected. Carys leans in a bit and rests her head on my shoulder, focusing on Noah's words, thinking wildly in her own enigmatic way. "It was always the norm for me to question every single thing that came out of his mouth, but I let that conversation sit where it was and marinated on it for a bit. Those words will always be burned into my mind. After a while, I felt a tug on my pole. I knew that somewhere in the lake a fish had it's cheek impaled on a sharp piece of metal that I had put there, but I was f*****g ECSTATIC. I felt like a man at 7 or 8!" He stopped for a brief second and looked down at the sand underneath us, and dropped the string he was playing with.
    "When I finally reeled in my catch, it was this tiny little thing. I wasn't sure what KIND of fish it was, but I knew it was a baby. It had to be. But the hook that I had used was through this things f*****g eyeball." The group fell deathly silent, the only noise being that of the waves calmly hitting the shoreline. "I held this thing in my hand, eyeball entirely gutted out of its tiny little skull, and watched it wiggle around slowly suffocating. My father just stared at me staring at it. I felt like s**t man. Absolute s**t. Even at that age, I knew no matter what I did, it was going to die. I could've pulled it out, but it would've bled to death. Leave it in and toss it back, the little b*****d couldn't swim. But the funny thing is that because of the size, we weren't even going to eat it. We couldn't. It died in my hands for absolutely no reason, and with no purpose." He was staring at the ground like his brain was on autopilot. I thought that even if I were to make a comment of any kind, it would go unregistered, so I sat in silence watching the top of the sun slowly sink into the ocean.
    "You couldn't blame yourself though, Noah." Carys said, "Yes things die, that's life. But even at that age, that's a lesson we all have to learn." He looks at her and gives her a little smile, "But I feel like I was thrust into that lesson the hard way. It's not like a pet dying, hearing the squeek of your hampster as it keels over from a miniature heart attack. I was a murderer. I felt like goddamned Lee Oswald." Felix leans over and gives him a hug from the side and a pat on the opposing shoulder.
    By this time the sun has disappeared and we were the only souls left on the beach, silent and getting cold. Carys stands up, brushes the sand off her pants and extends her hand to me. I take it and stumble to me feet and she laughs at me, her azure eyes shining even in the pitch black of the beach. "Come on guys," She says, giving Noah a hug as he gets up, "Let's get moving." Noah looks at the ground, looking unsure if he even has the strength to move. Finally he straights up, fixes his shirt and puts his smile back on his face. "Donnie has this thing tonight, remember?" Felix and I look at eachother in question, then back at her. "The house party? And remember he said we could crash there tonight?" It always clicks into place for us. "And god damn it," She raises her voice at me, "You are HELPING to clean the house tomorrow. I don't give a f**k HOW hung over you are. It's only POLITE." I laugh at this comment and agree. She's always there to be my other half, no matter the situation. It's fantastic how two people fit together like puzzle pieces.
    I've always questioned why, out of the billions of humans on this planet, there always seems to be just that one. You could lust after a million and a half females in your day, but I can assure you there will only be one that sticks. Through break ups, divorce, death, there's still just one that puts a marker on your heart and leaves it there. Maybe that's the point of being alive though; to question. To ponder. To poke, prod and take apart. It's a habit I'll never grow out of, despite the situation. I implore you to never do the same either.
    Just remember. Where there's a well, there's a "who the f**k put it here?"
    Not that the answer ever matters.
    As long as your mind is churning, and synapses are burning.