Life Sucks - Then You Die.

A Chapter by megstar

It all starts at the beginning

Chapter 1 �" Everything Was Beautiful

It was beautiful. The water glistened as it dripped from her hands; it swirled in and out of her fingers and morphed into a beautiful swan then splashed down to the ground. I looked up from the water gurgling on the floor to see the little girl making it dance and swirl. Her face, petite and soft; like that of an angel’s. She breathed in and out slowly her deep brown eyes were rimmed with tears. She turned abruptly and started to run down the pavement. The heat beat down upon my back and made the pavement hot under its rays. I tried to move my feet to follow the mysterious little girl but my feet didn’t turned heavy as concrete; stuck in their place. The sun continued to burn down upon me in waves of heat; like fire licking at new fire wood. I watched the girl standing at the end of the path. Not moving just staring. It all washed over me - my eyes were shut before I could see her leave - and my body fell limp onto the ground.

I could feel the crisp spring sunlight illuminating my face. I could see its radiant glow from behind my eyelids but I couldn’t open them. I wanted to go back to the place in my dreams. I wanted to follow that little girl that did the most wondrous things with her hands. Damn this never sleeping world. It’s all hustle and bustle and ready, set, go! It just becomes too hard to stop, think, breathe and rest.

The dream had lead my away from my problems. Things that I would much rather forget; but with every problem - it’s always lingering in the back of your mind just waiting until you slow down and relax so it can eat you from the inside. The little girl dream was something significant, but at the time I didn’t know how significant. Not knowing how everything was going to unfold, led me to stop pondering on the little girl and to come back to the problems I faced.

Grace was gone. She’d just packed up and gone. Not a word; not a single word. I just woke up one morning to a loud hammering on my bedroom door. Eliza was standing outside red and puffy faced, her chest rising and falling fast than a race car in the grand prix. She led me down the hall to Grace’s room and there was nothing out of the ordinary. I didn’t understand why she had brought me here. It was just a tidy room. The bed was made; but that wasn’t unusual, Grace was always running around the little island in the early hours of the morning. I had made a promise to her that I’d go sometime but I never found the chance with me always writing some fantastic new song and wearing myself down on the massive loads of work I always set myself to one day be the greatest performer from this little bay. Grace used to laugh at me sometimes when I made her pretend that she was a music critique. She said that if I was get anywhere in life I had to sleep, chill out and exercise rather than sitting at a desk with my nose in my song book. All these memories left me when Eliza pointed to the little bowl on the bedside table. There always were two sets of keys; one for Grace’s car and our house key and the other for the boat shed and her surf shop down by the beach. I stared at the malevolent metal keys. Then I realised. There was only one set; the set to her car and the house were gone.

She’d packed up and left. I think I sat in her room going through her things so slowly and carefully for the whole day. I reminded myself of the smell of her clothing and I went through the box of shells she had found and were meaning to give to Eliza to make into jewellery. I stared at the glossy photos so carefully pinned up on her wall; all photos of us all together and photos of her brother who was God knows where. Grace was someone who wouldn’t get up and leave without letting someone know; she would send texts to me all the time to tell me that she was going on her lunch break or that she was at the shops and if I needed anything. I couldn’t wrap my mind around what was going on... I sat in every single spot in her room hoping that if I sat there long enough the place of which Grace has disappeared to would miraculously float into my head like a paper aeroplane and then all my problems would be solved. Oh how I was wrong, so very wrong.

I waited for three days for a text message or a call; or even a letter. Nothing came; after the first night without Grace down the hall in her room sleeping I didn’t bother get out of my sweat pants and shirt. I missed some of the simple things about Grace. How she would fold and rip paper when she was nervous or how when she slept her face was nothing like that of her own. When Grace slept her face was like something that a renaissance painter would paint to represent the angels of God. She was at ease and you could see no trace of the set laugh lines; although they were small every single one carried some hilarious moment in her life. Grace laughed so easily. Maybe not as easy as me but some of the stupidest things I would do in the early hours of the morning just after finishing something i considered dangerously important, would have her in silent yet violent fits of laughter.

Reminiscing all these moments was making me sick. Eliza would discuss with our other roommate Tess about how frail and pale I started to look. They would whisper late at night; when I rested my head on my book and just listened, I would pick up words that would remind me of things they would say about Grace when she had her moments. They mentioned how pale I was turning; like how Grace did when she got a call from her mother. Grace was tall and tanned for years at the beach; but when Mrs Anadalus called she looked as pale as I do. All of these things made my heart ache more. The weight I was carrying on my mind was ever growing. Every single day it felt like another ten kilos were added to the weight and soon enough I found myself fumbling over words and not making coherent sentences. Everything was spiralling out of control like some sick and twisted side show ride; my only problem was I couldn’t get off.

***

To my surprise it had been a little less than a week since Grace had left. I found it unbearable to see Eliza and Tess starting to lick their wounds. They had tried to look for her �" we spent three hours calling around to every place on the Eastern coast that Grace might be. Well rather Eliza and Tess called around and I sat bewildered by their calm attitudes, but everything began to be too much for them by the last hour, that’s when i had to wake up from my numb stillness and help them out and take over what I was capable of taking over.

I hadn’t given up on Grace; rather i had given up on myself. I listened to Eliza and Tess as they explained to me that Grace would be fine like all the other times she had left, and that she would be home sooner than i knew. I blatantly refused to believe it. Every time she left i was always called �" the three of us would sit by the phone waiting for her voice to come out from the other end. This time she was away for almost a week, not the longest she’d be away but the longest she had without contacting us. Something was wrong, terribly wrong and i was going to find out.

I was not motivated. After seeing my two best friends start to accept that Grace didn’t want to be found i was going to do the looking for them. For once i was going to get off my backside and out my song book because writing a song, or even composing a bloody CD would not bring Grace back home.