Not All Men Are Wolves (Chapter 5)
#5 of Not All Men Are Wolves (Short Story)
Chapter 5: Moonlight Ballad
I had far too many thoughts slamming against the inner walls of my skull, screaming for my attention while also trying to give me a migraine. I've never been fond of yelling and I'm afraid of what might happen in the morning. The day started out great and ended on a dower note. Now it's one in the morning and I can't persuade my eyelids to stay shut. Now the thought of work in the morning is bugging me, and not in a way that motivates my brain to push out my other thoughts.
At times I feel like someone is standing right next to my bed glaring at me, making me uncomfortable and unable to rest. Those imaginary eyes don't even seem to harbor malice or belong to a body. It's more like just a set of eyes attached to a shadowy mass that runs immeasurable limbs all over my body, creating a feeling that's like having a thousand bugs crawl over my skin when I know that there's nothing touching me but my sheets and blanket. I'm not sure how long this feeling has persisted with me but it feels like a virus that I contracted before I came to Gaia.
Groaning and throwing the sheets off of my body, I sit up and look into the darkness that my room provided. My apartment wasn't completely devoid of light so I could see the purples and blues peering through my curtains onto the couch and TV. My brain completely forgot that I even had a TV to begin with, but then my eyes focused on the tiny game console underneath it. It was the only reason I even had a television to begin with, since I spent most of my life not having one. Mum was a bookworm and dad was the kind of guy who would rather tinker his life away than sit and watch the Sunday game.
The light shined on a black case I kept next to the couch and almost never moved. I pushed myself off of the bed and pulled open the dusty container, showing an old acoustic that certainly needed some new strings. This guitar with no brand name was a product of dad's dumpster diving days. He found this in an old air force base that his company was overhauling. It was in the corner of the security room, so the guy watching the cameras probably played this old thing until he could leave for the day. Part of the headstock broke off and dad put on a new one that didn't match the color of the original body: had a black and blue striped body and a white headstock. During my free time, I spray painted the outlier black and made the guitar look even cheaper than it already was. Ruined the tuners with the paint and had to get them replaced; seems my teenage ambitions and brilliant ideas just fueled an appetite for petty destruction.
I opened the glass door to my balcony and sat down on a plastic chair. I had no idea what the time was but I'm sure it wasn't even close to morning. The porch deck stretched all around the building on every floor, and if I made too much noise, I would see neighbors stomping out of their rooms onto the deck. Only one other person lived on my floor and they were at the opposite side of the building, so I'm sure I'll be alright.
I grazed my fingers across the strings and used my left hand to form the first chord to come to my mind. The notes barely managed to ring out before I noticed that I had my claws out. Shaking my head and relaxing my fingers, I played the chord again and just strummed it over and over for ten seconds. My left hand naturally changed the chord to produce a different sound, and the strumming continued for several more seconds. I stopped my strumming hand after the third chord and looked onto the city below me, radiating as always. I remembered how the only light in the sky back home would be the moon, and it always entranced me in its incandescence. Gaia's city lights and rave-centric color palate overshadowed any light that the moon could emit, the vibrancy assaulting the eyes any chance it could. These lights can be a headache to any newcomers but my time here helped me build any immunity to the bright colors. My fingers returned to the strings and played slower than before, making only two notes ring out at a time rather than five to six like before. One finger on the "a" string and second fret, another finger on the "b" string and third fret. Plucking the chord and moving the shape up and down the fret board, I played an old tune that I wrote quite a few years ago. Damien wasn't the first boyfriend I ever had; in fact, my first relationship was with a feline named Graham. He was a really nice and smart fellow but he was on the other side of the country, so our relationship was connected by video calls and text messages. I wrote a song when I was looking out the window back home and thinking about him. Lyrics tried to come to me but I was never brave enough to actually say them out loud because of how cheesy they were. Don't laugh, I was still in high school; it's not like my creativity was refined. I wrote the song in only one day and I just decided to call it Looking Through the Glass because it's what I was doing and I thought it sounded neat.
As I thought about Tristan, Damien, Germaine and all of the other little pressures that were appearing in my mind, I played the song and improvised when certain thoughts entered. The melody went a bit haywire when thinking about Damien and the rhythm adopted a jaunty and upbeat tune when thinking about Germaine and our rainbow diner adventures. The pace slowed down and the original song showed itself when thinking about Tristan again. I found myself closing my eyes and mouthing off rambled lyrics or concepts that I wanted to vocalize about him. The presence of cheese in those ramblings was overwhelming, to a point where I felt like someone was judging me even though I was alone. The dark blue of Tristan's skin made me mumble some more lyrics about embraces and the deep sea. Whatever odd metaphor or expression I could dig up from the recesses of my mind.
I'm looking for my composure,
And you tell me the wait will soon be over,
Through the glass and on distant shores,
The time away grows more and more,
A familiar melody emanated from the strings and my fingertips, my voice slowly bringing out the ends of certain words, halfway through and at the end of each line. Warmth emerged from my chest before suddenly fading into nothing. The thoughts in my mind shifted around and the current one that demanded my attention changed the melody into something much more rhythmic and higher on the fret board, bringing forth lower notes and darker tones. The warmth once present was now in my head at a higher intensity. Lyrics from another tune I wrote not too long ago emerged and the words easily slipped off of my tongue.
Expecting my servitude, demanding my attention,
It's easy to be right, when you leave yourself blind,
And maybe I was wrong, to trust a petty harlot,
But I've been sorry for far too long,
Not my best work, and I end up stopping myself before any lyrics brought up change my mood entirely and make it even harder to sleep. I sighed and looked at the city below, seeing a version of myself walking down on the streets towards my workplace. Another version of myself in my car, heading out of town. I looked towards the horizon and witnessed that spectral image zooming to Souhou. ** ** Straining my eyes from the lights below shining upwards, I imagined another spectral image giving off a radiant blue. That blue ghost showed up at the café and shined with the first ghost in Souhou. Notes entered my ears and my fingers went on automatic as a light and slow melody showed itself to the world.
Above my head the stars radiate,
Below my feet, the world will spin,
Upon distant lights, I grasp at fleeting days,
Waiting for time to slow down,
To hold onto my time with you,
My tongue strains to finish the lines, as my mind improvises while the old melody plays. Eventually I give up and put the guitar down, stretching my limbs and pulling out a cigarette. Taking a few drags, I blow smoke into the air and watch it dissipate within a few seconds. A pang of guilt suddenly appeared at the back of my mind, wondering to myself if Tristan would even accept this terrible habit of mine. I didn't smoke a single cig while I was at his house, but I felt no need to. I better not feel the need to do this at the parade in Gaia, don't need to give kids any ideas and the parents would probably knock me about. Though I wouldn't be surprised if Souhou was full of smokers, because it brings up memories of similar looking towns that might as well had smoke towers protruding from the skulls of the populous. Home was one of those places, and my mom would sometimes wear a gas mask to be funny but to also save herself from the toxic fumes of our canine neighbor, Darrell. The guy asked me once when I was walking back from middle school if mum had some sort of rare disease. My teenage self just told him that she was just weird. I could understand the desire to protect yourself from him though, because the fellow liked to hold two cigars in his maw and create a smoke factory that extended beyond the picket fence dividing our houses. If that didn't happen, I could imagine the smoke just culminating around his head and creating a dark cloud to hide his face.
Funnily enough, I didn't start smoking until long after I left. If I recall correctly, it started when I had a delivery job in South Aderdale: a town that's past Souhou by a couple of miles and is about twice as large. It might be accurate to just call it a laborer town or a mining site because it's mostly males or just working families. There was only about one school, one church and a few government buildings while the rest of the town was just factories and construction sites. Instead of having smoke fill the air like before, my new place of residence at the time was just surrounded with dust clouds and tools sometimes left in the streets. There was a small delivery firm that I applied to online after finishing school, not realizing what South Aderdale was really like. Got the job and had to move out there, living in what was basically the basement of an apartment complex but I made do. Had to replace all the bulbs once I got there. All of my coworkers smoked in the truck so I eventually joined with them and remember lying on top of some sturdy boxes in the warehouse, taking a drag while having my eyes closed and the lights flicker. There was a point in time when working seemed like the only logical thing to do, and my sexuality and interest in companionship was so minor and insignificant at the time that I'm surprised that it ever became important again. Smoke and sore muscles were the only thing to accompany me on most days and I didn't receive many phone calls since I was detached from home at this point, trying to do that whole growing up thing while finding what I needed for the many days to come: purpose. That question ended up hanging over my head for a long time, and eventually I came to not care for the answer, but in an upbeat and optimistic way. Germaine put it best once: "Life is too complicated to make sense of. We're all making up answers along the way."
So what made me leave? In one of the few cases that I was by myself, I actually ended up making a delivery to Gaia, not even knowing it existed until then. I liked what I saw and even met Germaine that day. A lot happened that day and I was exhausted beyond belief, but I still managed to stop by her diner, where we ended up talking about why I was there over what must have been three cups of coffee. I guess I opened up about myself a bit more than I expected and she said there were plenty of places to stay at in Gaia that weren't a basement. The buildings in Gaia were taller than anything I had ever seen and something about the scale was appealing to my eyes, seeing a bustling and vibrant urban setting compared to my slightly rural origins. In fact, the first building I had my eyes stuck on ended up being where I live now.
I thought Germaine was joking when she said that I was allowed to work at the diner, but she wasn't. She set up an interview for me as soon as I unpacked into the place I am now. Born in a town full of smoke, worked in a town full of dust, and now I lived in a city of light. I almost thought that Germaine wanted me as a boyfriend, until I learned that her tackle hugging, affectionate behavior and what not is just how she acts towards everyone. That would be two awkward relationships in Gaia if that ended up crashing and burning. Thank god for friendship with questionably bubbly felines.
Despite the dower end to yesterday, I have to admit that things are as good as they are ever going to be. I've got someone to look forward to seeing now, and the time isn't gonna go by any faster by being a Debbie Downer.
I return to my bed and try my best to fall asleep, ready to try and confront tomorrow.