If Your Lost
Enlightenment
He slung his bag onto the floor as he entered the familiar comforts of his small bedroom. Sidestepping around furniture squeezed into every available inch, he reached a black & uncomfortable swivel chair that only had room to turn slightly to his left.
He let out a sigh as he thought of the wasted day. The things that he could have done & said. He took out a pad of paper, muses over it with a cheap blue pen that leaked every time he put it upside down into his pockets. He tried to muster up some of the inspiration that used to flood from his brain & onto the paper with ease.
He remembered sitting in his school, scrawling away at a small scrap of paper, or the back pages of a math book, any ideas that came to him while he allowed the teachers words to flow gracefully over him where he sat staring at the ceiling for hours at a time.
A few minutes past & he could think of nothing but the title.
"If Only...." It was simple & bland, empty even, as if he hadn't really thought about it at all. Looking at those words now as they lay there on the blank white expanse, he couldn't help but relive the events of the day in his head.
He remembered huffing & puffing as he made his way up the large hill that led him to his usual bus stop. He thought about the uncanny feeling he gets every morning in his stomach when he reaches the top. The tension in his muscles around his organs contracting & releasing of their own will. He grabbed his sides & takes a deep breath, he did that every morning.
He pondered upon what a teacher said to him, that you can only do your best. But what was his best? He certainly didn't think his best was good enough at the moment as he sat, screwed up tightly into his chair, one of his legs going numb as the hard plastic arm cut off his circulation.
His pen started moving once more & managed to spew out a few more words before he grappled the pad & threw it back into the black bag from where it came. It would stay there till the same time tomorrow, he thought to himself.
Clambering out of the dimly lit room & into the tiny hallway that was always so bright comparatively, he caught a look at the time.
He was fifteen minutes late to meet a friend for a few hours before returning to complete yet another large piece of homework.
There, they talked, laughed, ate some food that stung the end of his tongue, he didn't mind. They sat & played on games, made fun of the heroes & pretended to critique the villains outfits with an exaggeratedly camp accent. She'd kill everything onscreen while he cowered behind his hands. Then darkness fell & he left, walking home alone again. He liked the piece & quite once in a while.
The next day swung around & he found himself doing the same thing once again. He bag found itself on the same place on the floor yet again & he fumbled over trying to write something more than a few words that he compared to corny eighties lyrics.
Days went by with the same thing happening every time. He came home, went out, responsibly did all work that needed doing until finally crawling into bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering what tomorrow would bring.
Friday morning he awoke, the alarm, taunting him with it's constant ringing. He hit the button that forced it to stop & peered into it's abyssal face. It read six am dead, as it always did. He browsed his collection of clothes that hung nostalgically in his wardrobe. Scanning the items he could tell how long ago he wore something. The green t-shirt for example, was last worn several months ago & may not have even fit him anymore, but still it hung to the flimsy pine bar, crushed by the other remnants of his past phases. His most recent clothing options consisted of a black T-shirt or shirt, with black jeans & a black belt. He liked black, it hid him, made him blend in to the background. He had begun to slowly turn his own apathy into some kind of fashion statement as he slowly pushed the buttons of his favorite shirt through their designated holes.
Sliding his arms into a blazer, & wrapping a strangely shaped scarf around his neck in an abstract manor, he felt ready to leave. As usual, reaching the top of the hill, his stomach clenched & squeezed of it's own accord. He walked through it today, he was going to be late.
He was in fact. And the day got no better from there on either & as he reached home, he thought about his days & how they where slipping away. He decided to rally his friends to meet up somewhere in town. He thought about them being together & how rare it was these days. Sitting with a phone to his ear he listened to the low monotonic ring before familiar voices spoke to him. He received the same opening speech each time he asked the question.
"I'd really like to, but...." & So it continued. Each person who picked up the phone had something to do.
"I'm at work with..."
"I'm out with some other friends from..."
"I'm staying in with my....."
He hung up before each could finish. It was usually always the same. He sat alone all day until someone had a problem, or if someone else wasn't available. He stormed out, grabbing leather gloves & his most formal attire he could find.
The darkness fell over him as he walked to town, alone, again. It was just like every other night, except tonight, he just felt like being his own friend. He walked faster & faster the more he thought about it. Debating over weather he was even wanted at all. He pondered the fact that unless he ventured out onto the streets that no-one would do the same for him, until he reached the town.
He looked around in the darkness, stained yellow by the ancient streetlamps. Teenagers swarmed around the large open area like a heard of gazelle feasting upon the twenty-four-hour drinking laws. He entered a building that featured illegible writing in blue neon swirling around the entrance way.
Music pounded in his head as he made his way through the dense barrier of bodies. Males standing tall to impress & their female friends coiling round them like snakes. He rested his weary legs by sitting on an overly modern stool in the deep corner of the room. Drinks soon found their way to him from a girl with half her face covered by purple hair & a boy whose glasses seemed abnormally large compared to the size of his head.
He soon found himself slurring words & lulling his head. He drew quite a large crowd as he managed to remember half the words to the random songs he sung to himself all night. It was only after the owner found him standing on the bar, melodramatically trying to sing a touching power ballad, That he found his way onto the streets, speaking gibberish to random passers by. The girl with the purple hair grew concerned & sat him down on a near bench.
"Whats your name?" She asked reasonably enough. Putting a hand on his shoulder as he rocked slightly from side to side.
"H-howm I s'posta know, you're the....the, wait, who are yyyyou anyways!? I'm Nate, p-pleased to meet you." His answer was temperamental, but completely harmless. It was likely at this point that he'd throw a punch at her & hit himself instead. She reached into his jacket pocket to try to find his phone.
"Hey.....what're you....you, just...." He shook his head & pointed to her smiling face. She clicked the phone on & found the first number on the list. She then proceeded to pull out a pen from her back pocket & popped off the lid.
"Give me your arm." She said bluntly. Her tone like a slightly disapproved parent.
He slammed his arm down onto his own lap so that it was in plain view of her as she pushed back the hair from in front of her face & the sleeve of his shirt simultaneously.
She left after a while & after a few seconds of talking about lay lines & the earths energy to a passing pigeon, who he thought had a moderate understanding of the English language, he rose. Walking the streets in the pitch black, & the silence that radiated around the town made him feel as though he was back in the horror game he was playing earlier in the week. As four large figures came to block his path, one spoke to him in a serious tone,
"Where's your money then Mr.Fancy-Suit?" A huge fist came hurtling towards his face & then, he blacked out completely.
He awoke with a fright & a pain in his head & his ribs. Looking around, he was not in his claustrophobic room, nor was he in his own bed, or his own clothes. A pair of loose trousers flopped down passed his feet & a t-shirt, navy
blue & many sizes to large for him, was draped over his torso. He looked down & caught a glimpse of his forearm. His vision was slightly blurry, but after taking a short while to focus, he read the black ink scrawled across his skin.
'Hi, I'm Nate, if lost please return to-' A phone number was hastily scrawled underneath the message.
He cracked a small smile as he plummeted back to the horizontal position, his facial wounds & ribs aching & throbbing at the same rate as his brain.
A familiar exaggerated camp accent entered the room.
"O.M.G! That eyebrow scar will sooo not go with that forearm tattoo!" She sat next to him where he lay, put a hand on his shoulder & shook her head. "You could have got killed, idiot."
"I love you guys."
He let out a sigh as he thought of the wasted day. The things that he could have done & said. He took out a pad of paper, muses over it with a cheap blue pen that leaked every time he put it upside down into his pockets. He tried to muster up some of the inspiration that used to flood from his brain & onto the paper with ease.
He remembered sitting in his school, scrawling away at a small scrap of paper, or the back pages of a math book, any ideas that came to him while he allowed the teachers words to flow gracefully over him where he sat staring at the ceiling for hours at a time.
A few minutes past & he could think of nothing but the title.
"If Only...." It was simple & bland, empty even, as if he hadn't really thought about it at all. Looking at those words now as they lay there on the blank white expanse, he couldn't help but relive the events of the day in his head.
He remembered huffing & puffing as he made his way up the large hill that led him to his usual bus stop. He thought about the uncanny feeling he gets every morning in his stomach when he reaches the top. The tension in his muscles around his organs contracting & releasing of their own will. He grabbed his sides & takes a deep breath, he did that every morning.
He pondered upon what a teacher said to him, that you can only do your best. But what was his best? He certainly didn't think his best was good enough at the moment as he sat, screwed up tightly into his chair, one of his legs going numb as the hard plastic arm cut off his circulation.
His pen started moving once more & managed to spew out a few more words before he grappled the pad & threw it back into the black bag from where it came. It would stay there till the same time tomorrow, he thought to himself.
Clambering out of the dimly lit room & into the tiny hallway that was always so bright comparatively, he caught a look at the time.
He was fifteen minutes late to meet a friend for a few hours before returning to complete yet another large piece of homework.
There, they talked, laughed, ate some food that stung the end of his tongue, he didn't mind. They sat & played on games, made fun of the heroes & pretended to critique the villains outfits with an exaggeratedly camp accent. She'd kill everything onscreen while he cowered behind his hands. Then darkness fell & he left, walking home alone again. He liked the piece & quite once in a while.
The next day swung around & he found himself doing the same thing once again. He bag found itself on the same place on the floor yet again & he fumbled over trying to write something more than a few words that he compared to corny eighties lyrics.
Days went by with the same thing happening every time. He came home, went out, responsibly did all work that needed doing until finally crawling into bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering what tomorrow would bring.
Friday morning he awoke, the alarm, taunting him with it's constant ringing. He hit the button that forced it to stop & peered into it's abyssal face. It read six am dead, as it always did. He browsed his collection of clothes that hung nostalgically in his wardrobe. Scanning the items he could tell how long ago he wore something. The green t-shirt for example, was last worn several months ago & may not have even fit him anymore, but still it hung to the flimsy pine bar, crushed by the other remnants of his past phases. His most recent clothing options consisted of a black T-shirt or shirt, with black jeans & a black belt. He liked black, it hid him, made him blend in to the background. He had begun to slowly turn his own apathy into some kind of fashion statement as he slowly pushed the buttons of his favorite shirt through their designated holes.
Sliding his arms into a blazer, & wrapping a strangely shaped scarf around his neck in an abstract manor, he felt ready to leave. As usual, reaching the top of the hill, his stomach clenched & squeezed of it's own accord. He walked through it today, he was going to be late.
He was in fact. And the day got no better from there on either & as he reached home, he thought about his days & how they where slipping away. He decided to rally his friends to meet up somewhere in town. He thought about them being together & how rare it was these days. Sitting with a phone to his ear he listened to the low monotonic ring before familiar voices spoke to him. He received the same opening speech each time he asked the question.
"I'd really like to, but...." & So it continued. Each person who picked up the phone had something to do.
"I'm at work with..."
"I'm out with some other friends from..."
"I'm staying in with my....."
He hung up before each could finish. It was usually always the same. He sat alone all day until someone had a problem, or if someone else wasn't available. He stormed out, grabbing leather gloves & his most formal attire he could find.
The darkness fell over him as he walked to town, alone, again. It was just like every other night, except tonight, he just felt like being his own friend. He walked faster & faster the more he thought about it. Debating over weather he was even wanted at all. He pondered the fact that unless he ventured out onto the streets that no-one would do the same for him, until he reached the town.
He looked around in the darkness, stained yellow by the ancient streetlamps. Teenagers swarmed around the large open area like a heard of gazelle feasting upon the twenty-four-hour drinking laws. He entered a building that featured illegible writing in blue neon swirling around the entrance way.
Music pounded in his head as he made his way through the dense barrier of bodies. Males standing tall to impress & their female friends coiling round them like snakes. He rested his weary legs by sitting on an overly modern stool in the deep corner of the room. Drinks soon found their way to him from a girl with half her face covered by purple hair & a boy whose glasses seemed abnormally large compared to the size of his head.
He soon found himself slurring words & lulling his head. He drew quite a large crowd as he managed to remember half the words to the random songs he sung to himself all night. It was only after the owner found him standing on the bar, melodramatically trying to sing a touching power ballad, That he found his way onto the streets, speaking gibberish to random passers by. The girl with the purple hair grew concerned & sat him down on a near bench.
"Whats your name?" She asked reasonably enough. Putting a hand on his shoulder as he rocked slightly from side to side.
"H-howm I s'posta know, you're the....the, wait, who are yyyyou anyways!? I'm Nate, p-pleased to meet you." His answer was temperamental, but completely harmless. It was likely at this point that he'd throw a punch at her & hit himself instead. She reached into his jacket pocket to try to find his phone.
"Hey.....what're you....you, just...." He shook his head & pointed to her smiling face. She clicked the phone on & found the first number on the list. She then proceeded to pull out a pen from her back pocket & popped off the lid.
"Give me your arm." She said bluntly. Her tone like a slightly disapproved parent.
He slammed his arm down onto his own lap so that it was in plain view of her as she pushed back the hair from in front of her face & the sleeve of his shirt simultaneously.
She left after a while & after a few seconds of talking about lay lines & the earths energy to a passing pigeon, who he thought had a moderate understanding of the English language, he rose. Walking the streets in the pitch black, & the silence that radiated around the town made him feel as though he was back in the horror game he was playing earlier in the week. As four large figures came to block his path, one spoke to him in a serious tone,
"Where's your money then Mr.Fancy-Suit?" A huge fist came hurtling towards his face & then, he blacked out completely.
He awoke with a fright & a pain in his head & his ribs. Looking around, he was not in his claustrophobic room, nor was he in his own bed, or his own clothes. A pair of loose trousers flopped down passed his feet & a t-shirt, navy
blue & many sizes to large for him, was draped over his torso. He looked down & caught a glimpse of his forearm. His vision was slightly blurry, but after taking a short while to focus, he read the black ink scrawled across his skin.
'Hi, I'm Nate, if lost please return to-' A phone number was hastily scrawled underneath the message.
He cracked a small smile as he plummeted back to the horizontal position, his facial wounds & ribs aching & throbbing at the same rate as his brain.
A familiar exaggerated camp accent entered the room.
"O.M.G! That eyebrow scar will sooo not go with that forearm tattoo!" She sat next to him where he lay, put a hand on his shoulder & shook her head. "You could have got killed, idiot."
"I love you guys."