Stardust

Silence falls like a bird of prey, swooping across the room with the swing of the door; devouring any sound as the hinges click affirmatively. Voices are blocked, but a dull, fading laugh slips through the door as footsteps sounds further and further down the corridor.

Kelly turns, his eyes sweeping from the door and to the interior of tonight’s room. It’s another standard hotel room – double bed, TV, mini fridge and a selection of ‘tastefully’ chosen furniture that Kelly could care less about. There’s a painting on the wall of sunflowers, blissful in a golden sun, and Kelly recognises it vaguely from the confined classrooms of his education. It’s nice, and it’s bland, and it probably means nothing.

He hates nothing.

His skin is slicked with sweat from the show he just played, and his hair feels vaguely wet against his forehead. Sweat is liquid confidence, Jullian used to say, sweat means you’ve worked and you’ve won. Sweat, Jullian would say with a rueful smile and that look in his eyes, was also rather unpleasant and an all round pain. A smile, small and wavering, turns at Kelly’s lips. He misses Jullian. He misses the late night performances and the Jack Daniel bottles littering the studio; it may have been the only home he had ever embraced. It felt cheap to know he’d swapped that for this, this... persona.

Sage Lane wasn’t Kelly Lawrence. He was sexy and flirty, loud and confident – a heartthrob and an affectionate know it all. Sage was a deep mystery, buried in his songs and made of fucking stardust. The new Ziggy Stardust. He was all that a man of this age would aspire to be, plus make up and stupid, violet hair that clashed with everything. Sage was outrageous and noticeable and someone others wanted to be, and be with. Sage was... Sage wasn’t Kelly. Sage Lane was everything Kelly Lawrence could never be.

Laugher sounds again, a door opens, his eyes close.

He can hear life, he can hear steps and youth; laughter and stumbling and the sound of a fallen key. It’s all something he’d have liked, once upon a time, with the right mum and the right mind. Get drunk and meet a lovely stranger with the most amazing tongue and eyes like a lion; it all sounded so very beautiful and different. Like a drug, he would guess. Another weight he couldn’t afford, wouldn’t afford.

Kelly shuts out the sounds and finally moves towards his bed, eye opening to see a black suitcase already lying there. Sage demanded his luggage be carried for him to his rooms. Kelly could care less. He slips a hand into the outside pockets and brings forth a cigarette and lighter. Light reflects from the silver surface of the lighter and contends briefly with the coming flame, shining lines battling through the curves and twists of fire.

Where is my mind?

Nights ago in a town with too many morals and too little acceptance, he remembers thinking the same. Again and again, through stares and judgement and people who just couldn’t fathom the play of life and the suspense before death. Little old Kelly with his head full of thoughts and jeans full of rips. The memories are bitter like the cigarette pressed to his lips, and he passes over them as if he was the smoke from his lungs.

And you ask yourself...

“Where is my mind?”

It’s another night and Kelly can’t quite remember when this became his life.