Fallen Memories

There was something peaceful about having a room hidden beneath the house, inside the basement. It was darker than other rooms, and the only sounds were that of rattling pipes and squeaky mice. Sometimes it got cold in the winter, but Josh didn’t mind because the temperature was always comfy in the hot summer nights. Unfortunately, the mice had also enjoyed living in the cool basement too. There were 11 holes chewed through the blue wall of Josh’s bedroom, one for every summer spent in that basement; they were persistent little suckers. Each mouse hole was packed tight with a year’s worth of old socks and t-shirts that had been outgrown by the tall boy, though the newer the hole was, fewer clothes had to be stuffed in as a result of increased sizes.

That little bedroom was where Josh spent innumerable nights awake. Sometimes he was sick, on other nights he suffered from the effects of bad habits. More often than not, he lingered on his thoughts. Past decisions made him cringe. Memories that were long gone made him bawl. Thinking of the future made his heart ache. When sleep was inevitable, and his demons seemed to loom in the dark places of his mind, Josh got out of bed to write. Three a.m was becoming the ideal time to put his thoughts into lyrics.

As Josh sat down to write, his thoughts seemed to quiet down just long enough to organize themselves. The words fell onto paper through a pen easily, like water flows over rocks. Josh inhaled sharply for the last time, before his beating heart settled, and the last sob was let out. The voices that screamed so loudly in his head were slowly lost in between the words written. Little by little, Josh eased back into a calm mind set. It was always a slow process.

But before Josh was calm enough to even feel tired, a ring echoed through the large house, making it seem emptier than it really was. The noise pierced through Josh’s heart, making it race once again. With a second ring, the pen he grasped so tightly fell to the floor. Josh scrambled from the chair to pick up the phone to stop the ringing. The urge to scream from the top of his lungs was almost too strong.

“Josh, you can’t sleep again,” said the midnight voice that always knew.

“It’s not unusual,” Josh would scoff.

“Just let me in, please? I’m already over the gate.”

Josh always rolled his eyes. Everytime he would see a boy wearing pajamas, kneeling in the grassy lawn in the backyard, clutching his father’s expensive brick of a cell phone, waiting outside for Josh to open the small window that would let him in the basement. And Josh always helped Matt through the narrow window that they were both beginning to grow too big for. These late night meetings were becoming routine.

Another absence from school made Matt worry. Over time, Matt had grown a nagging fear of Josh being gone. He could only take so many lonely days before needing to see Josh, just to make sure that, just once, the sick boy was okay. But Josh was always hurting. Matt saw the paper on Josh’s desk and read between the lines. It had been a long week.

“It’s a little sleep deprivation.” Josh always said to justify these absences. “Don’t you dare stay up again, or you’ll soon be too.” he warned.

Matt said he didn't care; they were lies defined by purple bags under graying eyes. “I’m wide awake”
And so they would always stay up together, sometimes until sunrise. Matt liked reading what Josh wrote. Every night he picked up one of the notebooks left on the desk and read. If Josh wouldn’t say anything, then his lyrics would. He admired how Josh made words fall into place, but at the same time his heart ached. The reality behind the metaphores and similies was far more scary than he could even begin to understand. And for that, Matt gripped the notebooks tightly in his hands as he felt his chest suddenly become hollow. He cried for Josh.

Shaking hands took away the notebook after realizing it was too much for his younger friend. “You’re too tired…” he would sob. Words scrapped the back of his throat like wooden rods.

Without the notebook, his hands felt as empty as his throbbing chest. He bowed his head and gripped his hair for dear life. “You’re too sick.” Matt whispered weakly.

Somehow Josh always got Matt to get up again. He offered his bed to him, insisting that he didn’t need it. The younger boy would refuse, saying he didn’t need to sleep either. They quietly bickered for a while. Neither boy wanted to sleep unless the other also slept.

Again, Josh tried to persuade Matt to sleep. If they both got sick, he could never forgive himself. “You have to sleep too,” Matt would say, and through frustrated tears, they would bicker again.

And so, both boys ended up falling asleep, like they had so many times before. Usually, they were both in the bed, and other times one was in bed while the other lay on the floor or at the desk. When the sun began to rise, Josh’s mother often found them. No longer was she fazed by her son and the young boy in his room. She always closed the door to let them sleep, then called Matt’s mother.

These nights were not uncommon. Josh heard Matt cry and watched him begin suffer from sleeplessness just as he had for several years. The hours Matt spent awake, just to make sure Josh was okay, were starting to show in his eyes and was affecting his life. There were times, after nights like these, where Josh watched Matt lose motivation and thought he would never see Matt's genuine smile again. Though one morning was a bit different than others. It was in the middle of winter, the morning after a snow storm had hit. Josh and Matt were bundled under layers of blankets so thick they almost couldn't hear anything. But there was laughing outside; laughing loud enough to wake up the entire neighborhood, including the sleep deprived. Josh heard first, and soon, so did Matt.

Snow crunched beneath wobbly feet in the backyard. The sound was almost drowned out by the hysterical laughing. Josh and Matt looked through the tiny basement window to see who was up so early in the morning.

Outside, as the sun rose behind gray clouds, a boy was trudging through the snow. His face was red from the unforgiving temperatures and blood that had rushed to his face. The boy didn’t seem to realize where he was or what he was doing, he was just walking around, laughing as loud as he possibly could.

Josh suddenly began to laugh. His dull eyes seemed to light up a bit, which hadn’t happened for a long time. Matt also smiled and opened the latch of the window. The cold air brushed their faces.
“Chris, get outta my yard!” Josh screamed, with his hands cuffed around his mouth. If his parents ever saw, they would call the cops.

The laughing boy never stopped laughing, but walked in the other direction, away from the house. Josh closed the window again. Without the arctic winds blowing he could hear Matt giggling. He did it so carelessly, like he was relieved.. They laughed together and it felt good after going who knows how many nights crying until he was sick all over again. And to hear Matt’s laugh again was magical. Knowing that the younger boy could still laugh relieved him of a heavy burden. He grabbed Matt and hugged him. They kept laughing, like their hearts had also been lifted from a very dark and lonely place.