Lullabies

What year was it now? I had died in 1990. And well when your dead, you don't feel the need to keep that date. I had visited my grave multiple times since that day. Not as often anymore since I abandoned it. I think about the day my full life became a half and I became a forgotten. I wanted to know the year. It had been a long ass time ago I know that. In fact the last time I'd been to California was when I left New York for a short while and went to check in on Billie to make sure he was ok and he was alive. Turns out he had made it big with his band, John quit so the kid, Tré Cool took his place as a temporary drummer but managed to root himself in a little deeper. They were working on releasing what would be Green Day's first big album. Course they couldn't choose a normal title for it could they? They all had a hand in the name of the title.

Dookie...

Yeah they went there.

So I didn't have to worry about him so I left him to it. I left for New York again. But that was 1994. Hell even that was a few years ago. I wonder how he is now. I sat idle for a bit before getting up to go venture the city some more.

I watched the snow and it reminded me of someone. Jade had loved snow because she said it had calming properties. Though I'd never witnessed snow falling while I'd been alive, I think it is amazing but could sure be a pain when it builds up. Jade had witnessed it because even though she is an original Californian native, every winter her and her dad would travel to Alaska for a month of sledding and skiing.

I walk around looking up at the bleached sky. I noticed a kiosk along a street and stopped to stare for a bit. The little stand sold calendars. Every possible style with ever kind of animal, color, celebrity and pattern. But it wasn't the different fonts and pictures that caught my attention the best. It was the years printed on the calendars fronts. 2000.

Holy crap—I'd been dead that long?...

I counted on my translucent fingers the years, it had been ten years, six since I'd seen Billie last. And all this thinking about him has made me beyond curious if he had ever found success in his work. Peace from his demons and maybe he is happy somewhere. I smile at how pitifully happy I am for him that he be happy. Yep, being dead does change a person. It has made me take note more on the work I surround myself in. I hardly worry about myself these days and that does not concern me much.

I walked away from the stand and further up the street slowly becoming covered in white mush. Another memory began, to fill me with warmth and emptiness because I'll never be able to recall a person to talk and look back on it with. I sigh, which appears as nothing more then a gust of air. 

When I was fifteen, I had a obsession with whiny pop bands. Jack would take me out to see the bands like Spice Girls, the Go Go's and some other band I can't remember. But then that all ended when Jack got tickets to go see Joan Jett. I was fucked over after that and a die hard rock and roll fan. I never listened to another Spice Girls song after that. And if one came on the radio, I'd smile briefly before tuning into another channel where a Mötley Crüe song played. Pounding my palms against the steering wheel as I practically screamed the lyrics to Kickstart My Heart.

I laughed and kept walking drunkenly up the sidewalk. Closing my eyes blissfully as the snowflakes went straight through my skin. I opened my eyes and screamed. Hopping backwards right through a woman walking up the street.

A guy stood on the curb waiting for the crummy bus to arrive, wearing a t-shirt that said Green Day on it. Along with a vintage logo called Nimrod. Holy crap! That band is still around. I've never felt so proud. And so wanting and willing to go back to California to see him and his success again. 

I followed the guy onto the bus unconsciously. Just to admire his t-shirt logo idiotically. Now if he could actually see me, he'd gone run away by now to report me for being a stalker and staring awkwardly at his torso.

I sat beside him. Staring at him, of course. He seemed too oblivious to my presence. I pouted and ditched the bus at the next stop when he did. Following him through the thick crowds on the sidewalk. Weaving needlessly around people until I realized I'd lost the guy. The familiar, ancient grief filled me again as I went back to wandering aimlessly again.
Walking up the street while looking down at my feet, aware that I walked through person after person without acknowledgment. Then, I passed through a person. A man I think, a little short so I mistaken then for a woman at first. I felt something in my heart. Whatever heart that was, that fluttered with recognition. Forcing myself to turn around to face the back of a man with curly black hair around 5'4" high. I felt stupid for believing in my hollow heart in the first place. I turned and looked farther up the street. Just eons of more crowds. So I figured I might as well try traveling north, I turned and followed the man I'd saw moments ago. He wore faded Chucks, dragging them through the muddy slush on the sidewalk as he too, wandered aimlessly. He had a heavy leather coat hanging on his shoulders and he didn't seem to be in the same hurry as the surrounding people- hurrying to get out of the storm. I closed my eyes and walked through him. Coming to a rocking halt when the same tugging feeling pulled from my heart. Screaming at me to turn around. I did so grudgingly. The dull green eyes, fair hair and now pierced ears were all too familiar.