A Daydream Away

Jack's POV

I groaned loudly as the incessant ringing of my out-of-date alarm clock filled the cluttered room. Nearly knocking the stupid piece of plastic off of my bedside table, I succeeded in ceasing the annoying noise. The glowing green numbers informed me that it was 8:00 a.m., which meant it was way too early for me to even want to function. But, alas, I have work

Groggily, I tossed my blankets off of my comfortable body and reluctantly removed myself from the safe haven that was my bed.

Oh Monday, I thought dramatically to myself, why doth thou have to be such a bitch.

After suffering through a luke warm shower and throwing on some decent smelling clothes that I found on my floor, I prepared myself some coffee for the early morning. Once the steaming black liquid was safely in my travel mug, I began my trek to the Rockwell, a bar in downtown Baltimore that I happily owned.

This is how every day starts off for me, and how it has been going for the past three years.

Although I believe that I have the best job that someone could offer me, good friends to keep me company, a relatively decent sex life, and a family who's always been there for me, I can't help from stopping myself thinking, is this all my life is ever going to be? Life just seems so... boring. Everything seems planned out with nothing new ever happening. Something's gotta give, or else I'm going to go crazy from this monotonous life.

When I was younger, I had the strong desire to start up a band with a few of my friends, Rian and Zack. We were all decent musicians, but the one thing that we always lacked was a lead singer. Zack had an amazing voice, the only problem was that he was dead set on not wanting to be in the spotlight, despite hours and hours of failed attempts at convincing him. In the end, our plan fizzled away.

If that idea would have taken off, maybe I wouldn't be here. Maybe we would have gotten big and I would have been able to leave this town. As much as I love Baltimore, I've been here practically my whole life. I want to see the world.

Taking a small sip of my coffee as I attempted to beat off the November morning cold, I checked the time and saw that it was 9:15, roughly 45 minutes before I had to be there. The walk to the building was only a ten minute walk from my apartment.

As I trudged down the gravel sidewalk of the park that I always cut through during my morning excurstions, I suddenly heard guitar chords strumming through the air, breaking me out of my thoughts. Walking a bit further down the path, I noticed a small group of people crowding around a young man with a rather beaten-up looking acoustic in his hands.

I walked to the back of the group, easily being able to see over their heads due to my height. Looking at the musician, I noticed why he had attracted quite a few people. His honey colored hair hung over his closed eyes as it stuck out of a dirty beanie, a gentle expression painting his slightly stubbled face. His long, bony fingers strummed expertly over the strings and I couldn't help but think how at peace he looked while doing so.

That, though, wasn't what impressed me the most. What did was his voice.

His soft, melodic vocals soothingly wrapped around the melancholy lyrics, as if the two were made for each other. Despite the despairing story that the words fabricated, I couldn't help but think how beautiful the song was. I stood there, rooted to the spot, eyes closed, and listened for as long as I was able to.

"Wow." I breathed out as soon as the song was done. The young boy's eyes quickly snapped to look at me as soon as the small word was uttered. That was when I realized that I wasn't rooted to my initial spot, noting that I was now only a few feet away from him as opposed to previously standing behind the small crowd.

His hazel-brown eyes bore into mine, and I felt like I had to say more.

"Uh..." I muttered as I awkwardly scratched the back of my neck. "You were... well, you were pretty damn awesome." I stumbled out, putting as much sincerity into the crappy sounding compliment as I could muster.

A smile lit up the musician's features, a smile that made my heart skip a beat.

What?

"Thanks, man. That means a lot." He spoke, snapping me out of my small confusion.

"No problem." I replied, "Jack." I quickly added, holding out my hand.

"Alex." He released his grip on the neck of his acoustic and slapped his hand to mine, giving it a slight shake. His musician's callouses were rough against my own. It felt nice, though...

Again, what?

After a few moments of silence, our hands never leaving each others, I broke the grip and said, "I, uh, gotta get going. For work, that is..." I trailed off.

"Yeah, man. Thanks again for listening, and for the compliment." He said, the child-like grin never leaving his face.

I gave him a nod in place of a goodbye, quickly turning to leave. As I did, though, a thought came to my head. Spinning around again to face the boy, I asked, "Do you normally play here in the morning? 'Cause this is my first time seeing you."

Alex, as he said his name was, looked slightly taken aback by my question, though he quickly recovered. "Nah. First time in this park. I kept attracting some, er, interesting characters at my last spot. After some shit went down, I decided a change in scenery was needed."

Feeling satisfied with the response that I received, I placed a ten in his collection cup, gave him another nod, and walked off to work with a more refreshed and overall positive mindset for the day.

Maybe, just maybe, I've found my reason, other than work, for waking up in the morning. Maybe this was the subtle change of pace that I needed.

And that's when it hit me.

He sings.