Independent Short Story

Guitar cords made their way into his ears. Silky voices reciting the story of some boy's young, creative life, while the sudden deepness of the singer's voice crashed and flowed, like the ocean waves overlapping against a sandy shore, with the smooth music notes from the various instruments around him. 'I have found myself in the end', he heard the boy say, while his own lips mouthed the words. Tasting the turmoil of emotions that said phrased contained. His tongue lapped against his front teeth, and rolled inside his mouth as he repeated again and again the lyrics of the song he had only started listening to a minute ago. 'These are the lies I have created', he silently sang alongside the unknown boy. The 'palabras' transforming onto a mantra as he continued to taste the newness of their meaning with softly closed eyes. His warm tongue continuing to stroke his bottom lip. Smooth except for the small burning cut that ached when he stretched them into a smile, from where he had bitten it too tightly the night before. 'This is the story of my life', he chanted with silent devotion unaware of the hard leather seat below him or of the smell of smoke that clung to them the same way a lovesick fool would tightly embrace their beloved. He did not want to open his eyes, for doing so would mean coming back to the place he most desperately wanted to escape from. He did not want to open his mouth to deliver the truths no one was strong enough to face, nor did he want to encounter the hateful gazes of the people he had, unknowingly, damaged with the honest words that had flowed through his mouth when he been asked to answer a question. -'Honesty does not need flowery'-, he once upon a time read somewhere. Though now he wished he could mask some of the truths that danced inside his mind in order to not face them. He tried picturing different colored veils that would fall over them, the way the truths would shrink away to the dark corners of his mind where he would no longer be able to perceive them. The way some truths would try to dance away from the shimmering rain of see-through cloths, only to fall prey to the overwhelming amount of cloths showering over them. The simple idea of it left a sweet taste in his mouth, and the ghost of a smile on his lips. Inside closed lids he could not see. Inside closed lips he could not talk. Not see the scorn hidden or blatantly showed on people's eyes. Not hear the hateful words and whispered insults that emerged from people's mouth whenever he passed, and from whenever people thought he could not hear. He thought of himself as a crow who had unknowingly ventured too far away from his solitary patch of crops, and had landed on a land of blinding white doves. He walked backwards in a sea of unmoving bodies whose straightforward course had been decided by a being not their own. Sneers been bestowed on him from the moment his combat boots had set foot on the inside of their territory. 'Go away', they had whispered when he had asked for help. 'Return to your place', they had begged when he had tried helping a pair of young girls with the overflowing boxes on their arms. The sight of laughs hidden behind palms had welcomed him everywhere he went. Unprovoked shoves had made their way to him every time he ventured through the main hall's throng of blinding doves in his way to class. Secrets and hidden lies had made their way into his ears for the sole reason of being casted as an invisible being incapable of speech, but capable of being used as their speechless toy. Clouds of smoke clouded his mind as a memory began to unfold behind his closed lids: in it, there was a girl with usually perfect curled hair that was now sweaty and hanging limp on the pillow beside him. A pale blue bed sheet covered them both, though his chest and arms laid exposed as the girl beside him began to stroke his body absently. Clouds of smoke curled around the memory's edges, edging it away to be locked back into it's place as another one took it's place: in it, there was a girl with short, straight black hair that laid chest down on his bed. Her eyes closed, but her rosy lips moving as her secrets spilled onto the night over a pair of damp pillows and sheets. He remembered the way her breath had smelt faintly of peach and smoke. The way the curves of her body had felt under his bare hand, and how even then, he had been unable to feel anything. Clouds came and went, and in each memory there was a different set of limbs intertwined with his. In each, a different pair of hands had carcasses his cheeks and hair, while he remained aloof under the warmth of their touch. Clouds came and went, and in each memory a different pair of lips had parted during the night to uncovered a hidden truth meant only for his ears to listen. He remembered, faintly, of the way each night had felt the same as the night before regardless of the different pair of arms embracing his body. The first night of the many to come, he had been laying awake on bed listening to whatever song had attracted his attention that day. The mattress & pillow soft and warm underneath him as he contemplated the sharp and poisonous turns fate had set in store for him. That had been the first night that clouds of smoke had began to mask his memories and linger in his dreams; the first night where he had learned what it meant to feel nothing. The first knocked had been tentative, but the two that followed had been anything but. There had been an almost childlike eagerness within the girl's pale blue eyes when the door had been opened and she had been led inside. Turning around slightly to take in the room where he slept, noticing the bare walls first and the sparse furniture next. He had not liked the way her eyes had seemed when she had regarded him: calculative and almost-cool. But he had brushed off the uneasiness she made him feel, choosing instead grab her by the arms and proceeding to show her the service she had paid well for. After that night, he had been unable to shake off the feeling of recognition that girl had sparked when her cool eyes had taken a warm look under him, for he knew that he had seen that gaze before. And true enough, he had, in the pale blue eyes of a girl who he shared a class with. After that night, he had received more and more customers from the school he went to. Not once, imagining of the hostility the following days were to bring. He was, after all, the only boy his age who had deciding using the money he earned to pursue a higher education in one of the best schools of the country. Never once imagining that one of his own classmates would come to the place he lived and worked at. Clouds of smoke drenched the memory of that night into blurriness and paleness as a series of short memories began to play behind his closed lids. Flickering and opening under faded yellow light showing to him the changes that first night had forced upon him: in one, he was curling his fingers into fists as a boy loudly made a joke about his work when he had passed by, in another one, he was laying on the roof of the school's highest building after the dean had told him that due to the rumors the blinding white doves had reported to him about his job and where he lived he had been forced to expel him. In one, he was laying on the ground with a split lip and broken nose after picking a fight with three guys at the bar down the house where he lived. Wanting to forget himself in the rough punches and hard shoves they had inflicted on him while he smiled at them provocative yet remained still. In another one, he was laying on his bed sheets with girls from surrounding schools and towns that had come to seek him after hearing the rumors the blue-eyed girl had spread. It had not mattered how stellar his grades had been. Nor had it mattered how up until that day he had not caused anyone any reason to notice him. They knew what he was, and now that they did they would never let him forget. The few days after that first night there had been laughs and shoves everywhere he went. The following weeks, even the teachers had looked at him with disgust, until the dean had been forced to make him leave the school. Clouds of smoke enveloped his memories again to guide him deeper into his memories, deeper and deeper until he found the one that hurt the most: the death of his parents and little sister. A woman with long brown hair and a man with crimson locks stood smiling behind his closed lids. He could see them so clearly, the way his father's arm never wavered from his mother's shoulder. The way his eyes had regarded them with love and trust, and later, how he had smiled with he held the small bundle that had been his sister in his arms. Singing softly to her as she laid sleeping inside the cocoon of his arms. The clouds of smoke forking through the memories were a welcome sign, but the relief was short lived as memories of the accident began to emerged. One after another, he saw the dented metal of the car. The red lights of the ambulance casting red shadows on the cold bodies where the souls of his family had rested only moments before. He had been spared that night for he had been riding a few cars behind them with a friend, and since that night he had began to curse his fate. He had been forced to take on the mantle of his job in order to survive, for his parents had not left him nothing behind but loans to pay. For they had, unknown to him, taken out a loan to pay for college tuition he hadn't had wanted to go to. Anger lit inside his blood like flames were licking him from the inside as he remembered the injustice of it all. Anger that faded instantly as he remembered the hurt he had caused and what pain his parents would feel now if they could see where he had ended up at. Not once, had he lied since that night. Something that the white doves from his school had learned the hard way when a faceless boy had asked him about the girls he had been with from school. One after another had their names tumble from his lips. Uncaring of the reputation he would crown them with. Uncaring of how many of their secrets he would revealed if only someone would ask. 'Jesus, I have found myself in the end', sang the boy to his ear as he finally opened his eyes to the dimly lit room where he slept and remained a majority of his time in. Disheveled crimson hairs laid across his forehead, making it hard to see the ceiling with his pale gray eyes. He had not wanted the life he chose to live during the first few weeks, but now it was everything he knew. Sighting deeply, he repeated the song again, singing silently alongside the boy while he thought of a small child with crimson hair and lost gray eyes that cried for his family to come back.