Tesoro

04 | New Strategy

Ross' Pov

All the parties you spent watching a room from a balcony where someone joined you to smoke, then returned.

And how it turns out no one had the childhood they wanted, and how they'd tell you this a little drunk, a little slant in less time than it took to finish a cigarette because sad things can't be explained.

Behind the glass or inside, people buzzed. You could feel the shape of their voices. You could tell from their eyes they were in some other place. 1999, 2008 or last June.

Of course it's important to go to parties. To make life a dress or a drink or suede shoes someone wears in the rain.

On the way home, in the car back the night sky played it's old tricks. The stars arranged themselves quietly.

The person you thought of drove under them, away from the party, just like you, into the years.

You think when you reach a certain age things will start making sense.

Then you find out you're just as lost as you were before.

I suppose that's what damnation is.

The pieces of your life never come together. Just splashed out there.

I used my hands to push against the floor, then raise my body up sorely.

I found myself often crashed on the floor- I had no sense of balance when wasted.

Then I guess, it sort of made sense. I liked being on the floor. It was the bottom barrel. There was something reassuring about the fact I couldn't fall further more.

If I could, I would.

Sitting up completely now- my body hurt to move. I found myself in front of the mirror- still in last night's clothes.

Shutting my eyes for a brief moment, I remembered last night. I'd been especially bad, violent. I guess that explained the dried blood covering my lip.

Though most of my nights were more miserable than I'd like to admit, the new place we'd been going at after my move to New York, wasn't too bad.

Classic, classic fucking bar.

It wasn't a club. They made me exhausted. I wasn't sure how people found clubs entertaining.

To be honest, I wasn't sure how people found most things entertaining- but what did I know- right?

I wasn't living, I was staying alive.

And yet, what even was, living?

What had I yet to live for or enjoy?

Maybe music. Yeah, yeah I liked my silly little music.

I especially enjoyed live music. It was raw, and you could always tell who was singing with their soul, and who was simply moving their lips.

In the crazy chatter around me, I'd found myself rather more consumed in the music. The voice of the woman singing there that night- singing of money, love, sadness.

My calm before the storm of what was last night.

I'd went there twice, not once had I seen her face, as I took one of the tables tucked at the side. There was no view of the stage- there was no view of anything when a stranger decides to use your lap as a seat.

Strangely, I enjoyed it. I needed a mystery, something to keep me curious- even something as small as this. Something different, outside of what my life usually was.