padam - a jan peteh pov story

12

i'm going to get the concert cancelled and blame it on illness to avoid conflict

I stared at the message blankly, unsure of what to make of it. Perhaps this was a positive - we definitely needed some time apart to ease the friction - yet it was also too late. With the gig just tomorrow, I knew that there would be plenty of people already flying in to see us. For our previous shows, some had even arrived a couple of days earlier to take in the scenery of the country, before heading to our concert a few nights later. I was no stranger to the flood of tweets of excited fans preparing for the gig - and they were both local and international.

The air reeked of guilt for every single one of them.

Yet it was beyond my control, given that there can't be a band without a singer. Our collective sound as an instrumental team was like a letter preparing for delivery, and he the stamp - although we could live and function without him, there was no potential for us to do anything more. Imagining the crushed looks on each person's face as we announced that Bojan would not be joining us on stage physically pained me, and I knew I was at least slightly selfish for being grateful that I wouldn't have to envisage these reactions in person.

He had sent the notice a few hours earlier; although he was being petty, at least he was remaining professional, and informing the venue as early as possible. Yet the fact he had made the decision alone had only resulted in the expansion of this quickly forming rift between him and the rest of the group. It had been there for a while, yet now seeped in far enough to reach my vision, drawing a firm, straight line between where me and him stood.

I rubbed my eyes to clear the haze; I was barely awake, yet the anxiety of the situation had caused me to check my messages within mere seconds of becoming conscious. And, as I removed the mist that clouded my vision, a statement shone truer in front of me than anything else had prior:

Bojan Cvjetićanin was pushing it.

This epiphany causing me to become wide awake, I lifted the sheet away from my body and threw my legs out of the bed, landing my feet on the laminate floor. During the winter months, I had regretted not having them carpeted, yet right now the wood was cool and refreshing against my body heat. Each step I took offered more relief from the sweat I had given off in my sleep; the fact I had been resting had not soothed my mind at all, and the situation had surfaced frequently in my dreams. The fact I had been dreaming at all was a cause for concern - it didn't occur regularly, and never had done since I was a child.

Drifting through to my vast front room, I met Igor at the dining table. He appeared to have been startled by my sudden movements, and was now stood mewling at me incessantly. To stop his whining, I rubbed a few of my fingers over the top of his head and scratched his chin with the others, causing him to indent his claws into the table happily. While I would have usually been annoyed at him permanently marking the wood with his small-yet-noticeable scratch marks, I shrugged it off today. I was already feeling awful enough.

It wasn't long before he got bored, as cats do, and jumped down from the surface and onto the ground. He wasn't exactly one to remain still for any length of time, consistently keen to adventure, and occasionally following me through the town until he decided it was time to leave me alone.

Following this thought, I decided to go out on a walk.

It was still a fairly decent time in the morning, and hence there weren't many people around as I trailed down the streets. Although I received a few double-takes as people rummaged through their brains to recognise me, nobody felt the urge to say hello or stare for longer than a second. It was calming to be completely alone, aside from the small feline companion who plodded along just a few steps behind me. Every time I turned my head to see if he was still there, he promptly say down, licking his paw as though he had been there the entire time. On each occasion, this evoked a low chuckle from me, and then a sigh as I continued down the paths.

There wasn't much to think about while I was out, aside from the occasional worry of being run over or the mental reminder to return a smile to someone when I received one. Given that I knew every road, every turn, every street-sign, the walking itself was a mindless task. The general sounds that I had become accustomed to flooded my ears with a homely clamour.

Yet it wasn't long before my body was done with feeling at peace. As I looped back around to head in the opposite direction, I caught sight of the bar where we had been yesterday for drinks, and everything instantly crashed back onto me.

I wanted to message Nace, or at least any of the others, to find out their opinion.

I wanted to be the one to type out the apology message for the group.

I wanted to get away. Properly.

I needed something to take my mind off the entire problem, a distraction. The band life didn't really allow for a true hobby, and so I had never gotten the chance to pick up something new in the little free time I had. I almost kicked myself for not attempting to start anything during the large break we had in England - yet I also supposed that my mind had been stuck in other places. Aside from the band shoots themselves, I had also been paying a fair amount of attention to a certain someone, given that she had come to live with us for a time.

Could you call a girl a hobby?

She would kill me for even thinking that, and I laughed internally at the thought.

So maybe not an activity, I thought - I didn't exactly want to retreat back into playing basketball, given that music was the reason I had given the sport up in the first place. Yet there wasn't much else that sprung to mind. I could maybe learn some new recipes to surprise the guys with, but I didn't want to waste this extra week off I had been granted by thinking about them.

I coursed through other options, flooding my brain with a sea of potentials, and then proceeding to drain them away one by one into the abyss. Too time-consuming, too boring, too repetitive, too out there.

I had practically emptied the bowl of initial ideas before one caught my eye.

You need a holiday, Jan.