Like Words || Ramshackle

II : The Flyer

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The weather is cloudy today, for the wind sprinkles with mist. It brushes my hideously overgrown hair. I don't want to cut it for some reason.

After I regained full consciousness, my wit told me to do rounds around Ramshackle's busy streets. Infested with rich people and crimes. Yeah, me, Skipp, and Vinnie are definitely not involved 'round the insane criminology.

I wear my dusty dull coat and slowly walk out of the hometown of slums. Shit, It smells so horrid in here. "Ugh, this dog shit has been in this sidewalk for like... a week."

It's a cloudy day today. A range of cumulus clouds are waving and swaying with the blues of the lonely sky. Strangely, I hum an off-key melody as I made my way through the brick patterned cemented paths. I knew I was getting closer and closer to the city of riches when my heel tapped the hard pavement.

And here we are. I can clearly hear the loud honks of their fancy cars and vans.
I can smell the smoke, too.
Oh, right.
I forgot to bring either a cigarette or a bottle with me. No wonder why I feel so... empty. It feels weird without carrying my addictions. Yet, somehow relieving.
Skipp always tells me to lower down my drinking and smoking. Well, sorry, but I can't help it. It's what kept me distracted from the zilch of reality. Every sip, every smoke, it made me levitate beyond my imagination.

I put my hands in my pockets as I wandered around Ramshackle. I stop to see my image reflecting on a polished glass window.
"Oh Maggot, I look stupid. Still somewhat attractive, though."

I posed a smirk before leaving. Then something caught my eye. A combination of complimentary colors—put together in an attractive flyer. An old man plastered in the middle of the poster is using rhetorics to invite me.

"Hmm, poetry contest, huh?" I took the flyer from the glass window. Suddenly, I froze with the flyer resting on my hands. The paper was smooth in contrast to my rough skin. A spark of dedication kindled within my chest.

...

Writing... had always been my passion. I used to have myriads of crazy good ideas. I wonder, should I restore them?

I used to sit down on a random desk, hum strange made-up tunes in a random Tuesday, and write out my soul all day. My young fingers strangled the pen's body as black ink went gushing down the vellum. Words formed with such elegance as I brainstormed and let my mind explore the depths of my creativity's boundaries.
But sometimes, it made me cry. Both positively and negatively.

A single harsh pen stroke that smudged from hours of writing in sweat and vain, I cried.
An absolutely recognizable absurd spelling mistake, I cried.
A string of words that didn't make any sense, I cried.
A moment where I woke up from a nightmare where my work was ripped, I cried.
A jolt of joy once I finished a thousand word essay, I cried.

Writing is such a beautiful hobby. It's hard to be consistent.

Is going back really worh it?

...

Man, I'm down.
Those whole memories played like a retro, unreleased horror movie.
Just when I was about to leave, the shopkeeper saw me. "Hey, you scrap! Try'na steal something, huh? Get out of here!" damn, he's hostile.

"I got what I needed. Thanks anyway!" I yell back, my voice cracking. I made a run back to the slums. I almost tripped several times on the process, but who cares. Nobody saw. Though I shouldn't have yelled at the man.

...

It was late afternoon when my feet touched the rough pavement of slum alley. Around five, I believe. I was greeted with a mandolin's merry tune. Mhm, that's Skipp for sure. Vinnie can't play shit.
"Did you compose that?" I dropped a question, gently folding the poetry flyer and secured it in one of my loose gray pockets.

Skipp didn't look at me. He was too focused on his playing. He is really good at it, though. "Oh, nope. It's just a cover of a song I heard the other day!" says he, tilting his head to face my direction. "Oh, Stone! Where have you been?"
"No where special."
"Hmm, yeah, sure. Whatever you say. Vinnie went to get more sources for fire later, by the way."
"Cool, didn't ask."

I ruffled Skipp's thick hair and proceeded to mind my own business. His orange-blonde hair is soft; it captured the usual dim lighting. So soft.
He went back to strumming violently against his mandolin as I sat down on a wooden crate, snatching a piece of fresh paper and a vintage pen. I smell the paper.
Brand new paper smells heavenly, alright.

Then I write. I try to write.

Write, Stone. Just put anything.

...

-end of chapter-