Paper Kingdom

A Real Heartbeat In A Paper Park

I awoke at 5:20am the next morning. I don't think I've woken up this early since high school, then again, I don't normally go to bed as soon as work is over. I had around 4 or so hours to waste so I decided I would go to the park and smoke, much like the other morning. That seemed to be the only thing in my life that wasn't work, guitar or sleep. Thinking of it that way made my life sound like a waste. I guess it kinda is really.

It normally takes about 10 minutes to get to the park but for some reason I didn't get there until 20 minutes after I'd left my house. I couldn't stop thinking about Gerard. Apart of my mind hoped and prayed to what ever god there was that I would see him again. The other part of my mind screamed that that wasn't rational. I knew almost everyone in this little town yet I'd never seen him. That must mean he's just passing through here right? I really hoped not. Something about him was warm, I got happy vibes from him.

"Excuse me sir-" I hadn't been paying attention to shit at the moment and when I snapped back into reality I noticed I had stopped dead in the middle of the pavement. "-you're kinda blocking the way." Wait to go Frank. I whispered and apology and moved out of the way. I saw something, someone actually, out of the corner of my eye. I recognized his hair, and his smile that never seemed to leave. Gerard was sitting on the park bench, he had a sketch pad out. I looked to the sky and mouthed a 'thank you' before walking to the bench and sitting down.

I sat for about 5 minutes just looking around, I wanted to look at his sketch pad, but I was afraid he'd catch me looking. After an internal war with myself, I looked at it. What I saw was astounding. At the bottom of the page hundreds of flowers, all different kinds, colors, bloomed. Sitting in the middle of the flowers was a beautiful, yet slightly elderly looking woman. Her hair was off to one side like a nice breeze was blowing. When I looked at the top of the page I expected to see a beautiful blue sky, but what I saw appeared to be a storm cloud. It was dark grey, almost black and rain was starting to fall. It was absolutely beautiful.

Gerard shouldn't be sitting here on this park bench. He should be an artist for the fucking Queen. He put so much detail and raw effort into every pencil stroke. It was truly beautiful. The way his hair fell into his eyes was also beautiful. "What do you think of it?" His voice caught me completely off guard. Dammit I knew I shouldn't have looked over. "It's... uh, um..." I couldn't meet his eyes, or even look at him really but I could tell he was smirking. "It's either really bad or really good, I mean, you can't even find words." He chuckled lightly before I found the words I wanted to speak. "It's beautiful." That was all I could say, it was beyond beautiful honestly. "Than- hey wait, aren't you the guy that dumped coffee on me yesterday?" I felt my face turn cherry red. "Hey it's okay. Don't worry about it Frank. It is Frank right?" He looked at me, his smirk a full blown smile. "Yeah."

There was a long silence after that, It wasn't necessarily an uncomfortable one but I wanted to hear him talk. His voice, although raspy, was sweet and calming. I couldn't just stare at nothing so I lit up a cigarette. When I offered Gerard one he simply shook his head and reminded me that they would kill me.
"I know." That was my only response to what he had informed me. It wasn't like I hadn't heard it 10 million times before. "Why do you continue to do it then?" He had stopped drawing and was giving his full attention to me now. Before I could stop myself I blurted out my pathetic answer, "Maybe I want to die."

The look that crossed his face was shocking. Pity, hurt and wonder layered his face. His eyes immediately dropped to his feet. "You don't mean that do you, Frank?" I couldn't look at him because the truth was, I couldn't deny it. I had always promised myself I would become something great but here I was, 23, social outcast, shitty job and nothing going for me. I could play guitar some but I couldn't sing and I didn't know enough people to start a band. I was becoming less than what I feared I would become and it was tearing me apart.