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37 ‎ ‎ ‎ Out Of Hollywood

Flying. You feel like you're flying.

The car is a convertible, white headlights, beautiful navy blue exterior, no windows to put down. Your friends are screaming in your ears and music pulses waves of euphoria into everyone's movement, earning a few dirty looks from nearby drivers. You dream too big for this small town, love too often, and chant the lyrics to the radio like tomorrow isn't a school day. Lit with life and presence and tenacity. Germany's drink tips over, frothy liquid pouring onto the seats, and you watch him sheepishly try and wipe it up from the window. It's okay. It happens.

You make it past the tunnel and everything is moving in slow-motion. The bright lights burn into your skin. The voices etch themselves into the crevices of your mind. This is the opening credits, the first scene, the moment where you learn to release and love. America taps your shoulder. "Do you want me to drive?" he asks, out of breath from trying to sing louder than Poland is.

For a moment you're lost in the juxtaposition of the moment. It is so ferocious but there is something so tender about the way the question leaves his lips, the rush of an emotion so real and so alive in your heart. There are millions of shades of blue in the world, you figure, from light azure to Prussian dusk, but whatever color his eyes are - those. Those are your favorite.

"No, it's alright," you mutter. "You enjoy yourself."

And then your eyes shoot open, groggily wiping the sleep out of your vision, the memories of your incensed plight returning. Just simply dreams will never be enough, Ukraine's eyes seem to whisper as you make eye contact with her from across the abandoned, war-torn bunker. She will never forgive you for splitting a love after you ruined your own. Family comes first, but at what cost?

Not wanting to face the brunt of her ache, you trudge into a different room and collapse onto the hard, cold floors.

They say history repeats itself. If it does, in every life, you and America are doomed to be star-crossed. All you know are the embodiments of history itself, from the missiles to the pellets, shaped and molded into students and artists and athletes and designers and lovers, like you.

They say history repeats itself. That we are doomed to do the same thing, that we never learn from our mistakes.

Please, you beg, weary eyes to the sky. One chance, where you can start over and things - things can change. One chance, where we can all hold who we love and tell them with truthfulness that in the end, it will all turn out fine.

★

RUSSIA
China eventually emerged out of the shelves, and joined the huddle near America as he (rather excitedly) blew the dust off the frayed book. With one hand settled carefully on the front page, he opened it slowly, tantalizingly - but then shut it abruptly, looking nervously to the group.

"What if there's something really bad in here, guys?" he muttered. South made a movement that vaguely resembled strangling himself.

"America!" Reich snapped, like a father to his child.

"Okay, okay," America joked, his anger drawing out a small bit of joy to revel in. With a deep breath, he once again, flipped the front cover open; spine cracked and weathered, once gilded edges now dull with age. All around the quiet, dim room, everyone held their breaths.