The Heroes We Weren't

Chapter 1 - Row Five, Number Three

Everything as we know it, is a lie. Our brains may rest at night but our thoughts do not walk aimlessly. Our own mind's eye may hold the only seat of a private viewing, but even with our eyes shut we still exist, do we not? And so long as one exists, one can be traced.

It may not make much sense to you at this time, but I have come to understand where our thoughts go at night - I know where they gather and where they're left defenseless against those who wish to repair them like a reversed pocket watch.

But I am also aware of Cloud 108.

New Year's Eve 2014

"What do you mean fired?" My words were instantly drowned out by the cheering drunk crowd and their never-to-be-kept New Year's resolutions.

"Sorry hun," Lizzy called back as she rolled up my apron and threw it under the counter, "the bar only profits this time a year and Gus had to cut us down, you know?"

Not only was I spending the last moment of my unbelievably unfortunate year at my now former work place, next to a crowd of overly intoxicated no goods, but my best friend had just taken on the role as executioner of one of my biggest dreams; that was, not to work as a bartender, but to take proper care of the ever so increasing pile of bills that now awaited me at home.

'Gus had to cut us down' and of course, between me, his own brother and my friend (who had just recently begun calling our boss by his first name), the choice seemed obvious.

Five minutes to midnight and the streets were quiet, apart from my coughing and a few early fireworks that danced across the sky from the other side of town. I stopped to gaze (and curse) at the colorful sparkles. They seemed to contain more cheer and joy than I had succeeded to gather for myself for the past couple of years.

I cleaned my glasses before I aimlessly dug through my pocket, cold fingers clenched around my phone. No new message.

"Red head!" An older man hissed as he grabbed onto my shoulders, and I instinctively took a step back. "Row five, number three, cross it out, cross it out!" He stumbled the slightest and hurriedly placed his hand on his hip as if to support himself.

His only tooth dangled behind his trembling lip and his eyes flickered - from the bar sign to the frosty ground to me.

"Green leaves and red comes, before red head and green eyes collide," he dug through his pockets before he handed me a tin soldier with a missing leg, "there and then shall day one rise like a deaf man's wish for a tune, but be careful, careful for the tune in itself is deafening, quite deafening indeed."

The church bell and the gathering crowd told of midnight as the peaceful stars were soon enough sheltered by their red and blue, unnatural cousins. Tin soldier forgotten in hand, I scuffed by the seemingly delusional man with whom I had regretfully spent the very last moment of my year.

"Row five, number three, cross it out, cross it out!" His repeated words may have found their way between applause and firework, but were regretfully overseen by my already flooded mind.

I stumbled across my living room, almost slipping over the last piece of pizza that had regretfully fallen out of my sleeping guest's hand. Lizzy had called for a 'party of friendly support' (those were the words of her choice but I had soon enough picked up on the fact that she, as well as a bunch of her friends, had rather just come for the beer and the pizza than to offer their actual condolences for my newly achieved medal of less-than-fancy unemployment).