Of Melodies And Melodramas

Take over, the breaks over.

Tyler was having one of those days, the ones where you seem to be doing everything but what you wanted to be doing. Here he was, lugging all his precious belongings, which were neatly packed in large cardboard boxes, out of his warm familiar home and into the bed of an ambiguously lit U-Haul truck when in all reality his only desire was to press his face down against the shiny polished cherrywood floors of his soon-to-be former bedroom. Alright perhaps he was exaggerating, but only slightly. It was a well lit October day and if he could have been bothered to check the time (which he really couldn't be bothered with such menial tasks at all, he was already quite occupied with hid tasks of brooding and the hard labor of moving boxes the minuscule distance between his garage to the moving van he'd been steadily growing to detest.) he would know it was only about noon as he dredged about in the partially cloudy Ohio weather. He dreaded the prospect of what came after the packing, and it wasn't the long drive that concerned him, it was the entire fact that he was leaving his home where he had built his life and childhood for what his mother had promised were "greener pastures" in California. He supposed she meant a fresh start, though he could be wrong seeing as his mother was ever so slightly batty and for all he knew she could be leading him from one rural hell hole to another.

He couldn't blame her though, his mother had finally remarried and has been extremely happy with her new quality of life as she planned their move to the ever sunny hippy cesspool that he assumed was Los Angeles California. If only his brother Zach could come too, but alas he was an unfortunate casualty of the custody battle of '13 and had gotten himself stuck with their father and his twenty one year old secretary Vivian with whom he'd been having an affair with since she was a dangerously underage temp worker. However irritating his sibling had proved to be over the years it would be strange not to see him their customary "every other weekend" or be able to walk the fifteen minutes to his father's for a casual yet tense dinner with them. Family drama aside he paused his work to stare at his soon-to-be not-home and frowned. He would miss it, that was beyond any doubt, he'd miss everything from his treehouse to the shallow creek just beyond his backyard. It would be hard not to miss everything he's ever known.

The thunderous clanking noise of his mother slamming the unfortunate U-Haul door shut (unintentionally of course, but she'd always been a woman of small stature and she had to use a bit more force to shut the heavy metal doors than most would.) sent him back to reality as he turned to his mother, and as she gave him a bittersweet smile.

It seemed she too was already missing the halls still marred with crayon stains and doorways etched with heights and names. She too had made this average house in the middle of rural Ohio (In the kind of town no one really leaves and hardly anyone finds themselves moving to) in to a home that had given them a wealth of good memories and their fair share of secrets (like Tyler and Zach's secret hideout in the woods or their mother's tod secret art shed).

With one last glance at the place that had come to represent the early stages of his youth and his mother's early adulthood, they climbed up into the cab of the truck neither wanting to speak and ruin the somber mood (both mother and son having a slight flair for the dramatics) as they both said their silent goodbyes to the familiar comforts of their home in the Heartland of America and prepared for the irreconcilable changes that were bound to come in this next episode in their lives.