Why don't you be the artist
And make me out of clay
Why don't you be the writer
And decide the words I say
'Cause I'd rather pretend
I'll still be there at the end
Only it's too hard to ask
Won't you try to help me
Your calloused fingers scan the table in which you are seated at, on its own small and robust; a mundane brown from the deepest of oaks aside from the small intricate drawings and words, carved, drawn onto the wood. A scrawl, a doodle can be the words used to describe these, a work of a child’s rather than the one of a master’s, so far from rational thought and composure more towards explosive and compulsive and full of feeling. You look strange, examining a piece of furnishing as if looking for some clue as to a somewhat method to its so called madness, catching snippets as you lean close: is it time? and what if? accompanied by what seemed like a half formed lion and a green drawn dove, faded and overlapping with other bizarre marks. You think of what this could all mean, the illustrations and phrases too raw yet too ripe to be classed into the statutory classes of love and hate.
It’s like this all over, you think as your bespectacled eyes observe the rest of the cafe in a half wonder half awe. Some walls splashed with colour, others with words and others so dark that you can feel it stirring the very depths of your soul. How peculiar, you ponder, the stark contrast between the outside and the in is unworldly. Three digits a beacon of sorts calling the shattered, the broken, the sheltered; surely not the place for the merest of mortals such as yourself, or is it?
As you gaze, your thoughts swirling and sweeping, drinking in the routine ambiance of the cafe a young man in his late teens or early twenties steps up to your table giving you a half crooked smile before gesturing to his notepad as if saying ‘Are you ready to order?’. You smile back, your eyes taking in his wire-rimmed glasses perched at an angle on the bridge of his nose just like his smile to his lanky stature and wayward frame. Everything about this man, no boy, could only be described as asymmetrical, contrasting and clashing with the other, his eyes and his smile both expressing the opposite, a seemingly obvious juxtaposition. Could he be the artist who drew around the whole shop? “Oh, no not yet. I’m actually waiting for someone,” you say pointing at the equally scribbled vacant chair opposite you. His eyes flash with a hint of pain, you blink and it’s now gone replaced by a look of understanding. He smiles again, before heading back, presumably to the kitchen.
It is not too long when you see him enter the cafe - from your vantage point naught is unseeable, you prefer it this way. You smile, eyes brightening as his own do after they dart between stained wall to stained wall until they rest on you. He beams. Making his way forwards as you stand up embracing his broad figure as he engulfs your petite one your fingers splaying across his back, moving upwards, lacing through his soot black hair whilst you feel him bury his face into your copper curls inhaling your scent that you had sprayed before leaving. You pull away first jutting your bottom lip in a mock pout. “Did you just sniff me?” You ask sitting back down as he occupies the other. “I sure did. How can I not, you smell good enough to eat,” he says, his lips forming a heart stopping grin, your own traitorous lips forming into an almost identical one, before you both erupt into peals of laughter.
And that’s how you begin your age of inertia, forming around this bizarre cafe, your mindless chatter only pausing after this time a girl of a similar age to the boy asks your order in his stead. How alike they look, you think as you watch the girl walk away until she is out of sight. The same crooked figure, both heart and soul tilted and awry reflected by eyes both focused yet far away.
Maybe it isn’t the shop that is perplexing, maybe not near enough as the people in it. The boy and the girl both damaged, distraught, wearing icicles to warm their hearts and thorn crowns to pacify their minds. The so-called magic, a comfort, a salvation for those who come. 5:48, you muse as you finish your tea cradling the porcelain cup in your hands, realisation striking you, your lips forming into a soft smile. A place where perfection is pursued despite the mangled mess of their mind, to strive their twisted souls to where the perfection of being able to love and to be loved in return is sought after and captured.
A complete, imperfect, 5:48
_
A/N:
So, I came across a story called 5:48 quite a while back, before I had a Wattpad account, just as a whim while stalking some of my friends' profiles. This was one of the first stories that I came across that seemed different and interesting, it was only half finished back then and I fell completely in love. I wrote this without even reading till the end.
Hats off to AnchoredShips, Chloe, for her amazing writing style and for creating something that I felt was completely out of this world.
(Title inspired by 'The Writer by Ellie Goulding'. The whole story just fits this song to a tee.)
