Ghost Towns In The Ocean ☀︎ Ryden

7 | scenes from highways 1981-2009

july 9th

- greetings loved ones i realized that i only have like three and a half chapters left of this to write isn't that crazy i think it's crazy i love this story a lot and i don't even have half of it posted i feel like i know so many secrets that no one reading this knows. also thanks for over 300 reads that's pretty cool.

thissssong (and lyrics) have inspired so many usernames (whereitglows) bc im just cool and the song is by la dispute and it's super good and it's more of yelled poetry with some guitars and drums but it's still awesome even if there isn't necessarily a tune. i highly recommend it.

━ you want to go where it glows, somewhere you don't feel the hours pass by

Ryan was lying in bed with covered in cookie crumbs and Crisco. He had showered as many times as possible, but the shortening was absolutely waterproof and, according to Brendon, would last at least a few days before leaving his skin. Like sunscreen. 

Ryan was terrified.

Not of the Crisco, well, maybe slightly, but more of the fact that he didn't have a job and that he was going to be left behind, and this time it was completely his own fault. There was nothing he could do to make it better except to get a job, except to be productive again, and he didn't feel ready but he was being forced to anyways, it didn't matter anymore.

He wanted Brendon to stay.

It was Tuesday night and all he wanted was for time to stop, it was the only thing he could think of, he didn't know what to do. Frankly, he felt useless and as though he was capable of nothing and couldn't do anything productive, ever, really, the world was getting warmer and Ryan felt colder, he wanted Dottie. He wanted desert heat, dry skin, the wind in his hair, cigarette smoke echoing out of his lungs, trying to convince them that they wouldn't become dark, crumpled, and utterly useless by some point. It was an odd craving for things he had never wanted so much in his life before, cacti, sand, blue skies that went on until the horizon swallowed them whole; it rained too much in Seattle and Ryan had been caught in the downpour for a little too long.

It was dry outside and he opened up the window, nearly feeling the walls in his room heave with a sigh as they breathed the cool air. He lit up a cigarette and tore the sheets off of his bed to lie back on the mattress so he could pretend that he was somewhere else, somewhere where time didn't exist and deadlines didn't loom over him like his own shadow.

Ryan wasn't a fan of his shadow.

For one, it was a sign that the sun was out, and Ryan had never been the biggest advocate for sunshine. Clouds felt much more comforting when they hung over him, like he could fall back into them when he got too sad. The sun would burn him if he fell too close. Maybe it kept him held up a little higher, maybe it made him watch his step a little more closely, but in the end, grey skies and soft clouds would hold him while he cried, pet at his hair and wrap him in blankets. The sun would shock him and force him back onto his feet.

He had to get back onto his feet.

He needed to form an opinion on the moon.

It shone a beam down onto the end of his mattress as though highlighting something that didn't exist. Maybe there was a ghost there. Maybe not. Cigarette smoke rose above Ryan's frame as he lay on the mattress. He closed his eyes and imagined himself as a skeleton lying under a carpet of moss and lichen. Days and nights would pass over him, rain would soak his old bones, sunshine would warm him back up. The summer would bake his bones, fall would drape leaves on him, winter would snow down upon him in all its great glory.

Flowers would grow on him in the spring.

He smelled like nature and all things real, just rain, earth, and plants. All he was was a skeleton. He owned the forest, the trees belonged to him. Finally, he had managed to be the king of something.