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All signs point to Lauderdale

All signs point to Lauderdale

I woke up in the haze of yesterday. Exhaustion tugging at my mind; bruises and scars marked my ski and stretched as I did. It killed to move. As it turned out, I was lying in the grass. Due drops trailed between the blades. I was littered in moisture but my mind was littered with anger. The last flames had died out long ago.

I pushed myself up by the palm of my hand, only to regret it as the tiny fern blades melted into my skin. I slowly but surely made my way into the kitchen where a mug of hot chocolate and a breakfast bar were waiting for me.

I’m guessing I looked like the minator or something along the lines of Medusa by the way Blake’s uncle looked at me. Then he walked in and all was silent. Okay so I didn’t realise tired boys looked so adorable. His hair was pushed to the side, none flicking his eyelids. He scratched the back of his neck, looking down at the floor before he looked up. The sun never looked as bright as when it was shining in his eyes.

I looked down as quickly as he looked at me, concern spreading his face as disappointment painted mine.  My hair was getting in the way of my drink so I pushed it awkwardly behind my ear and fiddled with the handle of the mug.  He took up a stool next to me and asked what was wrong. I just shrugged.

In all honesty, I had no idea what was wrong with me. I didn’t know why I was sad, I should’ve been glad to get out of hell and into what seemed like heaven, or limbo at least. I frowned into the chocolate water and my feet swung back and forth.

My lungs had been filled with water and my limbs were ridden with cancer. My emotions were falling like rain and changing like British weather.

Of course I wasn’t really sick. My mind may have been but I was perfectly healthy. Only I couldn’t stop thinking I wish I was terminally ill and didn’t have to go outside ever gain.

You could say he spoke euphemisms by the way he told me it was okay to open yourself and let the strangling lace out once in a while. It was okay to melt and it was okay to drown in the fears of tomorrow. But it wasn’t okay to give up. I didn’t believe him till I saw the white marks on his skin.

He was getting thinner and thinner but I was too busy getting sadder and sadder to realise there may have been more issues than being an orphan. None the less, he asked if I’d go somewhere with him. Drifting into the clouds, of course I agreed.

~

The day pressed on, me reading old books and he worked out till his muscles gave in. He mustered up cans of colours and we drove until twilight.

When presented with the cans of coloured gas I already knew what I would draw upon the murky brown canvas of the old flat block. It started with blue and ended in black. A hurricane of sadness that knocked down the wall and turned it into an ocean of deep cobalt.  Then scarlet pierced the oceans like blood dripping into a bath tub. It wasn’t pretty, but it wasn’t meaningless.

Blake painted putrid green ribbons of poetry that echoed through my soul and wove their way into my mind. “Skinny is perfect.”  It made me sad, because it made me feel like I’d never be perfect enough for him. He was skin and bones but I was rolls of fat. It didn’t matter that I had a bit of flab; you could almost say I was happy with my body. But who is?

I could see the truth pumping through his veins as he was satisfied with his work. Mine was a drawing of an ocean. I felt like drowning. I felt like I was drowning. Don’t us all. It’s funny how one word can turn it from suicide to feelings.

It was nice to get something out onto another blank page in the world’s sketchbook. Like the satisfying motion of water tumbling into water, kids buckets into the sea when they try to make motes for sandcastles.

Piercing sirens (no band reference intended) thudded through my head and I keeled over, the noise exploding with black stars that sent white hot magenta bursting through my eyes. That horrible sound. It was bad enough when my fingertips arched the bricks and sent shivers down my spine. It was like clay bark that wanted to get inside me, sounding like china smashing and feeling like the disgusting touch of a chalkboard.

“Beth!” Blake called as I screamed- only I had no idea I was screaming. He tried to pick me up but my bundle of flesh was too much for his brittle exoskeleton.

The police pulled up and caught us, of course, there was CCTV but why was there any point in stopping them. I was expecting there to be handcuffs and reports that Banksy-inspired youths were running wild in a plea to free their leader. That didn’t happen. There were three of them dressed in midnight black with shiny bats and chrome rope to bind our freedom. Though none were used.

“Blake…what are you doing?” asked a voice I vaguely recognised.

It was only a flit of my imagination, it must have been. I hadn’t heard that voice in a while. No. it wasn’t them.

“I don’t know.” Was the last thing Blake said before they drove us home and told his uncle he was a bad influence and was dangerously unstable.  I didn’t realise that he had a criminal record that was ever expanding.

They said any more activity and they’d lock him up. I didn’t understand it much, if I’m honest. They said it would be special treatment, not to learn his lesson  but help him channel his depression into more than destruction.

Destruction was so beautiful.

They finally made it clear. He wouldn’t be going to prison next time but a special psychiatric home. I didn’t know the extent of his crimes or his condition but I wish I had.

We went to bed in silence. But he shuffled into my room in the depths of dawn and sat on my bed. We sat shoulder to shoulder in the hollow atmosphere, only we didn’t think about our actions, just stared.

“I swear I’ll explain it soon.”

“You don’t have to.”

“You need answers.”

“No, I don’t. “

~

It reminded me of a friend I had a few years ago. Yes I know I lied to him and told him my closest friend was a girl I beat up for coming near me with scissors or whatever.

That was a lie. I had one friend, but he was very sick apparently and got pulled out of school. It upset me greatly. The last thing I told him was I hated him for leaving me. How was I supposed to react, we’d just got into the great adventure of subject options and I was more violent than ever. 

“You can’t leave me! I have no one!” we felt so grown up having a proper fight about the future like his parents did.

“I swear I’ll explain it one day.”

“You don’t have to. You have secrets and now you have to go.”

“You’re my best friend…”

“No. Not anymore.” I through my little pendant at him that he’d given me.

It’s funny how the story unwinds when people are in need and nothing is your business.

~

I thought about what I had written in rose red on the wall that gained the threat. It didn’t make sense to anyone else.  It’s true though, when we die we will all just be…gone. Stories maybe. Like we were all just fairy tales.

You could say that when something ends, it’s like it never really happened.

If you tell someone you love them and then cheat on them anyway, were you anything?

Did you actually love them? 

Was everything just lies?

It reminded me of the boy. It reminded me of my parents.

~

I fiddled with my hands and he shuffled his feet in circles till we were both driven insane by the comforting presence of the other.

~

“We never existed to start with.”