Alex Turner - short stories

Love is a laserquest

My room smelt of lemon in an attempt to cover up the sweeter and quite stubborn smell of weed. Half a year ago I had found that a lemon diffuser was an excellent way to cover up secrets and bad memories. It was of course a practical technique to keep my parents unaware of my smoking habits, but more importantly it made the smell of his cologne less prominent. Sometimes I still sensed it though, it couldn't be helped. The scent was so deeply set in my bedsheets, clothes, walls, furniture. Atmosphere. Now my room smelt like a juice bar which, to be fair, was surprisingly pleasant. It was fresh and it kept me moving forward. Moving on.

It was 06:43 am but I was struggling to stay asleep. I had developed a sleeping problem these last couple of months which was probably most prominent in my eyes, but had in fact altered my whole being. In a twisted way I was thankful for it, for the excuse. They didn't need to know the real reason I was broken. I was quite content keeping them under the belief that it was my hypothalamus that was defected, not my heart.

It had gotten better, or at least it had begun to heal. The first band-aid was desperately doing it's best, covering up the hurt. I had fallen out of love before, but I don't think I was going to this time. Instead of emptying my heart of everything I'd ever felt for him, I trapped it and shut it behind bars. I didn't mind because I knew I couldn't delete emotions I didn't want deleted in the first place. I wanted them there to infiltrate my dreams, when I learned to sleep again that was. I thought of Cornerstone and let a bitter smile form on my lips. A couple of weeks ago my friends had made me download Tinder. I had swiped right on three guys who I imagined could look like him if I had had enough to drink. None of them had wanted to be called Alex.

My mouth tasted of salt and morning breath, I must've cried in my sleep again. This habit had occurred on and off and lately I had stopped noticing when it happened. This concerned me greatly because my mother was a light sleeper and I did not want her worrying. I tiptoed to the bathroom and looked at the puffy eyed morning ghost, reminding myself that I was still here. After splashing some cold water over my gloomy complexion, I sat down on the floor while listlessly moving my toothbrush around my mouth. The memory of a night when we had returned to Alex's after a party and I had been both absolutely wasted and absolutely exhausted, popped up in my mind. He had held me in his arms and brushed my teeth whilst I was practically falling asleep. You'd think that was the kind of person one would make sure to keep, unfortunately I had a bad habit of fucking stuff up. I returned to my lemon room and brushed it off.

There was no way I'd fall asleep again, so I opened my laptop to do some homework. That fucking philosophy essay. With a sigh I opened the Word document and quickly skimmed through the text. It was filled with loose sentences and possible paragraphs, but nothing of real substance. I was supposed to compare branches of Marxism. An interesting topic but sadly my brain wasn't very amenable to even the most interesting of things right now.

A notification popped up in the upper right corner, an e-mail from Live nation. "Arctic Monkeys Suck it and see tour 2011". I froze for a second, my breath stopping in it's tracks. I knew they had released a new album so what else could I expect? Despite better judgement I opened the e-mail reluctantly. They were coming to my town. They were coming here. Sigh. I calmly closed the tab and continued writing my paper with something that one might've seen as an ever so slight determination. There was no way I'd let myself go.

It had rained all night and didn't stop just because it was Monday morning and people were already resenting the concept of being alive. I cursed at the wind which was making me and my umbrella's cooperation mildly impossible. February was definitely my least favorite month. When I finally entered the gates of hell, or school if you like, my feet were soaked and the sight of my hair would probably crack a mirror in seconds. I found my friends in eager conversations about something on a computer screen. They were beaming at me as I approached them, very much not beaming.
"Arctic monkeys are touring and they'll be here in May!" They were absolutely ecstatic. I frowned, trying to think up a way to go about the matter smoothly. Sigh. This was just too much for my brain this early in the morning.
"Um, I can't go though, sorry."
I didn't know what else to say.
"What? Why?"
"No money."
"Oh"
Seemed to have been easy enough, I thought.