i'm fine [ mnz ]

you

|| 0. you ||

+

playing scales reminded you of your grandmother's lessons when you were six.

i wonder what she's doing
it's been years
do you remember how long it took me to master the e-flat scale
?

you pulled your fingers away from the keyboard, and slipped your hands in the pockets of your hoodie. your gaze lifted towards the night sky that appeared so dull as the pollution had never been worse. despite the stars seeming to be nonexistent, and the chill of the almost winter air surrounding you, being outside on your small balcony brought you comfort. comfort. a unfamiliar feeling.

only when you aren't thinking too hard, however. your parents helped pay for your apartment, which allowed you to sit on your balcony. it made you feel like a child. you should really be home. but spending another day there would've made you more blue. and thinking about how the people you wanted to get away from for so long are helping you get away from them makes you feel blue enough. so selfish. should've gotten a better job. or at least told them the truth.

you don't have many talents. at least ones that are better than your sister's. she was always so good at everything. sometimes you wondered if your sister would've been able to learn the e-flat scale faster than you had your grandmother also decided to teach her. probably. it took you so long to reach the level of proficient on piano. you remember.

you let out a sigh. it's not cold enough that you see your breath linger. it is cold enough to wrap your arms around your legs so you aren't covered in goosebumps. maybe it's the fact you get cold easily. for anyone else, it's not that cold. just chilly. not cold.

every night, after a long shift at work, you'd sit here. watching what the city's doing. normally, people weren't out this late; but when they are, they were usually walking home from plans. plans that involved drinks, friends, and music. you never minded spending most of your free time alone, but you did overhear the conversations at work about all the fun people have when they have plans. people go to nightclubs when they wish to spend a night with strangers. people go to coffee shops to study for exams together. people take walks through the park when they want to get their steps in.

but that's not to say you didn't have plans. no, you did, but they didn't include people. you would wake up at 8am, take a shower if you feel like it, and then put on your uniform. breakfast is only if you have extra waffles to heat up. you'd go grab your keys, lock your apartment door, and go down the five flights of stairs to the lobby to get your own steps in. you'd head towards the corner diner that's four blocks away for another day of serving, and once that's over, you go back home.

never once do you move your eyes away from the sidewalk. you've made this walk a million times by now, the traffic of others and the sounds of stoplights were practically memorized. as long as you had your ears, you didn't need to see if a car was coming, or if a stranger was unaware of being in your way. if blind people could do it, so could you.

eye contact was the worst. it's too exhausting to keep it. too intimate. who should be allowed to get a glimpse of how you're feeling? no one should want to acknowledge a poor soul like you.

by the time you would open your apartment door again, the clock on the kitchen stove would read 6pm. make dinner, if you ever felt like it. or just take the days old apples and cut them into slices and shove them in your mouth. that would count too.

then you would take a nap on your bed. it could last for hours. when you would wake up, it'd be dark outside. sun, if it decided to be over you for the day, would be gone. moon would then take its place, as it rightfully should've, since you and sun hadn't had a good relationship in a bit. fuck sun. you wanted it to help you rid of your blue, but it just made you feel worse. even sun couldn't do anything to brighten your mood. why is it so hard?

so now, it's late, and you have just taken off your uniform that you might've as well called your skin since you wore it so often. you put on an old tee, and whatever sweatpants you could find on the floor, and the keyboard that you keep on the top shelf of your bookcase. then, your feet take you to the balcony, the small balcony that gives you the only comfort you ever feel, and you sit on the lawn chair you've placed out there. the keyboard goes on the table in front of it.

then, you'd play some scales. listened to the cars honking away into the night. maybe some of the echoing laughter of the people being young and stupid. you wondered if it was ever possible to hear the tiniest chirp of the crosswalks letting the pedestrians know it's their turn to move. maybe if you paid close enough attention you could. you never did.

the clock in the kitchen would make a ding once it reached twelve. you considered it your own signal that it was time to go inside. take the keyboard, put it back in its spot on the bookcase, and lay on your bed again. if it was a really draining day, you would cry. however, on days that you just felt nothing, you would slip away in a matter of minutes.

it was always like this. you were always like this. could call it a continuous loop.

+

edited ; may 20, 2021

warning i wrote this in like 2015 without like any idea of what i was doing so now as a senior in high school i feel compelled to make it somewhat readable if im going to keep any of my old works up lol but theres only so much you can fix from an already shitty plot