To Express Happiness || Fayne ✔✔

The Sky Beneath The Roof ☁☁

17th August, 2018. The day before.

The street is quieter than usual. No noise of  motors, no sound of shops closing; just the humming and flickering of the streetlights on a rather busy weekday. Aaron's hands sweat as he grips the bicycle handle firmly and picks up pace. Coming home, he quickly unfastens his gloves just when Mrs. Reeves calls out from the kitchen.

''Aaron...is it? You have 5 minutes to freshen up. Remember the promise you made to Ariana?''

Aaron shuts his eyes firmly, out of sheer regret. He can barely move a muscle...with his gloves and helmet almost slipping from his hands. He just couldn't find a better excuse but to pull out the detention letter from his bag to distract Mrs. Reeves, just to skip the window-shopping. It's that worse.

''Ma...today I-''

''Okay okay, Aaron. I get it. The Laptop's upstairs. I forgave you, yes. But this once, and this once only. And u don't have to go to the shopping. I'll cover it. Now go to your room and-''

As Mr. Reeves turns back from chopping the carrots, she senses Aaron drifting out of the kitchen and shooting up the stairs, with a small paper on his hand riding along.

''God...what's with these papers?'' she mutters before calling Ariana and fixing her hair. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~OO~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As Aaron opens the door, he feels like opening a treasure chest. The treasure is right there, on the bed, glistening in the moonlight, waiting to feel the warmth of his hands. He lifts it, feels the weight, feels the patterns of the lid with his fingertips. As he opens the lid, he also lets his fingers loose over the soft keys. His finger finally lands on the power button, and just as the saying goes; all glitters are not gold. 

Aaron needs to change the battery. 

He  throws the laptop away as it goes sliding at one corner of the mattress, as Aaron wraps himself with exhausted arms. He suddenly jerks to the thought of listening to the radio, and he grabs the earphone and pushes one end into his button phone, another deep into his ears so he could just shut the world, this time with eyes open. As he presses a button, the phone suddenly vibrates and lights up, displaying a message. Aaron lets a deep breath out before opening it, and a loud groan after he realizes it's from Mr. freaking Nestor, reminding him of his due homework; the message seemingly polite but apparently menacing, as if he owes him a million dollars.  When the world is quiet again, he lifts himself up and places a pillow below his head while his eyes gaze into the endless murky sky from the window. 

''Hello, fellow audience! This is RJ Svenson exclusively on Radio Looper bringing you the best of the evening!''

Pfft.

Aaron forgets to blink. The sky is cloudless; only the moon and the stars amidst the mass pitch black. The night is windless, too. He lifts his hands lazily at the level of the window, his fingers in motion like he's playing a piano with the wind that never comes by. 

A song finally comes, and he feels it like sipping mango juice and seeing the juice going through the transparent straw and sweetening his mouth.

Suddenly the murky sky  became theatrical: the lights were out in the hall...the movie of his life starting...with him being the only one watching it. No popcorn, no 3D glasses. Just a plain, bold picture. The opening scene shows Shae and Malcolm gearing their bike, while Aaron is tied to a rail track. As they launch, they are about to go over Aaron just as Zack and Ashley step in to save the day. No crime done, no harm caused. They both stop their bike, as the couple high-five. Then..there's nobody on the scene. Aaron is still tied to the rail tracks, day after day after day. No one, not even Zack and Ash, unties him, because he isn't a part of them , and he will never  be.  He can't, or won't scream, and he spends a lifetime walking the thin margin between the can't  and won't.  The movie ends with him aging and slowing dying in the rail-track, and a train going over him, ripping his corpse into pieces so that he ceases to exist.