by J. S. Brent
Everyone except from me in that kitchen saw me as if I was twelve at most. I wasn’t allowed to hold my own future in my hands because it was apparently liable to crush me.
I poured my cereal and made my coffee, well aware of the eyes trained on me from behind.
There was no room on the table, it had been overtaken by whatever fear-instilling stories had overrun the news that week. At least it was a broadsheet. My grandparents always read the tabloids and were BNP supporters to show for it.
‘Are grandma and granddad coming?’ I asked. Everyone knew which pair I meant. The pair that always came round. The pair that I had originally loved more, until I had been old enough to see their true nature. It seems like a good life, sitting in your chair all day and watching the television in silence with the volume off, when you’re ten, at least. Then there was the complaining about adverts, in spite of not having to pay a television license.
‘Not this time.’ My Mum said, softly. I knew exactly how she felt about them. I simply nodded as I took a bite out of my spoonful of cereal.
‘Do you have to eat so loudly?’ My Father asked. I wanted to simply retort with ‘chicken caesar salad’, the meal that had distracted hours of revision when I had finally submitted and worked in the kitchen under the watchful eyes of Big Mother and Father, but I did not dare. I knew better than to indicate my Father’s hypocrisies.
‘Sorry.’ I simply said, hoping that I could leave the kitchen soon. The kettle boiled. I poured my coffee. I took a sip.
‘And the drinking. Tom, I’m trying to read.’ He said, before taking a loud sip out of his own cup of coffee.
‘Again, sorry.’ My sister rolled her eyes to me. I grinned. I knew he would not notice, he was captivated by some story about swearing. Apparently people who swore more were more intelligent. He told us about it.
‘This is fucking ridiculous.’ He said loudly. We all laughed nervously.
I downed my coffee. It burned the inside of my throat but it was worth it.
‘Wanna watch a movie?’ I asked Hannah suddenly. This was our code. We wouldn’t watch a movie but it was an excuse to escape the room without the scrutiny of the words you’re spending too much time in our rooms. This always happened, and it always preceded comments like so he’s come out of his lair and who the hell are you?
Hannah nodded, quickly. I put everything into the dishwasher before turning to leave.
‘Wait.’ My Mum said. ‘What are the rules?’
Hannah groaned slightly.
‘Empty the dishwasher when you’re at work, out of bed before twelve and for God’s sake no food or drink upstairs.’ We both recited simultaneously.
‘That’s right. Also keep your showers under five minutes.’
‘That’s a new one.’ I muttered under my breath. Hannah laughed slightly.
We walked out of the kitchen and talked for a moment in Hannah’s room. Her room had gone through almost as many colours as her hair had. It had settled on a self-professed ‘ironic’ shade of pink, but had cycled through blue, black, light orange and cream.
‘Are you ready for church on Sunday?’ She asked me, taking a picture of herself on her phone.
‘No.’ I laughed. ‘I always think it’d be interesting to analyse but it ends up making me angry.’
‘And bored.’
‘Jesus, so bored.’
‘You study the Bible, don’t you?’ She asked, referring to my course.
‘Yeah and it’s actually really interesting because I think if everyone actually read the Bible there would be a lot more atheists in the world.’ She merely nodded slowly. She still believed in God, but in her own way. God could exist, but it depends on your definition of God, this is why organised religion is inherently flawed. ‘I’m going to have a shower.’ I said, breaking the silence.
‘Washing off the smell of smoke?’ She glared at me slightly.
‘Something like that.’ I said, before leaving her room.
The shower was too perfect. The dials allowed me to find the specific temperature that I wanted. I knew that this shower would last more than five minutes. This was one of the few moments in which I could think when the house was full. A scolding shower helps to save the planet.
I thought of home as I scrubbed myself. It was as if I was back in my room with my friends just talking. I didn’t hear what we were saying, I didn’t care because there was laughter. My messy room. My messy life. Not here. Not where everything I dropped would be hoovered up behind me. Not where my bed was made and my books stood alphabetically on my shelf.
When I got completely comfortable I heard somebody yell.
‘Hurry the fuck up.’ I knew that it was my Father. To him a shower didn’t spurt out water, it leaked money from his accounts. I sighed, before switching off the shower. ‘Thank you.’ I heard as I stepped out.
I retreated to my room after I had got ready. Notepad on my desk and guitar in my arms, capo, 2nd fret, chords: D, A, B minor, G, the four chord trick. This was how I wrote my songs. I would find a rhythm and put words over it, then I could find a melody and work the chords around that. The drum-beat would come last, if I ever became a professional.
The problem with writing was that I had to do most of it in one sitting. If I was to leave my words on the table, I would start thinking about them. Thoughts were creative poison to me. The problem was I only ever had a combination of two when it came to time, inspiration, and motivation. This meant that I had thousands of abandoned projects.
I told myself that I didn’t care if the music was shit. All I had to do was finish it. It would find its audience. There would also be people that would hate it and I was just one of them. I had only ever finished two songs in my life and both of them, to me, were abhorrent. My Mum and my sister seemed to like them, though. I never played them to my Father.
When the sun went down that day I still sat in front of an empty piece of paper. The clock had stopped ticking at sixty beats per minute and had found a steady accelerando as the earth had moved beneath my feet. The day was a write off. No reading. No writing. No revision. All there had been were brief stops with an open window, the sun at different points in the sky and the woman standing in her back garden with her dog at her heels.
At least I absolutely had to get some alcohol in the morning. I could not brave that party dry and sober, especially because I had figured it would be easier to go without cigarettes to that dark and lonely place of judgement.
As I lay awake in bed that empty piece of paper seemed to taunt me. Bright and resentful of its loneliness. I had abandoned it. I had left it cold and alone on the creative void that was my desk. All it had wanted was the warm touch of ink on its skin and I had deprived it of that.
I could never feel alone in that house or that town. It was always as if something was snapping at my heels, dragging me down to its level of resentment and self-righteousness. That was the only reason why I loved walking through the graveyards around town. Everyone else was afraid of them because of some misplaced or misunderstood superstition about death.
That’s where I dreamt I sat. I was on green pastures, surrounded by the symbols of the dead. They lay peacefully sleeping, locked away in their coffins. That familiar tree stood on its hill. It had fully healed from when it had been struck by lightning and it was surrounded by a vibrant circle of daffodils and roses and tulips. There was no longer a storm, the sun was shining and I was at peace because I was safe from watching and judging eyes.
I awoke suddenly to the same world I had left. It was still dark outside and I could not move. I saw shadows around me, dancing around, as the dead had risen from my dreams and were watching over me. They faded away.
I sat up and walked over to my desk in the dark, almost tripping over my suitcase. I switched on the light, it was almost blinding. It reminded me of one of the moments in school when everyone reacted as if part of an indoctrinated hive-mind, when the teacher switched on a light after watching a video and presenta
tion. There sat my piece of paper. The one that I had betrayed.
I picked up my pen and switched on my lava lamp. It helped me think. I wrote as the stormy winds hurled themselves against my window.
Paralysis. It could be a song about waking up to realise you had been living your life wrong, either with a girl or a job or a degree, and the paralysis you feel when it comes to deciding on how to change, all through the metaphor of sleep paralysis.
I started on the chorus.
Waking up paralysed Heart beating like a drum Feeling slightly terrified At what you have become
I paused a moment. There was a stinging sensation that rushed through my forehead. The words grew brighter, blinding me. I scrunched up the paper in front of me. It was stupid. It was cliché. It was wrong.
I reached for my cigarettes, only to see that one stood alone in the pack. I decided to hide it. I could have that one when I had written the song. I would buy a new pack of even cheaper ones in the morning.
‘I need a piss.’ I muttered to myself.
When I was done washing my hands I opened the door, only to see my Father standing behind it. He startled me. He seemed slightly drunk, but he didn’t seem to be ashamed of it. You could drink every night of the holiday as long as someone else was drinking too.
‘Hi, Tom.’ He slurred.
‘Evening.’ I said back.
‘Listen, your mother’s taking Hannah to London, tomorrow, why don’t we go to the cinema?’
‘Sounds good.’ My mood was lifted, in spite of the fact that I had resolved that it would be easier to bond with my Father when I was allowed to drink with him and this only emphasised that. I had had a couple of hidden drinks before I went to bed in an attempt to force creativity. It hadn’t worked, I had figured that I wasn’t old enough for drinks like scotch or bourbon to help me write.
‘Oh and, sorry, I owe you an Easter egg.’ He paused. ‘I got hungry.’
‘That’s fine.’ I said under my breath, mainly to myself.
‘Good-night.’ He said with a broad smile.
‘See you later.’ I said, before retreating back to my room.
I only got three hours of sleep.
CHAPTER FIVE
The cinema was empty. The car park outside was only used for the station. I preferred it empty. Every joke on screen would seem to pass over everyone else and only reach me and whomever I was with. The townspeople were awkward and afraid to laugh, just in case someone was watching over them and keeping a tally on every single time they stepped an inch out of convention or tradition. It had forced me to learn the ability to laugh loudest at whatever was on screen and, with it, the ability to laugh at myself.
We had walked in at the specific time we needed to in order to skip the adverts and the trailers. I liked them, they always felt different to whatever was on television because of the surround sound and the large screen before me but it was a compulsion to my Father to skip anything unnecessary.
I didn’t know why my Father walked everywhere, he was an amazing driver.
On the way there we had passed the traffic lights at which a shih-Tzu had been struck and killed. There were fresh flowers there and a picture of the departed dog. It had been dead since before I had gone to university. They had been putting up fresh flowers for months. It must have been the best dog ever to live for them to care that much, either that or they were trying to get back at whatever foul murderer had killed their most prized possession.
The film began to play before us. It was about two super-heroes who were supposed to be friends fighting for no apparent reason. The resolution was that their mothers had the same name. The entire movie made no sense at all.
I had no idea what the budget had gone towards, it couldn’t have been the blocky special effects or the script. I felt deep sympathy towards the actors. They were trying their best and killing it, but, as my film studies teacher used to say you can make a bad film out of a good script, but you can’t make a good film out of a bad script. The saddest thing was that it would probably still make more money than most countries had, in spite of its on point reviews from critics everywhere.
The credits began to roll and we instantly headed towards the foyer in the dark, not caring if there was a post-credit scene.
‘That was interesting.’ My Father said, obviously not wanting to slate it just in case I had actually liked it.
‘Yeah. Interesting is the right word.’ I said, painfully aware that the film had taken a large part of my escapist childhood and kicked the shit out of it.
The foyer was grand. There were televisions hanging from the ceiling playing the latest trailers in perfect synchronisation and the carpet was dark red. There was a multitude of expensive foods at the counter that I had only ever bought when I was there alone or with friends. There was no point even asking on a family trip.
‘You going tonight?’ A voice asked from behind me. I spun around to see Richard. I could feel a slight bit of tension emanate from my Father’s shoulders.
‘Erm, yeah.’ I said, not too loud, not too quiet.
‘That movie was amazing, wasn’t it?’ Richard asked, looking charged from what he had just witnessed. My Father just watched on at our exchange.
‘I didn’t see you in there.’ I said, avoiding the question.
‘I was at the back with Jasmine.’ Jasmine was Richard’s girlfriend and the two never left each other’s side. It was a high-school romance that had naively continued past its due date. They had ended up in the same university, their options being identical. Richard had wanted to be a writer and Jasmine had wanted to be a singer, but they had both decided that ‘love’ was more important.
Jasmine appeared though the corridor of portals. Portals that made you leave this small town for at least a few moments as they swept you up and placed you into another place entirely, watching as whatever could unfold unfolded.
‘Tom!’ She yelled, running up to me for a hug.
‘We should go, Tom, your mother’ll be back soon.’ My Father said. He was nothing if not perceptive.
When we had walked out of the grand red foyer and back onto the street my Father said ‘Jasmine’s the bitch, right?’
‘That’s the one.’ I had said as we began our walk home.
‘And Richard’s the pretentious one?’
‘Yup.’
‘You’re welcome, then.’ My Father said, smiling.
These were the times that saddened me most, when the demons of work did not have a firm grip on my Father’s shoulders, when he smiled freely and spent time with me, because I always had the ingrained knowledge in the back of my mind that the second he returned to his job or his laptop his countenance would plummet, as would his mood. That’s when he would go back to ‘business-dad’. That’s when every one of my actions would annoy him.
Without looking at me, he began to speak. ‘Now, this isn’t a ‘Mum question’.’ He paused, he seemed conscious of the egg-shells around him that he was about to tread all over. ‘There is no right or wrong answer.’ He sighed, building up his own confidence. ‘What are your plans after university?’ He seemed relieved that it was out. I knew that he was aware of my lie yesterday but I expected that I’d have a few days before he asked. Maybe this was his plan, spend a day with me so that he could get information out of me. Maybe it was just my cynical genes shining through. They did that every now and again.
‘I want to look at some music schools, maybe some writing schools. I want to follow this.’ I didn’t want to be conscious of the conflict that this caused deep within him. I never wanted to see him in pain, no matter how much I had told myself I hated him.
‘Ok.’ He said. ‘Ok, so are you going to work for a year before-hand?’
‘Yeah, or try to get a scholarship.’
‘Right. That’s an interesting plan. Yeah, if you’re happy, I can survive.’ It was at that moment that I realised this was something he’d been telling himself he’d be proud of for months. It was the answe
r he had expected, but not the one that he had wanted. Part of me still wanted to switch over to maths or science and get a boring job and a boring, secure life. It wasn’t enough to over-ride what I felt for music.
‘Music’s quite mathematical, you know?’ I said as we passed one of the decrepit churches that littered the town.
‘That’s true.’
‘There are these four chords that you can pretty much play to any song. It’s like an average out of every song ever written. Then there’s rhyme and meter.’ I said, optimistic I could get through to him.
‘That’s true.’ He said, quietly, not breaking his gaze from directly ahead of him.
‘That movie sucked, right?’ I said.
‘Oh, it was awful.’ He said, looking at me, his eyes wet with supressed tears.
‘It made no sense.’
‘I agree!’
‘What was your favourite part, though?’
‘Definitely the parts when the main characters weren’t on screen.’
‘I’d hardly call them ‘characters’, they were more two-dimensional than…’
‘An object that can cause a one-dimensional shadow?’
‘Well I was going to say a receipt but yours works too.’
‘Receipts are still three-dimensional.’
‘True… But the part where there was a dream within a dream…’
‘Ridiculous.’ My Father said. We walked in silence for the next part of the journey. The silence was not uncomfortable, it was quite peaceful. I liked the way we walked home, it was through forgotten tree lines and we crossed through the grave-yard. ‘So this party?’