Flywheel Society - Assignment Four (Fiction)

The stench of stale beer clings to the painted white cinder block walls.  It haunted the common area and stairwells, too.   More bunker than dormitory, the thin, tall windows – one to a bedroom - appear better suited for an archer defending a keep than for letting any kind of warmth into the space.   I see the long rays of the sun peeking through those slits and creeping into the hallway out each door of the westward windows; yellow tendrils of some giant laying siege to this gothic castle.

Seated on the thin carpet, a young man sits playing three chords in succession on a poorly tuned guitar.   He is in the hallway between doors, head back against the block with eyes shut tight.  One of his cuticles is bleeding slightly as he bangs away at the steel strings with no pick.  I notice the intensity with which he plays and it occurs to me that he believes this song deserves radio play.  He is pathetic and painful to look at.

Utterly unaware of the world around him, he is singing mournfully and rather loudly.   There is no stirring in the dorm, no audience save the tendrils of light.   That lucky, earless light.

My first instinct is to wait for him to finish, lest I snap him out of this state in too jarring a fashion.   But after the song appears to repeat endlessly, hammering away on the unhappy theme of lost love, I decide that he will surely continue beyond my capacity to wait.   I am not known for my patience.

I stalk around the corner but hesitate before I reach him.   Will he recognize me?  I’m not really certain how this all works. 

“Stop that,” I command.  There is a quiet force in my words.  His eyes flash open and cheeks flush.  I’m standing over him now, not menacing but certainly invading his space.

He inhales with clear intent to berate me but stops short.   He’s staring.   Maybe he does recognize me?  Hard to say for sure.  Taking advantage of the pause, I press on. 

“I bet any friends you have left are exhausted from hearing that awful song.   Have you considered playing it in your room with the door closed instead?”

“Look, man, that’s a great song and it means a lot to me.   And I’ll have you know that nobody has told me anything bad about it.”  His voice is raised, tone defensive.   I shudder at the familiarity of it.

“Who do you sing it for?   Who’d you right it for?”  I accuse him.  

His eyes cast downward at the floor   I answer my own question with a wounding one.  “Has she heard it yet?”

He loses touch with the conversation to watch a few moments flash before him.

“No… she hasn’t heard it.”

“Would it make a difference if she did?” 

He sighs.   The anger is seeping out a bit, losing its hold as the sadness struggles for attention.

“Sure it would.   If she heard this song, she’d realize what she means to me.   She’d be touched by it.” 

He is genuine in this line of reasoning, and I find myself disgusted.

“Do you remember when you were in the sixth grade, and the clothes your parents bought you were completely out of fashion?”   He chuckles and nods, but his look quickly becomes a perplexed.  I can see him questioning how I know this. 

“One day some guy from another homeroom who you’d never seen before walked up to you and told you plainly that no one wears their socks pulled all the way up.  Then he walked away.   He didn’t ridicule you, or use that knowledge to wound you.   And when you looked around, it was suddenly so blatantly obvious?” 

“None of my friends said anything, and that guy comes out of nowhere and gives me some perspective.  But how do you know anything about…”

I cut him off, staring straight into his eyes.   “You will never get her back by being pathetic.  No girl dreams of someday reluctantly letting someone have her heart out of guilt. Be worthy of the love you seek.”

I turn on my heel, and rush back towards the stairs.   When I open the door, I’m look straight up at the ceiling.   My head rests on the pillow of a cushy sofa.  Several framed diplomas hang above me, and I wonder absently how long it takes to earn a PhD in psychology.

“Well that was a different approach.  Do you think it will make any difference to him?”

“Him?   Probably not, Andy.  There is no ‘him’ apart from your memories, of course.   But you weren’t really talking to ‘him,’ you were simply talking to yourself.  What did you tell ‘him’ anyway?”

Be worthy of the love you seek.