scribblingquill
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 Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 9:35 pm Post subject: Worlds Apart |
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This is actually sort of non-fiction (unbelievably) but I certainly romanticized the hell out of it. I just liked the idea of almost parallel universes and sort of fused that to make this weird little short story/reflective essay thing. Except it didn't really matter all that much, I just wrote about it like it did ^_-.
Its about a boy I met at Good Charlotte and Rooney.
He was cute.
I liked the idea of something momentous happening between two people, without them saying a word to each other.
Listen to this while reading it: [link]
Meet Joe Black Theme-Thomas Newman
Anyway enough introduction, here it is...
WORLDS APART
I’d say I have a vague recollection (it sounds far better) but truthfully I remember each detail about him, that nameless boy, that silent boy, perfectly.
I think I saw him before he noticed me, the pattern of the dark blue sweater he was wearing, the back of his tousled sandy hair. Then there was that first look, when he caught my eyes and it seemed like any other chance meeting of irises. Then he looked back a second time.
Eye contact isn’t so dramatic you may think, but think about this: when was the last time you caught a stranger’s eye without the two of you hurriedly diverting your gaze as though you’re grossly invading their privacy?
I suppose eye-contact is a slight mislabelling on my part, eye collision would be a more appropriate term. We crashed into each other that night, the quickest graze on each other’s lives and it all began with his eyes.
His eyes are my strongest memory, blue and wide and innocent. They were beautiful, as much in the slight fear and bewilderment they contained, that expression of not quite knowing what to do, as in their physical attributes.
His identity in my head is as much a jumble of feelings textures and sounds as it is pictures. Our brief time together reflected our location, the crowd. A mess, carelessness, freedom and a meticulously choreographed dance, a chess game, careful moves equally carefully analysed.
It was the peculiar nature of our encounter that it would have the flawless facade of thoughtlessness, instinct and pure chance, yet behind that we wove a different song. Each note, each slight brush of elbows, and every stroke of fingertips over skin separated by thin, warm fabric, was over-thought and over-wrought and a manoeuvre in a game where neither of us knew the rules.
We both feigned complete absorption in the antics onstage, whilst remaining hyper-aware and sensitive to the slightest changes in the other. He watched and he cheered and he jumped with the others, but a few times when everyone else was absorbed in the music, I would see him out of the corner of my eye looking back at me again.
He made no attempts to find his deserter friends, just stayed where I was. Likewise I stayed closer to his side than I did to the people I had come with. I danced. I was taken around, drifting in an irresistible current of bodies, but somehow I always came back to him. A group of friends cut between us once, throwing me further into the crowd and leaving him behind them. I could feel his frustration burning into my back.
He was a ghost really, his lingering touches and overlong looks not enough to confirm his reality in my world, like we were stuck in different universes, each with hands pressed to the glass of the window. The feel of his warm slightly tanned arm as he rolled up his sleeves, the comfortable shape of his hip where I leaned mine, and the gentle parting of his lips when we locked eyes were the traces of a person, but not the essence.
I thought about kissing him, but even if I had dared to, nothing would have changed, he would not be magically turned from spectre to person.
We would separate; I dragged by my friend’s warm but unwelcome hand with one last longing gaze at him and him, trapped in conversation though his eyes never sought the speakers’ only ever so briefly clicked with mine as I trudged away. We would quickly be gone forever to each other, held together only by the scarce time we stood together in the same room. Our respective worlds hauled us back, our friends with no inkling of the unspoken between us.
And I would drive the 100 miles home, each roll of the tyres taking me further away from the boy I had lost in the great vastness of the world, with no label or address to ever find him with again, not even a name. |
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andimlovegalore
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| Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 8:00 pm Post subject: |
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I few things I noticed just reading through. You don't seem to have any mistakes really, I just thought some word use might be improved.
| scribblingquill wrote: |
| meeting of irises |
Not sure about the word irises here, you wanted another word than eyes? Irises seems a little clinical. Maybe vision would be better?
| scribblingquill wrote: |
| you may think |
sound sort of clunky...I think switching it around to "You may think eye contact isn't so dramatic" would improve it.
| scribblingquill wrote: |
| grossly invading their privacy |
"each other's privacy" I think. I love this sentence though, and the next. A crash of sight.
| scribblingquill wrote: |
| he was a ghost really |
without the "really" it would be more dramatic.
| scribblingquill wrote: |
| held together only by the scarce time we stood together |
repetition of together.
I like this a lot - you got across the sincerity and wonder of the brief moment really well. The way you use detail is amazing =] I really like your style of writing.
Also, Good Charlotte! I loved those so much when I was 13. <3 |
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