Young Writers Society

He got a record player for Christmas that year.

It was a gift that he had been thinking about for some time. A few days before Christmas, he cleared out the spot in his room where he was going to put it.

He got a few records, too. They were some of his favorites (In Rainbows, OK Computer, and Meat Is Murder). He was never able to find a good place for them, so they just went on top of the covered record player when he wasn’t using it.

The records sounded beautiful.

As time went on, he obtained more records. Some of them were gifts from friends, some of them were gifts from his parents, and some were neat-looking used records that he happened to spot in shops and yard sales now and then.

He still never found a place for them.

When he decided that the pile on top of the sometimes-dormant record player was becoming too high, he placed some of the records on the floor nearby. He was pleased with his own ingenuity.

He found In Rainbows the year before. He found Radiohead around the same time. It was November.

He was still in love with the same girl. Two years’ worth of song lyrics, actresses, and other fictional characteristics fogged his original memory of her. His brain patched up what he forgot with fantasy. He never forgot the most disturbing parts.

She was a slender girl with eyes that gave refracted light a purpose, hair that gave refracted light its challenge, and an unspoken beauty that could refract anyone. She spoke with ease, she lived with pleasure, and she worked with brilliance.

She played the piano six hours a day. She haunted his dreams.

He found In Rainbows online. It was recommended for him on the sidebar. He clicked on it because he liked the album cover.

The first listen blew him away.

The second listen made him want more.

The third listen, he started noticing the lyrics.

By the tenth listen, In Rainbows was the story of his life.

He talked to the absent-minded blonde who went snowboarding when the weather got cold and only drank alcohol on New Year’s Eve. The next time she did, she confided in him about it and told him not to tell anyone.

He talked to one of his best friends’ sister, who lived a town away. She had a very small voice and very large breasts, and sometimes she called him for chemistry help. They hooked up once, but he was too drunk at the time to remember what her face looked like later. All they did was make out.

He talked to this degenerate girl who he had been friends with for a very long time. She had a fantastic body, but she was never really interested in him. By the end of sophomore year, she was smoking weed in school on a daily basis.

Around November of that year, he was fifteen. People he knew were beginning to enjoy themselves. On the weekends, they would get lost in the woods and fall off of roofs and forget about all of it before doing it again.

On the weekends, he would do homework. He would cry. He would listen to In Rainbows. He would dream about his life-long crush, with her sensuous eyes and her marvelous voice.

When I’m at the pearly gates, this will be on my videotape.

That Christmas, he got an iPod. It took him a few days to forget about what life was like without one. He downloaded all of the music he knew about, and some music he didn’t.

He took it everywhere.

Winter came very late that year, and there wasn’t much snow on the ground until late January. It didn’t even get cold until about that time, either.

He would walk out of the school building at two o’clock. He heard nothing but music.

I am the son and the heir of a shyness that is criminally vulgar.

He said hello with a nod to some people he used to be friendly with. He ignored some, while others ignored him.

I am the son and heir of nothing in particular.

The bus was cold and dirty. He sat alone for thirty minutes.

You say it’s going to happen now, but what exactly do you mean?

The walk from the bus stop to his house was pleasant.

See I’ve already waited too long, and all my hope is gone.

He started to read again, that winter. Reading became a really spiritual thing. He loved it. That winter he read The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Looking for Alaska, The Fault of Our Stars, and others. Reading would make him feel purposeful.

Every Friday, he would come home on the bus feeling hopeless. Those two nights, he would get into bed and place the iPod on his chest, with the light facing upwards. He would open a book and read. He would listen to In Rainbows. He would cry. He would fall asleep.

He would wake up a self-proclaimed different person. He was never quite sure about what made him upset and what made him feel good. He was convinced it had to do with the way that his innocence was dwindling away. It didn’t leave him all at once, like it usually did. It was indirect. It was deliberate. It was painful.

Winter was over.

He was starting to listen to Miles Davis a lot more, now. Miles was the only jazz musician whose discography he enjoyed completely.

The first time he listened to Bitches Brew, he didn’t understand it. After a few listens, he was running with it. He also ran with Burt’s Bees. That also helped in some way.

Spring was a blur. He studied for exams. He played some tennis. He went to see a musical the school was performing. He had friends who were in the performing orchestra.

Several months passed by.

He fell in love with a girl who looked exactly like his lifelong crush (everyone did). She was flattered, and forgot about him very quickly.

Now that you’ve found it, it’s gone.

There was a very attractive girl he knew for a while who was smart but couldn’t understand him at all, and was just a pain to talk to sometimes.

Now that you feel it, you don’t.

He knew this awkwardly tall girl with a shy smile and sleepy eyes. She was just as lonely as he was. They didn’t talk much.

There was that other blonde who was friends with the girl who snowboarded and drank in secret, and when she wore makeup she looked really good.

I dreamt about you last night, and I fell out of bed twice.

There was that sometimes obnoxious girl who talked way too much in math class, and in every other class for that matter. One day he woke up and her butt was fantastic.

There was a boy at running camp who played basketball really well and who always looked like he was holding his stomach in when he was topless, even though he was in great shape anyway.

There was a girl who sat next to him in Literature who was really curvy. He had been really interested in her in the past, but the minute it became apparent that she was attracted to him, he stopped caring about her.

Fifteen minutes with you! Oh, I wouldn’t say no. The people said that you were virtually dead, and they were so wrong.

It was Christmas. He got a record player.

After several months, it became apparent that he needed to start managing his burgeoning collection of records. He had to stack pieces of his collection in different places. They were cluttering different parts of the room.

One night, he was dreaming. And he dreamed of her. And as he opened his eyes, he sat up and cried. He was shivering.

When I’m at the pearly gates, this will be on my videotape.

Between choked sobs, he stretched out his arm and a shaky finger hit RECORD.