They settled on meeting during weekends, at Felix’s house. Neither of them held any sort of religious observances, so Sundays worked as well. The first Saturday, after the initial awkwardness, was the both of them trading war stories, from typical child neglect to plans for the future. As it turned out, Felix wanted to be a novelist, and Thomas, just as he had stated, had no dreams.
“Aren’t you good at something? Everyone’s good at something, even if only a little bit. I’m not that stellar a writer, but I have dreams anyway. Don’t you do stuff? Drawing? Play a musical instrument? Dancing?”
“Not really. I have good grades, I guess. I can memorize stuff.”
“Go on.”
“Like, I remember when I met you, you were wearing a black shirt, and light blue jeans that had a little rip near your left ankle, and white sneakers. The guys who were beating you up was a brown haired kid with a big nose and a pasty black haired guy with a bowl cut with a lot of pimples and a digital watch that was stuck at 3:33, when I looked closer. Someone in the crowd was calling you a faggot. A few elderly people on the other side of the street were watching, and a mother passing by with her toddler pushed him away and offered to take him for ice cream, because he started crying. A limo was driving by at some point, and the windows rolled down a little-”
“Eidetic memory, wow.”
“Eidetic?”
“Photographic memory, Thomas. Do you remember everything like this?”
“Mostly only things I want to remember. When I study for a test I just look at the textbooks and memorize what the words and letters look like in my head.”
“That’s pretty cool.”
“I guess.” Thomas scratched his head, and shrugged. “Mind showing me some of your writing? You have me interested now. Is it on your laptop?”
“Nah, it’s in a notebook.” Felix rummaged under his bed, everything in his room seemingly spotless, and took out a red marble composition book, college ruled.
“I’ll read it to you, if you want.”
“Sure.”
Previous
Showing posts with label 01. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 01. Show all posts
Monday, November 1, 2010
01: Meet
Two weeks had passed since the first meeting, and the address stayed in Thomas's empty pencil tin, like a martyr's relic bones. He had yet to open it up, but that dull Saturday morning didn't include any other plans. Address crumpled in Thomas's fist, he pondered throwing it out and forgetting, but curiosity overtook him. Had it been a much earlier time, with less crazies and less suspicion, he would have probably gone over without qualms. But what if the stranger had sinister intentions? A kid getting beat up and laughing over the blows was enough excitement for a whole month, and it wasn't even the end of May yet.
He flattened the sheet of paper, the written letters surprisingly small, almost as though they did not want to be seen. Oh, he knew of this apartment complex. The 40 bus passed by it, which he usually took to buy art supplies in a shop in White Plains. All this time, Felix had lived there.
It was then that Thomas came to a realization that Felix had not even asked for his name. That was wild; if he had not been too curious before, he certainly was now. Against better judgment, he took the bus, and carried a pocket knife, a useless precaution if the kid had a gun, which was unlikely anyway. In the rare possibility that this would be a threat to his life, martial art classes and all, it was better than staying at home and being glared at by his Aunt Rose.
The bus ride took twenty minutes, and he arrived at one in the afternoon. Third floor, number 8. Thomas rang the bell, and was greeted by Felix, in sweatpants and a white shirt, who looked pleased with himself in a subdued sort of way.
“Hey! Come in. Looks like you decided to show up.”
“Um, yeah. My name is Thomas, by the way.”
“Oh, yeah, I forgot to ask you that. Thanks for telling me, I must look really weird now.”
“It's fine.”
“You know my name, right?”
“Yeah, it was on your name tag.”
“Alright, cool.”
The apartment living room was impeccably clean, if sparse. Not a spot of dust on the coffee table or the little book shelf. They did not have a television- who watches actual TV anymore- and had a razor thin laptop at the corner, black and sleek. The walls were devoid of any decoration, other than one photograph of a younger, perhaps six or seven-year old Felix that was almost easy to miss, hung by the door.
The table had a plate of orange vitamin apples, the skin a bright tangerine. It was sliced up neatly into wedges, accompanied a cup of peanut butter. Felix took the plate and offered it to him after getting one for himself.
“My mom keeps buying these. She says it's better to get vitamins from actual food, which is why the vitamin water stuff doesn't sell as well anymore.”
Thomas looked at it questioningly, but thought it better to be polite, taking a piece. He always considered the flavor to be an overpowering mixture of what tasted like orange artificial sweetener, and not like one would expect from a real apple. Dipping it in peanut butter, as Felix did, seemed even more unpalatable.
“Sit down,” Felix told him, all too eager. Thomas did so, and after finishing the cut apple, decided to put out his questions.
“So, Felix. Why'd you invite me here?”
“I was bored. Don't worry though, if you think I invited you here to hurt you or something, then you made a big mistake. Look at me. Do you honestly think I have the body to hurt anyone?”
A good point, but Thomas still had qualms.
“People don't randomly invite strangers into their houses though. It's not like it's the 1950's or biblical times.”
“Mostly I just wanted to see if you'd actually come. And you did, so now we're friends. I think.”
Thomas frowned. “It doesn't work that way.”
Felix had a look of contemplation, which held for a good ten seconds.
“If it didn't, you wouldn't have come here.”
Another good point. An irrational kind of anger was forming in Thomas, though he was normally not one to ever get angry.
“Alright, so we're friends now. Mind telling me your likes and dislikes? Dreams? Aspirations? Fears? The kind of stuff friends are supposed to know about each other.”
Smiling, the other boy shrugged, and began to speak. His voice was plain, slightly higher than average pitch, and had a peculiar kind of power.
“I like reading old blogs of people from years ago, old archived discussions on late nineties and early 2000’s. I like old music. I like sleeping. I like knowing people who I don’t know. I like watching people walk by, sitting in subways and buses. I like to see people happy and suffering. I like making fun of rich kids, and get beat up, because even though they’re ugly they’re beautiful too- everyone. Everything. I’m afraid of dying, but at the same time if I lose, I probably will go about doing it.”
Thomas held in his breath. There was no possible way to follow that up.
“...Lose? What do you mean, lose?”
“Life is beating me up. Worse than those private school boys. I know I’m not going to win. I give it till I’m twenty-four. If things don’t look up by then I’ll kill myself.”
“That- that... you shouldn’t do that. I’m sure you’ll have people who’ll miss you.”
No more smiles in the room.
“My mother gets a new boyfriend every week and pays no attention to me. She lives off what’s left of her inheritance, and when I was born that was her saving up more money. We have no close relatives within two states. I have no friends.”
“Except me.” It felt right to him.
Felix nodded solemnly.
“Except you.” Hesitation. “What about you? What are your dreams?”
“I don’t have any. I just sort of live.”
“I’ll see if I can change your mind.”
“I... I’ll see if I can change your mind about you killing yourself too.”
They both laughed.
“Good luck to us both then, Thomas.”
Previous
He flattened the sheet of paper, the written letters surprisingly small, almost as though they did not want to be seen. Oh, he knew of this apartment complex. The 40 bus passed by it, which he usually took to buy art supplies in a shop in White Plains. All this time, Felix had lived there.
It was then that Thomas came to a realization that Felix had not even asked for his name. That was wild; if he had not been too curious before, he certainly was now. Against better judgment, he took the bus, and carried a pocket knife, a useless precaution if the kid had a gun, which was unlikely anyway. In the rare possibility that this would be a threat to his life, martial art classes and all, it was better than staying at home and being glared at by his Aunt Rose.
The bus ride took twenty minutes, and he arrived at one in the afternoon. Third floor, number 8. Thomas rang the bell, and was greeted by Felix, in sweatpants and a white shirt, who looked pleased with himself in a subdued sort of way.
“Hey! Come in. Looks like you decided to show up.”
“Um, yeah. My name is Thomas, by the way.”
“Oh, yeah, I forgot to ask you that. Thanks for telling me, I must look really weird now.”
“It's fine.”
“You know my name, right?”
“Yeah, it was on your name tag.”
“Alright, cool.”
The apartment living room was impeccably clean, if sparse. Not a spot of dust on the coffee table or the little book shelf. They did not have a television- who watches actual TV anymore- and had a razor thin laptop at the corner, black and sleek. The walls were devoid of any decoration, other than one photograph of a younger, perhaps six or seven-year old Felix that was almost easy to miss, hung by the door.
The table had a plate of orange vitamin apples, the skin a bright tangerine. It was sliced up neatly into wedges, accompanied a cup of peanut butter. Felix took the plate and offered it to him after getting one for himself.
“My mom keeps buying these. She says it's better to get vitamins from actual food, which is why the vitamin water stuff doesn't sell as well anymore.”
Thomas looked at it questioningly, but thought it better to be polite, taking a piece. He always considered the flavor to be an overpowering mixture of what tasted like orange artificial sweetener, and not like one would expect from a real apple. Dipping it in peanut butter, as Felix did, seemed even more unpalatable.
“Sit down,” Felix told him, all too eager. Thomas did so, and after finishing the cut apple, decided to put out his questions.
“So, Felix. Why'd you invite me here?”
“I was bored. Don't worry though, if you think I invited you here to hurt you or something, then you made a big mistake. Look at me. Do you honestly think I have the body to hurt anyone?”
A good point, but Thomas still had qualms.
“People don't randomly invite strangers into their houses though. It's not like it's the 1950's or biblical times.”
“Mostly I just wanted to see if you'd actually come. And you did, so now we're friends. I think.”
Thomas frowned. “It doesn't work that way.”
Felix had a look of contemplation, which held for a good ten seconds.
“If it didn't, you wouldn't have come here.”
Another good point. An irrational kind of anger was forming in Thomas, though he was normally not one to ever get angry.
“Alright, so we're friends now. Mind telling me your likes and dislikes? Dreams? Aspirations? Fears? The kind of stuff friends are supposed to know about each other.”
Smiling, the other boy shrugged, and began to speak. His voice was plain, slightly higher than average pitch, and had a peculiar kind of power.
“I like reading old blogs of people from years ago, old archived discussions on late nineties and early 2000’s. I like old music. I like sleeping. I like knowing people who I don’t know. I like watching people walk by, sitting in subways and buses. I like to see people happy and suffering. I like making fun of rich kids, and get beat up, because even though they’re ugly they’re beautiful too- everyone. Everything. I’m afraid of dying, but at the same time if I lose, I probably will go about doing it.”
Thomas held in his breath. There was no possible way to follow that up.
“...Lose? What do you mean, lose?”
“Life is beating me up. Worse than those private school boys. I know I’m not going to win. I give it till I’m twenty-four. If things don’t look up by then I’ll kill myself.”
“That- that... you shouldn’t do that. I’m sure you’ll have people who’ll miss you.”
No more smiles in the room.
“My mother gets a new boyfriend every week and pays no attention to me. She lives off what’s left of her inheritance, and when I was born that was her saving up more money. We have no close relatives within two states. I have no friends.”
“Except me.” It felt right to him.
Felix nodded solemnly.
“Except you.” Hesitation. “What about you? What are your dreams?”
“I don’t have any. I just sort of live.”
“I’ll see if I can change your mind.”
“I... I’ll see if I can change your mind about you killing yourself too.”
They both laughed.
“Good luck to us both then, Thomas.”
Previous
01: Shatter
"You're the reason why your mother is in so much pain," his aunt told him without sensitivity, as though speaking through an automated teller rather than a person. Thomas, to her, was not a person anyway.
Iris Keller, his mother, looked nothing like him. Fair skinned, brown haired, and blue-eyed, she was beautiful, if hollow. She never left her room other than to take the trays left for her at her door. Her room had its own bathroom, and Thomas had given up trying to speak to her.
"Slanty eyed test tube," his aunt would curse at him, racism apparent, fear even more so. 6'3" and not quite white, Thomas was the result of carelessness. Her mother, as he had learned, was wild those days, and in an act of desperation sold her womb. And there he was now, alive and well. And there she was now, a dead shell, a backwards birth. In the rare instances where she did see her son's face, she would cry.
"I never asked to be born," he said once, eight years old and prone to fits of tears. His aunt would slap him. He'd run to his room, and wish he was dead. It was better not to think of things like that thoroughly, he knew better now. It only made him sad.
Love me. Love me love me love me love me please, I'm begging you mommy, please, I love you, it's not my fault, I love you.
Eight year old Thomas. What an idiot. That much didn't change.
Previous
Iris Keller, his mother, looked nothing like him. Fair skinned, brown haired, and blue-eyed, she was beautiful, if hollow. She never left her room other than to take the trays left for her at her door. Her room had its own bathroom, and Thomas had given up trying to speak to her.
"Slanty eyed test tube," his aunt would curse at him, racism apparent, fear even more so. 6'3" and not quite white, Thomas was the result of carelessness. Her mother, as he had learned, was wild those days, and in an act of desperation sold her womb. And there he was now, alive and well. And there she was now, a dead shell, a backwards birth. In the rare instances where she did see her son's face, she would cry.
"I never asked to be born," he said once, eight years old and prone to fits of tears. His aunt would slap him. He'd run to his room, and wish he was dead. It was better not to think of things like that thoroughly, he knew better now. It only made him sad.
Love me. Love me love me love me love me please, I'm begging you mommy, please, I love you, it's not my fault, I love you.
Eight year old Thomas. What an idiot. That much didn't change.
Previous
01: Encounter
May, close to the end of school, was the encounter. They met in a crowd of strangers, Felix at the center. Two other boys were pummeling him and Thomas, passing by while walking to the bus, stopped and tiptoed at the edge, taller than most.
Small framed and copy paper pale, Felix was a sight to behold, limbs twig-like, hair a faint blond. He was laughing. The harder they hit, the more he laughed, cuts on his eyebrow, bruises on his face, blood on his swollen lower lip. His laughter reminded Thomas of cathedrals and pews, and saints who were hung and burned.
When the mob dispersed, Thomas remained, staring shamelessly at Felix. The young man was wiping his cuts with his black shirt. Thomas took two steps forward.
"What do you want?"
"Do you... need help?"
The smile following this was meek and unassuming. "These will heal by tomorrow morning."
"...Valiant Co," Thomas blurted out, a hunch. "You're like me."
He froze. "Whoa. I was told most of the tests don't live past toddler age."
What followed was silence. Breathing, whispering through Thomas's ears- he could feel everything, from the veins inside him to Felix's little sniffles from his bloody nose.
"Let's be friends," Felix offered out of the blue, the school name tag still around his bony neck, Felix Sarai, Junior, Seller High. A public school. Thomas, surprised at his frankness, looked him in the eye with furrowed brows.
"Okay, sure," he answered, in shock at himself.
"I gotta go home, but here's my address." Felix scribbled down on a crumpled sheet of notebook paper from his pocket, and handed it over, before walking in the opposite direction, casually waving goodbye.
What a weird kid.
Previous
Small framed and copy paper pale, Felix was a sight to behold, limbs twig-like, hair a faint blond. He was laughing. The harder they hit, the more he laughed, cuts on his eyebrow, bruises on his face, blood on his swollen lower lip. His laughter reminded Thomas of cathedrals and pews, and saints who were hung and burned.
When the mob dispersed, Thomas remained, staring shamelessly at Felix. The young man was wiping his cuts with his black shirt. Thomas took two steps forward.
"What do you want?"
"Do you... need help?"
The smile following this was meek and unassuming. "These will heal by tomorrow morning."
"...Valiant Co," Thomas blurted out, a hunch. "You're like me."
He froze. "Whoa. I was told most of the tests don't live past toddler age."
What followed was silence. Breathing, whispering through Thomas's ears- he could feel everything, from the veins inside him to Felix's little sniffles from his bloody nose.
"Let's be friends," Felix offered out of the blue, the school name tag still around his bony neck, Felix Sarai, Junior, Seller High. A public school. Thomas, surprised at his frankness, looked him in the eye with furrowed brows.
"Okay, sure," he answered, in shock at himself.
"I gotta go home, but here's my address." Felix scribbled down on a crumpled sheet of notebook paper from his pocket, and handed it over, before walking in the opposite direction, casually waving goodbye.
What a weird kid.
Previous
01: Shell
Thomas likened Felix to apple cores and dull, small seashells that were crushed underfoot with little incident, beautiful but hidden in dirt and sand. He'd never tell him this, naturally, for boys their age were not one to compare each other to rotten fruit and pieces of flotsam. Sixteen had implications. If you were to call a boy beautiful, you were probably gay. Thomas was confident he had no interest in either genders, but found Felix beautiful anyway.
Another one- a caged sparrow. Those didn't survive well in captivity. Felix once told him that life is captivity, until you stomp enough men to be in a thin, rarefied atmosphere in which you no longer see the bottom you were once in. But Felix had no intention of stomping men, as much as he would have liked to.
Suspicions were high that Felix had no intentions to be anything but dead, but that was another story to tell. Thomas would have begged him not to, naturally, because his other friends used him for homework and his fake ID. Begging, for whatever reason, never seemed beneath him, but somehow he knew his opinion would have no sway.
"Thomas, what do you think happens after we die?" Felix asked him a month before, chilly early November cutting into both of their bones, the heat out again for the umpteenth time in Felix's awful apartment.
"I don't know, I think nothing happens. And if something did happen, it's probably not nice for most people."
"I want to stay here."
An eyebrow raiser, that statement. Felix and his sufferings, everyone and their sufferings. Why would anyone want to stay?
"Everyone says that the after will be better, Christians say prepare for it, and Buddhists, even though they don't have a heaven, want you to prepare too."
"Why do you say you want to stay?"
"I want things to work out. And if they don't, I want to be here when everything goes."
"I still say nothing happens."
"I never said otherwise," Felix replied. "That's why I want to stay."
All possible responses to his friend's train of thought eluded Thomas, so he settled on nodding.
"The world is just so violent. Violently stunning and amazing and perfect, and if everyone saw that everything would be better."
His eyes- Thomas saw distance. Felix was the emperor of distances, heliosheaths away despite being seated just across from him.
"I guess. I don't know," he replied.
Another one- a caged sparrow. Those didn't survive well in captivity. Felix once told him that life is captivity, until you stomp enough men to be in a thin, rarefied atmosphere in which you no longer see the bottom you were once in. But Felix had no intention of stomping men, as much as he would have liked to.
Suspicions were high that Felix had no intentions to be anything but dead, but that was another story to tell. Thomas would have begged him not to, naturally, because his other friends used him for homework and his fake ID. Begging, for whatever reason, never seemed beneath him, but somehow he knew his opinion would have no sway.
"Thomas, what do you think happens after we die?" Felix asked him a month before, chilly early November cutting into both of their bones, the heat out again for the umpteenth time in Felix's awful apartment.
"I don't know, I think nothing happens. And if something did happen, it's probably not nice for most people."
"I want to stay here."
An eyebrow raiser, that statement. Felix and his sufferings, everyone and their sufferings. Why would anyone want to stay?
"Everyone says that the after will be better, Christians say prepare for it, and Buddhists, even though they don't have a heaven, want you to prepare too."
"Why do you say you want to stay?"
"I want things to work out. And if they don't, I want to be here when everything goes."
"I still say nothing happens."
"I never said otherwise," Felix replied. "That's why I want to stay."
All possible responses to his friend's train of thought eluded Thomas, so he settled on nodding.
"The world is just so violent. Violently stunning and amazing and perfect, and if everyone saw that everything would be better."
His eyes- Thomas saw distance. Felix was the emperor of distances, heliosheaths away despite being seated just across from him.
"I guess. I don't know," he replied.
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