Madeline Rosales

I paged Dr. Timothy Leary and he said to fry my brain,

so by twenty-one, I was running on bare-bones fumes.

Leary prompted, “Why not?” But I called the Angels

to forward me to God, and He said, “Don’t do that if it hurts.”

But I haven’t been sober since.

But those off-white popcorn ceilings still haven’t quit

fracking and pricking my vision, usually clouded by illusions

and hallucinations, scratching themselves like sloppy doodles

and Rembrandt nocturnes into my head. Though critics scoff,

I'm drawn to their chaotic simplicity, and their endlessly monotone 

personalities. Damn. They make me feel this itch to purge

my nothing-feeling. How do you express "nothing"?

But how do I ignore this holy sadness that is not like what King Saul

felt upon his own sword, but just the steady buzz,

of radio static echoing the emptiness of a popcorn ceiling?

I wonder everyday if it's just depression or the aftermath of DMT

throwing me to the curb and demanding I confront the victims

it left behind. As I gaze up at the ceiling, a memory floods me. And I’m back at 

my old man's office building. I'd punch in for some data entry gig now 

and then to cover my dry account. It was warmer in the floor below

his, and always they were piping elevator "muzak." 

I knew every tune, even though I was never supposed to sing along. 

And I remember every beat resonating with me, because we

both were just a form of intentional meaninglessness. In another

story, we are sold for twenty or 30 pieces of silver by brothers

or disciples. And love leads us into a white and soulless place,

because it was a kiss that killed Jesus before the cross was ever built.

Because there are snakes in the grass of the lawns we watered.

Because I have sinned on the grounds of every temple, and I have

spilt blood upon their pews. Because I dreamed of divinity.

But what am I doing, staring up at rental-friendly ceilings, 

and reminiscing on white-noise “muzak” when

Dr. Leary has been on the line for fifteen years? I’ve spent fifteen

years trying to make room in my skull for anything else but

Please fill out this form to join the MJR Writing Community!

Members of this server will provide the following services to its community:

Edit each other’s work for free

Offer online reviews/comments to any publications

Support any programs/lit mags that need promoting on social media

Offer resources for self-publication

Provide advice for advertising independently published novels

Recommend programs for aspiring writers

Talk about books that inspire us!

How would people feel about joining a community of writers (via Discord) to do the following:

Edit each other’s work for free

Offer online reviews/comments to any publications

Support any programs/lit mags that need promoting on social media

Offer resources for self-publication

Provide advice for advertising independently published novels

Recommend programs for aspiring writers

Talk about books that inspire us!

This community would be totally non-exclusive and free to join. Its only purpose would be to serve as a resource and friend group for writers that don’t have very many writer friends in real life.

It was the coldest winter that Charlie had ever felt biting the flesh of his arms, and the loudest winter he had ever heard clawing at his milky glass windows. The snow itself had twice frozen over. It was an unforgiving season.

Springtime was only over a week away, yet there appeared no conclusion to the dense flurries that ravaged the village. And every child began to desperately yearn for the daffodils and tulips that the spring sun would promise, but Charlie most of all. So he’d ask his mother, as she tucked him beneath five layers of wool blankets:

“How do we know that springtime will come?”

And his mother tutted in response. The answer was obvious. “Because we have faith in Sir Nolan of the North.”

Charlie knew the story well. Rather than “Mama” or “Dada,” Charlie’s alleged first words had been “Sir Nolan of the North.”

The yarn is spun as thus: Sir Nolan is a tired man who lives in the North Pole. His bed is laden in polar bear pelt, and is softer than imaginable. And when the south wind carries winter across the land, it blows the pelt off Sir Nolan’s sleeping form and awakens him. Sir Nolan is happiest when he is asleep, and angriest when he is not. So in a frenzy, he then gathers up all of the wind and snow, and spitefully returns it all to the South Pole. Once he reaches his destination, he bellows, “And stay!” before huffing and puffing his way North.

“Sir Nolan is not real.” Charlie would pout to his mother.

“Yet wintertime always comes.” His mother smiled, “Stories work in mysterious ways.”

But by April 14th, Charlie was overflowing with impatience. So he shoved on his boots and forced his temple through several thick layers of sweaters, and made a witless front into the endless snowstorm.

“Charlie, where are you going?” His mother demanded from the door frame once he was a few feet away, “Get back here this instant!”

“If Sir Nolan exists, he must answer for his actions!” Charlie scowled against the wind.

“I didn’t raise you to be stupid! Don’t take another step!”

Luckily for Charlie, the wind slammed the door right before his mother’s face, and she could not swing it open against its vigor for all her might. Charlie’s journey had begun.

Charlie’s town sat in the valley between two sky-scraping mountains. He needed to scale the Northern one to reach the fabled home of Sir Nolan… Unfortunately, the Northern mountain was the taller of the two by a ridiculously large margin.

Charlie’s shoes scraped against the frozen slush as he hiked up, the storm being the only force pushing him forward after his muscles had entirely numbed. His toes had gone blind to the cold nipping at them. Charlie tried to curl them, testing their remaining strength, yet found not enough spare energy for the action.

By the second day of his journey, he felt nearest to sobbing, but he refused to give the South Wind the pleasure of freezing his tears.

Hiking an impossible mountain in search of a myth on the poor chance that he truly exists, thought Charlie, spite blazing wildly inside his skull, all for the promise of springtime if he does. I’m a fool.

I’m a fool. He repeated with every step.

Sir Nolan is the only one who could solve this winter, the memory of his mother’s voice echoed through the storm’s rage, to find him is to find springtime.

Charlie let out a terrible cry and continued his trek.

By the third day, Charlie reached the mountain’s peak.

I’m the most powerful boy to have lived! He cried within his thoughts, Those down in the village have never done what I’ve done! I can do anything in the world!

His attention snagged on his features reflected on the nearby glassy lake of ice. His eyes were misty, nearly frosted over entirely. His sweat had crystalized and formed icicles off his ears. And his hair flew in every direction except the ones he wanted.

Damn you, Sir Nolan. He grimaced, Damn you if I have put in all of this effort to meet nothing more than a myth.

After two following sunsets, Charlie set his first step onto the snow on the North Pole. And before him sat the smallest wooden shed. But when he swung open the shed’s wizened door, emptiness awaited him, save for an odd white fur blanket atop a bare bedframe. There was no Sir Nolan in sight.

Charlie had half a mind to burst into endless cries, and half a mind to rage.

So he raged.

If Sir Nolan doesn’t exist then that means the burden to end winter is mine! He huffed and kicked down the door leading once again to the outside, No one will bring spring but Charlie!

And so he gathered up all of the storm that had crept to the North Pole, gathered up all the snow that had collected on the mountaintops surrounding his town, and gathered up all of the remnants of winter leftover, and he threw it all back to the South Wind.

“And stay!” He roared to the South.

Rounding up the winter storm had taken him two days.

His mother collapsed into his arms once he crossed back into the town’s border, blowing her nose into the thawing fabric of his outermost coat.

“You’re driving me insane!” She whined.

“Winter was driving me insane, mother!” Charlie guffawed, “But there’s no need to cry anymore, because spring has finally perked up.”

His mother raised her reddened face with hope. “Was it Sir Nolan? What did he say?”

Charlie grimaced at the sound of the false idol’s name. “Sir Nolan does not exist, mother, and can’t do his job. If we want winter gone, we have to do it ourselves!”

The only flaw in the plan to lock Matthew in the Tall Tower indefinitely was the inconvenient certainty that Matthew would refuse. But this wouldn’t have been Matthew’s maiden voyage to the tiny chamber of the Tall Tower, for his mother would generally seldom bat an eye as she sent him away day after day.

A few nights prior, Matthew had seated himself down in the makeshift chariot that had ceased to be a laundry basket the moment Matthew had gotten ahold of it, and catapulted himself into a descent. He ultimately crashed onto the unsuspecting Butler Stevens. Outraged beyond compare, Mother Mireheart immediately dispatched Matthew to the Tall Tower, where he wrote a poignant letter of apology to Butler Stevens, pledging three weeks of laundry duty as penance.

Another night, as night is quite usually the time when the most mischief occurs, Matthew’s younger sister had chased and frightened the family cat up a tree. And Matthew volunteered for the rescue mission. Employing every ounce of his pint-sized arm strength, he ascended the tree until the ground below seemed as distant as the stars above. Surrounded by the soft rustle of leaves, he reached out his hand in an attempt to steal the feline’s shifty attention. However the sight of Matthew only caused the cat to startle… then all Matthew saw were paws slipping from the branch. Luckily for him, he had managed a firm grip on the cat's tail; unluckily for the cat, the rest of it continued to fall. With her bare-bottomed cat cradled in her arms, Matthew’s sister wailed to Mother Mirehart, who reacted with horror as Matthew also stumbled back inside, still gripping the cat’s disembodied tail. His sure destination was the Tall Tower.

So it came as no surprise to anyone that Maid Martha was made to lead him to the East Wing where the Tall Tower stood after Mother Mirehart’s dinner frenzy.

“I didn’t do anything wrong.” Matthew softly protested, “And if I did somehow offend mother, it’s certainly not worth locking me away for.”

Maid Martha shook her head solemnly, as if to apologize. The servants were generally chastised for making excessive noise; in the past, Matthew’s mother had threatened to tie Maid Martha’s tongue into an origami swan if she dared speak out of turn. Matthew knew this and accepted her silence as an answer.

Matthew dug his feet into the floor. “I only need to talk with her,” He began, “I need someone to talk to me. I suppose that I do not say enough to be worth listening to, but mere wishing never did anyone any harm…” His voice trailed off as his thoughts outran him, “I wish I wasn’t so alone.” He finally whispered.

A distraction as sharp as a knife caught the corner of Matthew’s eye from right outside the Mirehart Manor. Abandoning Maid Martha's side, he rushed to the nearest window, leaning out as far as his curiosity would stretch.

“A star!” He gasped delightedly, “A falling star! My wish must’ve—”

His thoughts, like birds, abruptly ceased their flight and vacated his mind as he beheld the star slowly descending from the sky.

Falling stars weren’t a common occurrence in the lands beyond the mountains. After all, they wouldn’t hold much value if they were as frequent as raindrops. It required a considerable effort to beckon one down, and very few knew how.

“Do you think I could catch it before it reaches the ground?” Matthew asked.

Maid Martha pursed her lips, torn between her master’s orders and the palpitations of her heart, which beat not just for a boy but for his spirit still untainted by hopelessness— a spirit destined, she knew, to not exist forever so unscathed. Finding the choice words was too bearish a deed, yet silence was an unthinkable gesture.

Her voice was soft, as if she were incapable of producing a sound any louder than that of a feather meeting the floor. “If you run.” She turned her gaze also to the drifting star.

Matthew ran, escaping into the town square, crowded with a throng of folks so densely packed that it seemed the very air had forgotten how to move freely. The bustling bodies, the animated chatter, and the assorted smells — from the tantalizing aroma of street vendors' delicacies to the less enchanting fragrance of livestock that found their ways into the heart of the commotion — turned the marketplace into a carnival spectacle more so than a cityscape.

The lights of shops, which were laden in buff colored brick and stone, committed themselves to the burning of midnight oil, their glows defiantly eclipsing the gloomy sky overhead. These establishments would lean conspiratorially toward each other, forming a labyrinth of narrow lanes and precarious balconies. And, like desperate performers, each of these buildings’ signs reached desperately out to passersby with bold lights and empty promises scrawled across them, in an earnest competition to outshine their neighbors.

These twinkling glows reflected themselves onto the cobblestone below, and Matthew felt as if he was trampling upon a second sky. He wondered if it were a trespass on Heaven to look down and still behold stars where the gutters should be.

It should’ve felt surreal to walk those streets— a piece of the universe fashioned for nothing besides admiration and reverence. To the casual observer, the scenery appeared tailored exclusively for Grimshaw nocturnes, yet Matthew had always managed to, when gazing around at the dully uniform buildings and feeling the scorching radiance of the lights, dream of being anywhere else.

Anywhere else, He would tell himself everyday with tightly shut eyes, I would be happier.

Most of the clocks in Matthew’s studio had been painted in decadent browns, poised to be adopted into the arms of eager collectors. So whenever Matthew would periodically look up from his projects he found himself confronted by this undulating brown ocean.

But this pattern encountered a hiccup on a certain autumnal afternoon. In the corner stood a man dressed in extravagant blue silks that sharply waged war upon those browns that had long reigned supreme. This man observed from afar the slouching Matthew at the table, who was entirely unaware of his presence.

The gentleman in question answered to the name Duke Julius Lockland. His attire was pressed with precision, with not a single seam daring to deviate from its designated course. Similarly, the angle of his collar, tie, and belt had been precisely calculated to enhance the elegance of his form, yet he wore it with an effortless grace, as if he had simply been born with impeccably combed hair and the regal countenance of a king. 

Duke Julius Lockland cleared his throat to catch Matthew’s attention, whose shoulders tensed at the disruption.

“I’ll forgive the intrusion.” Matthew said, squinting his eyes as they met the Duke’s face, “May I help you?”

The Duke assessed Matthew’s besmirched state: he noticed that the young man was laden in grime and the residue of varnish and oils. A swing between amusement and mild dismay at the sight of this unkempt artisan played itself across the Duke’s normally unwavering countenance.  Opting for the latter, he clutched tightly his handkerchief with an air of urgency, fearing that the boy’s appearance might be a threat to his veneer of aristocracy.

But what caught Matthew’s attention were the Duke’s eyes. Brown they were, yet not just any brown—these rich hues did not resemble in the slightest the brown Matthew had surrounded himself with in every shade for the years since his arrival in town. This particular brown were pools of honey, full of a warmth that drew Matthew into their depths like a moth irresistibly drawn to a flame. As words eluded him momentarily, his tongue glazed against the roof of his mouth, savoring their sweet taste as he fell and drowned.

“You are the clockmaker, yes?” Asked the Duke once settled into his surroundings, pulling Matthew out from the dense ocean honey.

The stranger’s voice slithered down Matthew’s spine. “I certainly do make clocks.”

“You come highly regarded, I know.” The Duke approached, his gaze frequently glancing down to the floor to avoid trampling upon the strewn about unfinished creations, “My engagement party is on the horizon, and I must find a suitable gift for the parents of my fiance; I’ve asked and heard of your skill, and thus determined that you are the most suitable man for the job. I need the grandest, most magnificent, most breathtaking and stunning clock your mind could ever imagine.”

Despite his youth, the Duke spoke, Matthew noticed, with the tone of a man most practiced in the art of being polished and proud. His words were constructed with dotted I’s and crossed T’s, as everything fell flawlessly into place with a resounding, satisfying click.

Matthew nodded, managing to refocus his attention from the man’s eyes. “That is doable.”

“Doable?”

“I’m saying that it interests me well enough that I’m willing to take the time for it. If you’ve heard my name, then you’ve surely heard of how few private commissions I accept each year. No one knows why I do it. But I shall tell you as a form of my gratitude for your business. It’s because most clients bore me. They come to me asking for a clock encrusted with lame diamonds, or with initials carved into its surface, or that tells you the time of two different kingdoms. Truly boring. Their requests are so elementary that I truly could not be any more indifferent in fulfilling them. I care too much and have worked too hard to be humiliated by mundanity. Thus, I’ve made a point to reject a commission if it can be too easily completed.”

“You do enjoy hearing yourself talk, I see.”

“Only when I have something to say.” The boy stood, brushed off his tunic, letting dust and wood debris tumble down off it, “And there is nothing worth saying that I have not said. Well, where was I? Right, I was getting to the point. You, however, made things very interesting by not allowing your requests to be defined by simple wants, but through a number of odd superlatives instead. Whether that was deliberate or simply due to a lack of imagination, you have my undivided attention. After all, I’ll admit, your vagueness has rendered this commission quite a bit challenging, even for me. And I enjoy a good challenge.”

The Duke harbored a disdain for the unfamiliar, and he found a walking embodiment of all that confounded him in Matthew Mirehart. When ever before had he encountered a man who would perform a monologue expounding the philosophy behind his business practices mid-casual conversation?

“My name is Duke Lockland.” Was the best response he could’ve provided.

With a raised eyebrow and unbeknownst to the Duke’s trying good nature, Matthew responded. “Your first name is Duke, and your last name is Lockland?”

“Duke is my title. Julius Lockland is my name.”

“First name is Julius, last name is Lockland, and your title is Duke. Lovely. You’ll know this already, surely: my name is Matthew Mirehart. First name Matthew, last name Mirehart. Don’t look into my family name.”

“Don’t look into your family name? I must beg your pardon.”

“No need to beg, Duke Julius Lockland, I’ll give my pardon freely. I mean that I have no family.” The boy stood up and presented his hand.

“An orphan? There are plenty of those nowadays, aren’t there?” Duke Lockland took Matthew Mirehart’s hand firmly, “Were you born an orphan?”

“No. No one is born an orphan.” Matthew chose to negate that he was only estranged, and certainly did have a family. It was a rather fresh wound; he had only left home three years prior. 

Matthew did not miss Mirehart Manor greatly, but he did find that nostalgia would occasionally tip-toe into the confines of his mind. He would be polishing off his mid-morning snack when the smell of the old kitchen would rudely appear. He would be tucking himself into the thick blankets on his bed when the sounds of the Great Hall would ring in his ears without warning. Were these specific aspects of his former home truly missed? Not precisely. What he truly longed for was the opportunity to smell and listen to it all once more, and to savor those moments for a final, lingering taste.

“I suppose.” The Duke decided, though he did find that answer strange, “When will the clock be completed?”

“You can't rush perfection, Duke Julius Lockland. I ask only that you have faith in my abilities to meet your demands in the swiftest manner possible.”

The Duke was to have faith in an eccentric stranger? Impossible, even if Matthew Mirehart were laden in truth like skin. “You are confident that you will have it completed quickly, though?”

“If I was not confident in my answer, then I wouldn’t have given it.” Matthew Mirehart raised an eyebrow, “Do I seem like a man who expects his words to ever be taken lightly?”

“You seem either insane or brilliant.”

Matthew shrugged his shoulders and allowed himself a final glimpse into the Duke’s hypnotic stare. “Neither one is more important than the other.”

The Duke had always felt that Goodbye’s were uncomfortable affairs. He had grown so very accustomed to the phrase “You’re excused” that he never got familiar with saying “Goodbye” properly. Matthew Mirehart took note of this as he left the studio without another word.

AUTHORS NOTE

Matthew Mirehart fell in love with Duke Julius Lockland in this chapter.

The Mireharts were not cold hearted, and Father Mirehart had never wished for his son to lead an unremarkable life— however, the Mireharts did lack hearts entirely. Father Mirehart, for instance, had hidden his heart in a barrel organ, made of notes and pipes and the wood of a dryad’s pan flute. It would pump quite well every time he turned the hilt. And Father Mirehart would frequently take to the cobblestone streets, cranking his organ to fill the city block with melodies that prompted pedestrians to toss bronze coins into his upturned cap— which was a heartwarming transaction, in the most literal sense of the word.

Mother Mirehart had hidden her own heart in a jewelry box. And her diamonds blushed into scarlet red, bright blue sapphires into byzantium purple, and opals into delicate pale pink. Her heart beat quietly in the box’s corner for years as she carefully avoided so much as a sidelong glance while selecting her stained jewels for an evening soiree.

But no matter their personal preference on the method, every Mirehart eventually agreed to carve out their hearts. Which is why it was so insanely bizarre, so unnervingly uncanny that Matthew Mirehart had held fast his resolve to fall in love.

“How about we hide your heart in the flames of a lamppost, dear Matthew?” His second cousin once suggested.

“No, I plan to use it.”

“I’ve seen wyverns in the North hide their eggs in the carpels of their favorite flowers. Why don’t you try something like that with your heart?” Offered his grandfather then.

Though the idea of mimicking the behavior of wyverns intrigued him, Matthew shook his head. “I’d rather keep it in my body.”

Each night as the clock hands embraced dinnertime, his family would gather. And there would be times when one would unabashedly and unwelcomely offer their views on Matthew's reluctance to securely stow away his heart. And Matthew, very apathetic to their cause, would cease to listen. He naturally grew into a lad of peculiar quietude.

It was due to his silence that people began assuming that Matthew was thoughtless. Yet they were fools not to know that within the cocoon of his quietude, he was brewing a tempest of thoughts. He knew the rate at which apples would fall from the trees in their orchard and the distance at which they would, how far the road in town would stretch until it abruptly ended at the foot of the mountains that separated the kingdoms, and how the window of his bedroom would open with a single shove and might just lead him far away one night.

Unfortunately, Matthew had long decided that his family was unworthy of the labor to produce words from thoughts and transport them to the tip of his tongue.

One dinnertime, Mother Mirehart’s patience had run very thin and she slammed down a wine glass, carelessly rocking the crimson liquid inside, as the topic of her son's heart once again attended the meal.

“You can’t possibly expect yourself to carry that thing around your whole life!” She hissed at her son, “It’s ridiculous!”

But despite the threat of upsetting his mother and the multitude of eyes, widened and uneasy, collectively pivoted toward him, Matthew didn’t speak. 

So Mother Mirehart’s face contorted into an aggrieved glower, and horrible lines creased themselves onto her delicate, porcelain face. “Now, you listen here,” She fumed, “I will not take such disrespect in my house! Martha!”

Maid Martha crept closer from the line of servants on the left side of the room.

“Would you please escort Matthew to the Tall Tower? He will stay there until he’s prepared to cooperate with the family.”

“Now, now,” Ol’ Granny Mirehart offered with an unbothered grace, “We could always revisit this later.”

“But this is later!” She seethed, “Last time was later too, and so was the time before that! We always stop halfway into the argument and never finish it, dragging it on and on and on! Well, I’m tired of this discussion and I would like to have it resolved once and for all!”

Matthew took care to not be hit by the door upon exiting the dining hall with Maid Martha.

When Matthew Mirehart grew up, and was no longer the heir to the Mirehart name and fortune, his only dream was to build the most exceptional clock to ever grace the world. 

Immediately upon moving to a town with the mountains, his first act was to purchase a homely woodshop. Within its walls, light was a scarce commodity, causing his eyes to grow sore as he worked later and later into the evening. But Matthew considered his eyesight a reasonable price for the privilege of coaxing splinters into submission and turning lumber into something beyond a tree's midlife crisis. The scent of this tireless work would stretch from corner to corner in smothering effusions, basking the room with a warm, earthy aroma.

The bars on the ceiling window ran both horizontally and vertically, and sometimes Matthew would imagine there a game of checkers whenever he’d require a diversion for his weary mind to engage in between bouts with birch and beech. And through that window, with even the slightest gaze tilted vaguely upwards, one could clearly see the moon and stars overhead.

“The sky is beautiful.” He’d announce to the empty room and wait for no response.

The walls were difficult to understand, but an amusing story that Matthew locked away behind an odd smile. They were, in truth, a rebellion against his parents' manor, where every wall wore the uniform of dull gray— a kind of gray so unassuming that Matthew often wondered if he could possibly vanish into its monotony altogether. Mother and Father Mirehart had chosen a color that no one would be meant to notice. 

Matthew Mirehart decidedly chose to paint the walls of his studio in colors everybody couldn’t help but notice, colors that demanded one’s attention regardless of whether it would be willingly given or forcibly seized. A week into his residency, he armed himself with buckets of blue, red, and green paints, and flung them at the walls with all of the gleeful abandon he had promised to himself upon escaping Mirehart Manor. He repeated this process until not a square inch of the walls were left bare.

For the weeks subsequent to his arrival, Matthew refused to leave his shop until he had completed a satisfying number of clocks. His neighbors had quickly begun to eye his establishment and gossip about the unassuming boy infected the town like weeds.

“I suppose he’s a lunatic.” Became the general consensus.

In the beginning, his clock creations took up a shelf. But as time went by, the shelf grew into a teetering pile, then an imposing wall, and finally a vast, elaborate labyrinth from which he would never want to escape.

And whenever Matthew would be forced to tread past the doorway of his shop, he would always take a moment to admire these clocks. Beyond the realm of clockmaking and wall coloring, Matthew had nothing. He hadn’t a family any longer, he hadn’t a friend to share his drip of miseries nor joys, and love remained a void to rest his weary head upon as evening hours unfolded. Yet, he always had the clocks, and he found contentment in the knowledge that they, in turn, always had him. The clocks, he decided, were miracles that bridged the gap between the hopeless world he was bound to and the world where he truly did have everything.

With his learnt hands, Matthew formed gorgeous worlds of wood and cogs, the details rivaling that of a reality he never found short of idyllic. A reality in which as if the laws of nature were on a perpetual coffee break. A reality in which raindrops could form turreted keeps atop mountaintops draped in groves, all held together by the firm hands of stars.

No one could confirm that Matthew had at any time encountered the structures he would depict in his clocks, but if a customer were to request to be told the story behind a certain clock, Matthew would delightedly spin a yarn. And from his lips would come stories of dragons, princes, thieves, princesses, and elves; all of which, according to Matthew, he had shared a splendid cup of tea with. 

“These stories aren’t real!” The younger listeners would cry.

“Well, of course they’re not real,” Matthew would say, “but that doesn’t mean they’re not true.” It would’ve been impossible to confirm whether or not Matthew had seen a dragon or an elf, but he came from a village beyond the mountains, and everyone acknowledged, whether or not fully believing, that there were beings and adventures of all sorts in the villages beyond the mountains.

He wept and would not stop. He wept because of everything he had been, of everything he wanted to be, of every old hurt, and of every young happiness. And he wept because of the shame of ever being heartless, of the joy of learning to love, and of all his mistakes and hatefulness. But above all else, he wept because when he tilted his gaze even slightly upwards, he saw the man he had fallen in love with watching him.

"Why are you crying?" Asked the Duke, who shifted uncomfortably in his penny-loafers.

And those words only made Matthew weep harder, because he hadn't a clue how to express to the Duke that he never wanted to be without his heart again.

So the boy simply said, "I must be allergic to it."

When Matthew Mirehart was a young boy, he'd oft be sent to the tiny room in the Tall Tower as a punishment. His mother's goal in doing this was to deprive the boy of a stimulating environment, which would eventually, she falsely theorized, make him more submissive to her wishes. What she didn't know, however, was that Matthew would just open the room's narrow window with ease and let the music from buskers downtown flood in. This is what would be playing:

Detailed agendas

Fancy cups

Rocks

Fiddle music

Cats (he DESPISES dogs)

Duke Julius Lockland

Building clocks, or anything that involves him working with his hands

Repetitive tasks... he sometimes wishes he were working in some kind of assembly line

Waking up 30 minutes before his alarm clock

Being in bed an hour before his self-assigned bedtime

The sound that cats make to imitate bird calls

Tiny knives for cutting fruit

Picturesque lily pads

The stars

Being underdressed for every event

When people don't question his actions

Being alone

Being alone, but with a cat

Being alone, but with Duke Julius Lockland

Necklaces with colored jewels

Flying machines, though he never intends on being in one

Dancing to folk music

Fireflies

Wide-open spaces

When Duke Julius Lockland wrinkles his nose because he's confused

When Duke Julius Lockland tells him not to do certain things in a quiet, gentle tone, that doesn't sound judgmental or condescending ("Matthew, please don't bite your nails. We've been out all day, touching things.")

When Duke Julius Lockland explains things to him that don't make sense the more he tries to provide clarity (i.e. basic pleasantries)

When Duke Julius Lockland asks him questions, not because he's being hypo-critical, but curious

When Duke Julius Lockland tells him bedtime stories without being prompted to