*✦·˚. smoke .˚·✦*

james  thinks  if  maybe  the  boy  before  him  is  deaf  ,  which  is  definitely  a  possibility  and  james  knows  he  could  be  an  ass    (    that  he  is  one  in  every  sense  of  the  word    )      but  he  isn’t  discriminatory  ———  he  prefers  to  think  of  himself  as  an  equal  opportunity  asshole  ,  if  he’s  to  think  about  it  at  all  ———  so  he  lets  up  on  the  aggression  ,  cocks  an  eyebrow  up  at  the  other  male  ,  before  he  tries  once  more  to  say  :

❛    oi  ,  you  ,    ❜    he  says  ,  wondering  whether  or  not  to  wave  his  hand  in  front  of  the  other  male  ,  but  deciding  in  the  end  to  just  …  not  .    ❛    ground  control  to  major  tom  but  uh  ———  you  still  with  me  ,  old  pal  ?    ❜  

rolled  eyes  and  then  practiced  hands  turn  to  the  pocket  of  his  leather  jacket  ,  slender  and  dexterous  fingers  catching  the  familiar  carton  from  which  he  draws  a  single  cigarette  before  pocketing  the  carton  back  in  its  rightful  place  .    ❛    you  seem  pretty  spaced  ,  dude  ,    ❜    he  says  ,  words  slightly  muffled  due  to  him  putting  the  cigarette  in  his  mouth  .    ❛    and  i  really  ,  really  want  whatever  it  is  you’re  having  .    ❜    a  lighter  appears  ,  light  glinting  off  the  silver  case  from  which  the  letters  spelling  out  his  full  name  can  be  read  .  it’s  a  wonder  he  still  keeps  it  .    ❛    care  to  hook  me  up  with  your  dealer  ?    ❜

Matthias can hear the other’s voice breaking the air around them, but he stops hearing words. Muffled noises fill his ears and intwine with his beating heart. Louder, and louder. He thinks for a moment he can hear the mirrored shattering through the deafening noises of reality.

All he focuses on is the eyes of the other that pierce straight through him.

Burning. Suffocating. Matthias forgets he can’t feel his feet against the ground, nor the wind that stirs the street. He forgets for a moment time that he no longer feels the universe around him. She abandoned him in that warehouse for what felt like an eternity.

Now she leaves him here, facing another. Matthias wonders if she granted him another body to walk in. Rebirth perhaps.

But he looks to his hands, and they’re still the same they’d always been. The same soft scar above his knuckle. Then he looks to the other, with the pounding still in his ears. He attempts. Soft and coarse. A voice that wasn’t use to being spoken.  “Excuse me?” The words shake, but he still hears them in the air. He wonders if the other can as well.

Maggie followed the sound of the music absently. There was no sense of urgency. She came to realise that the growing crowd she could see off in the distance could very well spell trouble, and at the very least she could postpone the panic if someone got too close. For a short while she considered turning back around. Home was safe. But it was also boring. And Maggie was becoming rather bored of being bored. So she pressed on.

As she neared the clearing, her eyes fell upon a lone boy, standing at the outskirts. She didn’t know his face (which was weird because everyone knew everyone in Coolsville, at least in passing.) Maggie stopped a distance away and waited to see if he was going to go in to the party but he didn’t. The longer she watched, the sadder he seemed to her. That didn’t seem right for someone at a party, did it? Maybe he was nervous. Or didn’t like parties. Or perhaps his friends had ditched him and he was moping about it.

Whatever the reason, Maggie was starting to feel like a bit of a creep just standing there watching him. (What the hell Maggie?) So she did what any sane person would do and tried to make it obvious that she was approaching by rustling the nearby corn, snapping a twig and coughing loudly. No one could hear her footsteps, she didn’t want to scare the shit out of the poor kid by just showing up at his side!

Then, finally, she spoke. And flashed a welcoming smile at the boy. “Hey kiddo, you alright there?” Maggie pulled down her hood for good measure. “You look a little glum.”

Teenagers dolled with glittered bodies, and hidden faces. Temptations of the night. It was the rebellious type things like cornfields and mysteries seemed to attract. Just like abandoned warehouses and mysterious parties. Matthias would never be the sort, he didn’t have the time for rebellion, or parties. Not until his childhood seemed long lost to a universe he’d still be learning the secrets to.

What did she have in store for him?

A boy now nothing more than a memory, with hands that would spend days prying at the edges of a metallic door before they would learn to open it. Lost for days in a warehouse he struggles to remember in anything but flashes of time. Something he’d also struggle to track.

Standing alone, watching, he’d hear the distant crack of twigs. Of debris of leaning stalks and distant screeches of delighted teens. Then a voice, his eyes would dart to find the source of. Then his breath would gasp. Caught in his chest as his hues meet bright blues. Once casual, his stance stiffens. Then she speaks. The impossible since he no longer exists.

Matthias simply freezes for a moment, like a deer caught in the headlights of a passing car. He does not move to see if her eyes follow. But time passes, what feels like years- probably no more than seconds ticking. Foolish he feels as he opens his mouth. Surely no words would come out. But a horse voice musters, “I- I’m not glum.” He tests against the open night air- staring. Fear. “Are you alive?”

❛    what’s  a  boy  gotta  do  to  have  some  fun  round  here  ?    ❜    his  voice  is  almost  a  taunt  ,  a  challenge  ,  an  invitation  ———  somehow  all  three  all  at  once  ,  and  he  flicks  away  a  cigarette  ,  stomping  it  out  with  the  heel  of  a  shoe  that  looks  way  too  expensive  considering  the  place  he’s  in  ,  eternally  out  of  place  but  it’s  not  like  he  gives  a  shit  .    ❛    you  there    ❜    ———  and  here  he  puts  himself  directly  in  the  path  of  an  oncoming  pedestrian  ,  before  thinking  it  twice  over  and  matching  his  pace  to  theirs  instead  ,  falling  in  line  to  the  rhythm  of  their  walking  ———    ❛    anything  fun  cooking  up  in  this  parts  ?  wanna  go  ahead  and  do  something  interesting  in  this  town  for  once  ?    ❜

Lost. Dead and drifting. Matthias was nothing more than a boy clinging to fleeting memories of a town that held nothing more than flashes of teens and laughter. Daylight illuminating dusty smiles and hazy dreams of what once was. For moments in the day the boy would think he was nothing more than a memory himself, distant and disillusioned. Left as an echo on the earth as people pass him on the streets, and the sun misses the kiss of warmth on his skin. He was no more significant than crack in the walls.

Yet he still walked. On the days he was alive enough at least. He’d leave the warehouse, and kick trash in the streets only to watch it remain undisturbed. With his hands in his pockets the boy would wander.

Sometimes even the voices seemed so distant. Alone he thought, yet his head swings to a voice that calls. Hopeful perhaps. Fearful. You there. Then it happens. Again. Wide hues glare right back at him, as if perhaps he’s something more than the residue of a person remaining. 

Matthias stops in his tracks, for this boy who storms beside him could not be more than a deranged wish. His words ringing through the air, belonging to a voice that felt so surreal. He stares, but he can’t help his heartbeat pounding in his chest and ringing his ears.

Maggie had been sitting on her front porch that night, un-phased by the chill in the air, and had taken note of a fair few of the local kids sneaking around between the dim street lights. In passing, she had heard about the strange things going on in the town, but she assumed it was a case of mass hysteria and brushed it off.

That didn’t mean Maggie wasn’t curious about where all these kids were going though. The streets had been deathly silent since the curfew was implemented, which meant there must be a reason she had seen so many people breaking the rule tonight, and they were all headed in the same direction. Sure it was Halloween but there hadn’t even been many trick-or-treaters this year. So she decided to follow. Nothing could really happen to her anyway, right?

Maggie brushed her fingertips along the leaves of the corn as she went, grounding herself to the place. If memory served, she had visited the cornfields on a very boring school trip once. It certainly didn’t feel this eerie during the day, especially not at the age of 6. She pulled a papery leaf from one of the stalks and folded it absently a few times. There was music in the distance, maybe, or it could just be her imagination.

Her footsteps didn’t make a sound as she walked, and it was unfortunate that she had startled one or two nervous party goers along the way. Tensions were justifiably high as of late, which wasn’t helping the matter.  She hadn’t thought to bring a long a mask, so she let her hair fall across her face and pulled the hood of her sweatshirt up to keep up appearances as she approached what seemed to be a very secret, incredibly well planned party. If anyone asked, she would tell them she was dressed as a “vague sense of existential dread” and leave it at that.

Nothing more than the residue of a being that once walked this earth- Matthias had spent his last year as nothing more than a waking dream. Under the tin roof of a warehouse where a party once existed, so full of life. Bustling voices and rowdy shrieks.  He’d remember being a part of it so vividly. But now he struggles to see it as any more than a dream. 

He himself was nothing more than an echo.

He’d wander into town on those braver days, where the tears would dry from his cheeks and his hands could grasp the door. It would creak open, but his hand would never disturb the dust. Just as his feet didn’t leave a place in the dirt where they once walked, and his eyes never met with another in the town. 

Tonight though everyone seemed interested in something more than idle chatter by bus stops and gatherings in the front of supermarkets. What else would he do but follow?

Through the corn stalks, and pushing past paths once walked. Flashes of memories would dare show Jonah with a bright smile under the dull sun, their friends not far behind as they forged ahead. A memory so full of life. He wondered if he was here just because he’d walked the path before. Perhaps this as well was nothing more than a memory.

Then it would all break into a clearing, where music filled his ears and he couldn’t see anything more than a sea of people. Dancing and drinking. It was the warehouse all over again. But the difference was this time people didn’t bump into him, he wasn’t tossed around bouncing off bodies. Others seemed to easily brush past- or through. He wasn’t sure which. But he simply found himself standing there watching. Wondering if this was a memory of real life.

Dead. Grasping his boyfriend’s leg, Matthias was certain he’d died. There was nothing left of him but a wandering shell left to reminisce on this dull Earth. But until what? Until he realised what he was doing there all along? He remembered some master plan that had never been set into play? He was a part of something bigger? Or until he became human again?  Was that what this was?

There was a crashing halt as the weight of the situation didn’t quite hit the boy who stood there, his ears silent to the words that left Maggie’s lips and her body faced him. Something that felt it could have lasted a thousand years, another person talking right to him. Something that could have just as easily been a dream. And the boy couldn’t help the tears that whelmed his eyes, pouring over in an involuntary act. Yet, he remained to stand tall. His voice broken, yet his demeanour strong. He was soft yet not pliable.

“I-” Nothing. In that moment everything he ever wanted to ask escaped him. Was he here? What was a person to say in this moment. That they’d just spent the last unknown span of time in a wear house unsure if he was existing or not? “You- I don’t think you-” All sense of a sentence was lost. “Do you–I’m here. Are you alive?” He finally managed something, possibly coherent through the tears that he couldn’t push past. A sentence he was sure could have landed him in a mental institution, yet the only one he could manage.

Maggie felt like someone was switching a light switch on and off in her brain repeatedly; one switch was the panic switch, still powering on from the events of the store (”Get out, go home, go hide!”); the other switch flashed concern across her face, like someone had just activated the big sister in her again.

“Are– Kid, are you okay?” she started, as she watched the tears well up in the boys eyes. She couldn’t imagine why. Not yet, at least.

By now Maggie’s hands were clamped in front of her, like it was the last thing she had to keep her grounded. At this point she may have been completely gone and never noticed. Her brow furrowed as Matthias tried to find his words. Maggie’s hands dropped to her sides, and had she not already been so damned pale the colour might have drained from her cheeks. There was no safe answer to Matthias’ question. “Are you alive?” Why is he asking? Why is he… why is he still crying? “Depends where you ask…” she muttered. Her eyes narrowed. The question was surely genuine. “You– Maybe you should sit down or something. You look a bit– I mean, really, are you okay?”

To be here, to be seen. He was dead, at least he thought he was. And then he wasn’t quite alive. Ripped from the dull abyss that was eternity and placed here, back in Coolsville. Where he was just somewhere inbetween life and death. An enigma floating through the town, trying to grasp at those who pass but never is acknowledged. Now stood here, before a girl who spoke. Who stared right at him. Not through him. “No..” This one blonde girl who saw him when no one did- What made her special?

In blind panic, Maggie didn’t really know where she was going, just that she was walking as quickly as she could away from the store and prying eyes. She wasn’t sure if she would do that thing again, where she disappeared at the slightest sign of inconvenience, so getting out of sight was a main priority. That’s when the voice behind her startled her.

Maggie grimaced and stopped in her tacks. She had been vagualy aware she was being followed (why was this guy following her in the first place?) but she didn’t think it would amount to much until he called out. Her hands raised in a protesting manner, and she turned to meet face-to-face with the boy from the store, hoping to look less worried than she felt.

“I swear I didn’t steal anything!” The girl stated, forcing an ill timed laugh. “I just– The shop was too busy, and I forgot my card, and self-checkout is awful…” Neither of them had any idea of the existential nightmare that was about to hit them.

Dead. Grasping his boyfriend’s leg, Matthias was certain he’d died. There was nothing left of him but a wandering shell left to reminisce on this dull Earth. But until what? Until he realised what he was doing there all along? He remembered some master plan that had never been set into play? He was a part of something bigger? Or until he became human again?  Was that what this was?

There was a crashing halt as the weight of the situation didn’t quite hit the boy who stood there, his ears silent to the words that left Maggie’s lips and her body faced him. Something that felt it could have lasted a thousand years, another person talking right to him. Something that could have just as easily been a dream. And the boy couldn’t help the tears that whelmed his eyes, pouring over in an involuntary act. Yet, he remained to stand tall. His voice broken, yet his demeanour strong. He was soft yet not pliable.

The muttering morphed into a battle with herself inside her head; she could either risk exposing herself -or rather the effect she had on technology- and having to deal with the humiliation of having someone process her shopping themselves, or she could dump the basket and run, which was equally embarrassing and would draw unwanted attention to herself in the process.

Maggie’s eyes flitted around the supermarket. Her eyes locked with a stranger, a boy, who stood on the opposite side of the checkouts. Her brow furrowed, and it seemed to be the last straw. People were looking at her, they must be seeing her panic, and they most definitely would see everything glitching out around her if she didn’t get out of there. Hell, if she panicked any more and didn’t ground herself she could very well glitch out herself. Once upon a time Maggie Campbell was cool as a cucumber, taking life in her stride. Now she was an expired mess.

Maggie took a steadying breath, turned on her heels and forced her basket into the hands of a man who stood behind her in the queue. “Could, uh– Could you hold this for, like, a second? I forgot to pick something up.” She smiled (she hoped it looked like a smile), and swiftly exited the shop in a way that would avoid the line of sight of the basket holding man. In doing so, she passed the boy who she was sure had been watching, but averted her eyes to the floor.

Eye contact could seem so very insignificant, but for Matthias it was enough to catch himself drawing in a sharp breath like he was a boy once again fearing to be caught in a game of hide and seek. The moment you hear the other walk into the room, so very close to the cupboard you hid in. Thinking perhaps, if you stop breathing, it’ll mean they won’t see you.

He was too immersed in watching a blonde who only occurred to him as strange, as she abandoned her basket to an elderly woman that it took a moment until he realised he’d been seen. A child holding his breath, the doors had been swung open by a girl who hurried out with her head to the floor. They had exchanged glances, even just for a moment. That was more than anything he’d ever had, except for Jonah. Matthias, was beginning to become a boy again. A physical walking, talking being. At least that’s what he thought. A boy who’s sight was carried by a girl who hurried for the exit.

And so- he followed.

Past the basket holding man who failed to acknowledge him, past the queue of people who’d never once looked in his direction, and through the few people who entered the building just as he had and out to the sidewalk. That was when he found something that had taken him a long time to find again. His voice. He didn’t know what he was doing until he called out. “Excuse me-”  Two words, too little syllables left his mouth as he found himself in halt. Matthias couldn’t tell why, but he did. And then- he hoped.

The day was proving to be an uneventful day for Maggie, a welcome change given she had found herself flitting in and out of reality at random for the past two months or so and could scarcely leave the house for fear of being caught. Finally a week had gone past where she seemed permanently stuck back on the ‘correct’ plane of existence, and Maggie plucked up the courage to venture beyond her garden gates.

In the off chance that someone would drop by, Maggie had to keep a steady supply of perishable food in the house; bread, milk, some fresh fruit. Anything that had to look newly purchased, and then slightly used to hint at normalcy. There was no satisfaction in eating anything she bought, though preparing and routinely eating meals did give her something to occupy her time with. So she went to the grocery store and filled her basket. She stocked up on a few magazines, and the local newspaper for good measure (who knows how much she had missed?).

Everything seemed to be going swimmingly, until one minuscule detail threatened to derail the whole plan. There were no servers working on the tills and the only isle left open was the dreaded Self-Checkout.

“Ah, shit…” Maggie muttered. Her shoulders dropped, and she sighed, defeated. Technology and ghosts did not go well together. For whatever reason, every time Maggie tried to use technology of any kind (tv, radio, cell phones) said apparatus would glitch, become static or stop working all together. Self-Checkout was awful at the best of times, never mind trying to work it as a ghost. How the hell was she going to pay for her milk now?! The girl continued to mutter “shit” under her breath for a solid minute before even approaching the queue.

Surreal. Hallucinatory quality of a dream.  Everything for Matthias seemed surreal. A boy walking in limbo, stuck in the last place he visited unable to watch news, or keep track of days. Unable to be seen, touched, heard. Perhaps the town wasn’t real, it was an echo of a memory of everything he last viewed. Even Jonah. A boy he could not feel. Or perhaps Matthias himself wasn’t real. He was but an echo the universe hadn’t yet faded away. Nothing more than a reminiscence.

The supermarket, it was comforting in a way. Dull, boring, so very mundane. He could see the others do simple things for everyday life. Residents rushing in for their forgotten dinner ingredients, others wandering the isles unsure of what they want. And him, just standing at the front, watching it all happen around him. That’s all he seemed to be able to do. Observe something he shouldn’t have been able to see again, something he’s unsure he’ll ever be a part of again. Yet, it was relaxing almost. Simply watching. It put an ease to his mind over everything that had happened, everything that was about to happen. He thought maybe, if he watched those around him long enough maybe he’d forget what he’d just seen.

Perhaps he’d forget that he once stood in this supermarket before, bananas and various packets of lollies in his arms preparing for the next haul of the drive as his friends scattered about distracted by things on the shelves. Excited for the trip as much as they were the next destination. Perhaps he’d forget leaning against a boy he was once able to lean against as they stood in the small queue and whispered a joke. Something about how the line formed, or perhaps the people in it. Something so insignificant now, he couldn’t seem to remember just what it was.

Thoughts that he told himself he wasn’t thing of as he looked to a blonde who muttered under her breath, a blonde he thought perhaps, even just for a fleeting moment- he’d made eye contact with.

@ofrunaways

Silence didn’t seem to exist in the space Matthias resided in, but nor did noise. Not in the existing sense. All there was to fill the ears was the sound of the warehouse he called his temporary home, with faint echoes of perhaps a moving rodent, or the wind caressing the outsides of the steel room. There was the sounds of a lingering party he once attended, shattered glass bottles that didn’t budge when he walked upon it. Faint echoes of sobs, from a boy that walked between the worlds. And the white noise, the dreaded, ever present sound of absolutely nothing. The sound kissed his ears too often these days. The non-existent sound that haunted a non-existent boy. 

Days he lost track of, some he wasn’t sure of where he was during the time, others he found himself sitting inside the half abandoned place with his knees curled up to his cheeks. Some days he didn’t know what was happening- others he remembered. The screech, the stretch up for Jonah’s thigh as they sat amidst the chaos. That’s when he remembers- he’s dead. Jonah’s dead. They’re all dead.

He dared venture out. Months, and months in.  The sun, it was too bright, the streets, too narrow. And he- he wasn’t there to those around him. Matthias didn’t exist. And it went on- and on- and on. The universe played her game, and Matthias was the unmoved pawn. There was nothing he could do, no matter how many times he went out, waved in their faces, shouted names, profanities. Chairs he kicked, didn’t move. Bottles he reached for, they stayed put just as he.