Infinite ✓

[1] - Anything Could Happen

 

[1] - Anything Could Happen

Sometimes, we see people in our thoughts and dreams, people we are adamant that we’ve never encountered before. But the brain cannot conjure up new people, images or things from scratch. Whatever or whoever you see in your mind’s eye, be it a dream or a fast flash, you have seen before.

 

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Headphones in his ears prevented Rory from hearing the birds chirping outside, the cars constantly speeding down the street either herding people to work or kids to school or his ratty sixteen year old brother waking up and blasting his loud annoying music all over the house. The song of the day was Ellie Goulding’s “Anything Could Happen,” and that was what filled his head, his eyes hypnotized by the brush in front of him, swiping almost automatically over a large piece of canvas. All over the room were scattered paintings of different sizes, a few sculptures which he considered an epic failure and some other art-related stuff.

He was dressed in a paint-stained white shirt and dark grey capris of equal appearance, lost in the world that was his own. As usual, his breathing was a bit faster than normal and his heart was beating erratically as he painted the same face he’d been painting for nearly half of his life.

The thought alone made his heart stutter in his chest and his breath hitch. He licked his lips, dipping the brush into the yellow paint and mixing it with the brown, trying to get the perfect hue of his hair.

“I know it’s gonna be, I know it’s gonna be, I know it’s gonna be, I know it’s gonna be! Whoa-oh!” he sang loudly, his blood flowing with passion.

The music, plus the piece he was working on filled him to the brim with energy and happiness. He started swinging his hips to the music, his hands forever steady with the brush as he swiped effortlessly over the page. He’d painted this face so many times that it came as second nature to him. He was certain he could paint him with his eyes closed.

Who are you? He asked silently to the half-finished painting, staring in awe at it. When he was a child, his mother would tell him that these things happen; she also had weird dreams where she was sure she’d never met any of the characters in it before. But Rory had been insistent – was it supposed to happen almost every night? His dreams, his day-dreams and even some random déjà vu moments – a smell, the sight of a colour, a shiver down his spine and that face was flashing in his head, teasing the hell out of him.

It wasn’t exactly a memory or a dream, it was more like just that face in his sub-conscious, barely there, sometimes smiling, sometimes sad, sometimes looking at him with an unbelievable amount of lust –

“Oh my God, are you even alive in there? Jesus Christ, I thought you had an interview?”

Rory jumped out of his stupor, realising that his music had ended and was about to replay, which was why he had been able to hear Andrew’s voice yelling at him through the locked door.

“Fudge, I’ll be right out!” Rory yelled back, removing the plugs from his ears and shoving them into his pockets. He could still lightly hear the sound of the music coming out of his pocket because he hadn’t paused it but couldn’t be bothered about that right now. He glanced at the clock hanging on the wall and made a sound that wasn’t human.

Eight thirty. Andrew was supposed to be in school in fifteen minutes and he had a job interview in thirty.

“Fudge cupcakes,” he growled, dropping his brushes into the bowl of water sitting beside his new painting because he knew that if he didn’t do that, the acrylic paint would dry on them and the brushes would forever be ruined. After giving them a quick rinse, he left them to dry on the stool he’d previously occupied before he was running out of the room.