RAMI MALEK CHARACTER IMAGINES

ELLIOT {angst}

Elliot sat on the floor against his wall and listened.

She was doing it again.

Her quiet scratchy singing easily passed through the paper thin walls of the cheap apartment that both tenants called home.

She had never had any lessons, that much he could be certain of, but he couldn't complain. The song was turning his brain to an enjoyable mush as he couldn't be bothered to comprehend the lyrics.

His brain seemed to work in reverse psychology because the moment he gave up on understanding her he could just barely start to make out her almost off-pitch voice singing familiar words as he pulled his knees to his chest.

He could tell the song stood at the edge of his mind. Maybe there was a memory attached to it. Had he suppressed it?

Elliot closed his eyes, trying to search his brain for the lyrics and was rather surprised when he remembered them.

The singing slowly stopped and he could only assume she had fallen asleep.

He got up and tossed out the remnants of a glowing roach he held in his hand, he had almost forgotten that he was was on the cusp of an indica high. Maybe that's why the singing was bearable.

After stretching he felt exhausted and collapsed onto his couch.

He started humming the songs tune.

The vibrations from his humming resonated throughout his chest and he smiled as he could almost feel his couch-locked body high increasing.

His glazed eyes strained to roll over to the wall connecting their apartments and then lurched over to the stippled ceiling when he realized his gaze lingered a little too long.

An impulsive giggle bubbled at his lips before he started to sing the lyrics back to the other tenant like a parrot would.

"The other night dear as I lay sleeping, I dreamed I held you in my arms." His words were slurred- not quite a drunk slur but more so at a consistency that resembled goo, which was oddly similar to how Elliot felt as he melted into his sofa.

"But when I awoke dear I was mistaken." His words trailed off as he knitted his brows together.

Sensory overload hit him as he remembered the warm- albeit figuratively foggy days he spent with her.

No.

She was never coming back, The last time he saw her was in a trunk. Dead.

He clung to his face and pulled at it in frustration before he reached out and flung the closest thing to him at the tenants wall.

He yelled at the wall and stumbled over to it, narrowly avoiding the pieces of the broken remote lying on the floor.

He banged at the wall and wailed accusations to the other side, screaming at her to stop.

His fists slid down the walls and pressed his head to it as hot droplets passed from his eyes to the tip of his nose, and finally to the floor.

He grabbed at his short hair as she started up singing again.

"Please don't take my sunshine away."

The words passed the walls and echoed in his head.

There was a knock at his door as he slid into a fetal position.

The knocking came back louder the second time and Elliot trembled as he rushed to the door and opened it.

His glassy, bloodshot eyes raked over a middle aged short man in his pyjamas. The man yelled at Elliot once he saw that he wasn't in any medical trouble, trying to find out what the hell he thought he was doing at this hour.

Elliot just stared at the man as he huffed and puffed about how lucky that no other tenants lived on this floor and that if they did the cops would be here for sure.

Elliot's eyes weaved from place to place on the old mans face as he tried to make sense of what the man said in his intoxicated state.

The man sternly told Elliot not to let it happen again and Elliot closed the door before he blankly slinked over to the couch, dissolving into it as he stared at the wall.