Current Aesthetic

This Again

In an odd way, it was becoming an addiction. Really, that should have bothered him, should have caused some sort of concern. It didn't. Instead he sat in bored lethargy and plain apathy. It was starting to drive him up the wall. Yet, he couldn't find it in himself to be bothered either. And, undoubtedly, it all began with the arrival of Morgan Jones.

Morgan Jones had appeared in Aiden's Math class in the middle of a quickly chilling October, the frost from the air faintly visible in bubblegum pink hair. He blustered into the room, cheeks rosy, with the quiet declaration that he was a new student. Plopping into the chair next to Aiden, he had proceeded to introduce himself - again - and tried to make light conversation. Aiden, who not impressed by Morgan's attempts, chose to ignore the boy instead. With no expectations of meeting the pastel-haired boy again. None. And that wouldn't have bothered him one bit.

Yet fate did not seem to agree. Again and again Aiden found himself standing in front of Morgan. The final straw came in the form of yellow street lights and cigarette smoke and singing streets. There was something enchanting about the glow of dusk and the sweet smell of lavender that drove him out for a walk at 8 o'clock on a Saturday night. And somehow, the stroll found him under a street lamp, burning cigarette cradled in his fingers, and an odd transfer with an old camera.

It wasn't some old, antiqued Polaroid that screamed "I'm trying too hard to be a hipster", but rather a simple camera that was dated a few years back. It's only after a minute of uncomfortable staring that Morgan had spoke. "Can I take your picture?" he had asked softly, his breath turning into fog and in the cool night air. And Aiden remembered like it was only yesterday, how he rolled his neck, all the bones making an audible cracking sound. The way he teasingly blow the smoke of his half-finished cigarette towards his companion. How he had agreed.

It became an strange routine, them meeting up in random parts of the city and the thousand of pictures that followed in next three months. The memory made Aiden smile from where he laid on the couch, draped languidly like he had nothing better to do. So he immersed himself back into memories of the past once again. Because, God did it feel like just hours ago was Morgan sitting on Aiden's couch in a shirt too large and falling off his shoulder, cigarette hanging from his lips like it had always belonged there.

He would never - could never - forget the image of Morgan's camera resting on the coffee table, untouched. Or the taste of nicotine on Morgan's lips as their bodies turned to clay, melding into the couch. Or the heat that filters into the air as bodies writhe and sounds that shouldn't be made outside of a bedroom followed the warmth. And he couldn't forget the other quiet, stolen moments that followed in the next three months.

A tragic end, Aiden thought bitterly. Pulling himself out of his reminiscences of the past, he stood. Slowly making his way to the kitchen, he found the cabinet - and the bottle - he had been looking for. One year. One year without Morgan. One year of hell alone and the sounds of screaming and shattering glass making up his constant nightmares and living slow motion play-backs that started up and made him flinch if a door was closed even a little too loudly.

A car crash that had stolen the life of a boy with with hot pink hair and a handful of pills that gently pushed another into the embraces of death. How sad, one would say, that two lovers would end up like his. A tragedy, others would call it.

How funny, Aiden thought to himself, as he felt his eyelids grow heavy and his mind foggy, that something so amazing started in such an unexpected way, that the very same thing would end that way. Or maybe i'm just being too fucking sentimental here. And as the last of his life finally drained away, there was still an odd, calm smile on the boy's face.

[ the end ]