perfect illusion.

II

Thump, thump.

Frank pursed his lips, sliding out his earbuds with visible annoyance. He thought that maybe if he glared at the window hard enough the rain might cease to pour altogether, but his efforts had proved to be fruitless after a solid ten minutes. He remembered that death by suffocation wasn't exactly the way he wanted to go, and concluded that the dust settled all around his room in one thick layer like freshly fallen snow over the road needed to be killed.

So he whipped out his mother's ancient feather duster and totally didn't pretend to spin it around like a lightsaber and began to clean. For some godforsaken reason, some stupid chipper Beastie Boys beat was playing and, okay Frank hadn't listened to them in a century and a day --- wait a minute, why are they rapping about Spock? --- but what the hell ever, right?

This was disgusting, Frank thought ruefully as he continued to dust away cobwebs. He made sure to put a slight (three foot long) distance between him and the wall because he had the worst arachnophobia in the history of anyone ever and spiders were the work of Satan, god help anyone who thought otherwise.

Oh, oh, he knew this part!

"I am known to do the wop -- wop! Also known for the Flinstone flop -- flop! Tammy D gets biz on the crop -- crop! Beastie Boys, known to let the beat--" and he totally didn't pause here to attempt one of those death drops and definitely didn't nearly break his leg doing so, "Drop!"

Then he proceeded to clean as if he hadn't just pulled every muscle below his shoulders. He was actually starting to have a good time cleaning off layer after layer of dust when oh my god is that speck of dust moving?

Not today, Satan, Frank thought, taking off his shoe and throwing it at the spider on the wall successfully killing the spider and causing him to land rear end first onto the dust matted floor.

Dandy.

Goodbye Beastie Boys, hello, Misfits.

He shot back up at the sound of the howl at the beginning of Dig Up Her Bones (seriously he could recognize that howl a mile away) and resumed the task at hand, trying desperately to ignore the bubbling anxiety in his chest where he knew tomorrow he would have to start all over again at a new school with new people.

- - -

Everything was grey. Grey, beige, black, and white. His mother, however, seemed to have overlooked this fact when she decided to purchase Frank's school clothes. Either that or she just loved seeing him suffer. As the minutes ticked by painfully slow, Frank began to lean towards the latter.

"This one would suit him quite nicely, I think," Said Miss Plain. Of course, he didn't really know her name, but she was dressed in a very interesting combination of black and white, so you could see where he got the idea.

Frank bit the inside of his mouth to keep back a comment that wanted to make itself known when Miss Plain held a painfully boring tan shirt up against him.

"Oh, yes, this is definitely his color."

Wow, don't you just love it when people talk about you like you're not there?

Screw his mother. Screw this lady and her prestigious Catholic school, and above all, screw Belleville.

Frank managed to slip away before this lady gave her mother any more ideas and over to a small wooden table holding what might have been the only colorful items in the store. Gloves? Whatever, he would take what he could get.

Away from the murmur of voices, Frank turned a pair of fingerless gloves over in his hands. They were black and white and perhaps the only thing remotely interesting about them were the skeleton hand designs on them. Glancing once, twice around the store to make sure his mother was still occupied, he slipped the gloves onto his hands.