Charlie
The line was short; how good could this band be? Noise of tune-ups and sound checks tempered out of the door with exciting clarity. “This. Will. Be. Epic.” Her punctuated voice only alluded to how thoroughly freaked she was for this concert. Dethany jumped up and down next to me, both of her tiny hands wrapped around my upper arm. It was cool out; the wind made her hair fly back away from her face. She was pretty that night.
With her blue hoodie, spotted with cart-wheeling monkeys; with her longer hair in soft waves, no outrageous color streaking the locks; with some kind of lip stuff on that made her look feminine and pouty, she was very pretty. It was weird.
“I’m freaking out!” she exclaimed, giving a wad of crumpled, messy papers to the kid in the booth. The poor guy looked something close to shocked, but he took the printed out tickets, gave us our stubs, and stamped our hands with x’s so we wouldn’t try to buy alcohol once inside. Though it wasn’t like all of the other high-school teens didn’t just wash them off in the bathroom. Dethany and I slapped the back of our hands together like we always did. Good luck tradition. The one time we didn’t, the band’s lead singer lost his voice half-way through the show.
The buzz and hum of the soon-to-be sizzling amps was a dull rush in my ears. With everyone crowded into the small space (well, small for a concert) it was hard to talk to Dethany. Usually, we’d hang outside before a show, but something had her peculiarly excited and she wanted to get as close to the stage as possible. I wasn’t a foot-kisser. I didn’t like being close enough to be sweat on by the band, gaping and reaching up to touch any part of them as if they were gods.
“These guys are gods!” she squealed, moving past a few other girls who stood by the stage primping and taking pictures of themselves.
I was more of a heated molecule during a concert. I preferred the middle of the room where I’d be shuffled past and bumped into before the music started, where I could pretend to gather energy from other people and use it to boost my own. Then, when the first drumbeat was hit, when the amp made that annoyingly important first squealing crescendo, and everyone in the building forgot what it was to be separate, I screamed.
It was crucial to me to be one of the first twenty gig-goers to lose it. Absolutely lose it. Arms shot up like we’d all just reached the tallest hill on a rollercoaster, and then it was grins, squeals, and cheers for everyone. In that one moment, just before the opening song, no one felt bad. No one remembered anything violent or sad or quiet. No one had to be anything violent or sad or quiet. No one felt anything but what everyone else was feeling. It was like being broken down and then rebuilt.
I didn’t know the name of the band or what kind of music that they played until they started. That was fine with me. I let go as soon as the singer’s voice filtered through the speakers. I heard ‘woo’ and then the drummer was making a valiant effort at bursting all of our eardrums to smithereens.
After about thirty seconds into the song, I could feel myself breaking down. I loved how it started. My torso was the first to go. My pulse was no longer my own. My heartbeat was the drumbeat. My body was shaking with the bass. My fingers and hands and wrists and forearms began to lose feeling as the blood rushed downward. But I couldn’t put my arms down.
I felt my lips moving. I was singing along with the chorus, somehow. There was a heat in my head, right where the sinus migraines always disturbed me. This heat wasn’t painful, it was like a unity. I couldn’t see where Dethany was in the crowd and wouldn’t have been able to locate her to save my life, but I was breathing with her, singing with her, with everyone else in the room.
The concert dragged on in the best way. The lead singer’s rainy skin seemed to be the last thing on his mind as he announced the final song. It was a great last song. And when I was the music, and I couldn’t speak, and I couldn’t remember my name, I stretched my arms to the ceiling and screamed until my lungs caught fire.
I could still hear the drums pounding away to the beat of my pulse hours later; still taste the screams of melodic rebellion; still feel ecstatic thrumming bodies against me. I felt like I was still gasping., like I’d just resurfaced after seeing how long I could hold my breath underwater. Even as I laid myself down beside Dethany on the grass of her backyard, the concert was all over me.
“That was an amazing show, D. Thanks for taking me.” Dried sweat, faded smiles, and for some reason the scent of seawater taffy was all that filled my mind. When Dethany settled beside me—a bit too close for my usual comfort—I embraced it: scooting until we were shoulder to shoulder, craving contact. The night fell over her backyard like a dead body, lifeless and heavy. Usually, this kind of evening made my throat close up, as if with darkness came an invisible smoke. But I felt okay. A rarity.
“Look at the stars tonight. It’s crazy,” her tired, raspy voice came from next to me. I nodded, adjusting to the sensation of prickly, freshly-cut grass pressing intrusive into the fabric of my shirt. I couldn’t help but imagine what it would have been like to be in love with Dethany that night. It would have been right to hold her and want to. Or whisper one of the thousands of things to Dethany that I’d dreamed about whispering to Tane.
At this point, she was recapping the concert, song by song, and how she swore the drummer made eye contact with her at least four times. Her voice was giddy and breathless, something that was nearly a legend in Dethany’s history. Mostly because after gigs she would just pass out in her bed, gaining time to compose herself before the next day at lunch.
It wasn’t like she wasn’t pretty. Dethany had the whole punk-exotic thing going for her. With her short, color-streaked hair, wrist bands, skinny jeans, and bright brown eyes, there was no reason that guys wouldn’t want her. At least not until she opened her potty-mouth. I watched her watch the stars for a bit before concluding that it didn’t feel right with her. I had no clue was ‘it’ was or what ‘right’ felt like exactly, but I couldn’t pretend. I couldn’t wrap my mind around wrapping my arms around her. I wanted to, for both our sake’s, but it seemed impossible.
“You think that’s where they are?” I asked too abruptly, cutting through Dethany’s fresh memories. “The stars, I mean.” She stayed quiet for so long, she very well may have fallen asleep. My eyes were glued to the sky, so I didn’t check.
Eventually, though her voice wavered across the three inch span to me. “You know, when I was a kid I used to camp out in my backyard. With my dad. Before all the crap with the separation and stuff. We would lie out on our backs and just watch. I would always get the fireflies mixed up with the stars.” Her cynical, familiar laugh bubbled out into the night air before she continued. “This was before we realized I was in serious need of corrective eye lenses.”
I didn’t really get why she was telling me all of this, but her hand found its way into mine and I figured it was best to listen.
“My dad pointed out that the stars and the constant ones. The fireflies only glow for a little while before they flicker out and wait for their next spark. We’re only fucking human, you know. We live our life, and if we’re lucky, we get a chance to shine, to do actual good for someone else. But that light goes out until our next opportunity to glow.
“Tane and Gaius, and the people like them—they’re stars. Their light is so bright sometimes it’s hard to look at them. They shine brightest when it’s our darkest time. They look like heroes to us because they never stop shining.” I heard more than felt Dethany’s head turn in the grass so that she could stare at my profile. I swallowed under the weight of her stare and her words. “A firefly can never become a star, Charlie. You really need to accept what you are.”
I tasted tears in the back of my throat, and the stars had never looked so far away.
Kol
Crisp night air hit me almost angrily as I strolled along the Dardon Wall. Palleman was in Siguth; he was always going on about this new worker that he was planning to bring to Fismuth. The first dragged from Earth in at least four decades. Apparently, the worker was going to have trouble adjusting, so Palleman was searching for a worker suitable to aid the dragged one when he or she arrived. It wasn’t surprising. It was the reason the Prestigious had stopped making workers. Palleman was truly kind if he would keep such a close eye on a worker, dragged or otherwise.
As I walked, I kept my gaze on the land beyond the Wall. The ground curved and jutted toward the night sky where Edent and Siguth lie smooth on even earth. The moons lent a bluish overcast to the desolate area, making Abannon seem deep and secretive. It was almost beautiful, in a forbidden way. There was no movement on the other side of the Dardon Wall, but I expected as much.
I passed relaxing Flares and Feelers, always in pairs as they chatted idly, playing games of skill, but only a few in the watchtowers actually kept an intent lookout for Abannonian threats. As I took my evening patrol walk, I received multiple bows and whispers of respect. It was what I had always wanted. Reverie. Position. Acknowledgement. But I could not locate any pride or content inside of me.
My hands remained behind my back, clasped together as if I were making small judgments about everything I was seeing. My ears, always alert, picked up what could have only been gossip. Nevertheless, I paused behind the quartet of Flares and Feelers.
“That is not possible.” This came from a Flare; I could tell not only by his sash but by his sturdy, aggressive build.
“From the mouth of a scout,” scoffed the other Flare. His closely-cropped hair revealed a long, jagged scar on his skull. I noted that it must have been healed by a novice. Or it could have been a Feeder scar.
“Better the mouth of a scout than the mouth of a gossip,” spat the willowy-figured Feeler behind the first Flare.
“The only lips the words have passed through before my own were Palleman’s himself.” The first Flare was adamant about his claim.
An assessing quiet fell over the group for a moment as the undoubtedly true information settled in. Prestigious Ones could not lie. Still, I had no idea what they were discussing, but I did know that Palleman was involved. As his second, it was enough to hold me in my place.
It was easy to put into practice the part of my training that helped me be as still as a corpse. My breathing became quiet and shallow, and most importantly, silent. The only worry I had was the luminous betrayers above me. If the moons gave me away then I wouldn’t know how to respond.
“It is unspeakable,” the Feeler who stood behind the Flare with the scar whispered, his voice breaking the solemnity.
“Not so unspeakable.” That small voice came from the other Feeler; her eyes were very serious. They reminded me of Tane’s deep stare. “There was a Great War once. How is it impossible for history to repeat itself?”
The retaliation of that Feeler’s accumi was much faster than I expected. His gaze found hers; it seemed that they both had thoughtful eyes. I instinctively slid back into the shadows of the wall.
“We all know what Abannon is like. They have never constructed an organized attack.” This Flare’s mind was rational, but not only rational—tactical. I could hear all of his thoughts, strategies, ideas. Was he a general? If he was, I did not recognize him. “If we went to war,” he continued with a lowered voice and a lowered head, “it would be nothing more than a slaughter mission.”
I started to move backwards, shaking my head in shocked disbelief. My panicked steps, however, did not go unnoticed by the small group. First, the Feeler with Tane’s seriousness threw up an immediate force field around her accumi, impressively before she turned around. Her accumi whipped around in unison with her, taking a protective step forward, even though he was the one who stood behind an impenetrable shield. The second pair eyed the darkness vehemently. The Flare’s nostrils expanded, taking in my scent, given that the shadows still shrouded my face in darkness.
All of these warriors had their Blessings. I must have appeared as a nosy youngling.
I straightened my back and shoulders anyway as I stepped away from the darkness as if I hadn’t just cowered in it.
“You speak of war.” I stated the obvious, trying to put myself in a Palleman mindset. He was a natural leader. I needed to become more like him. Or, at the very least, act as he would in certain situations. Again, my hands settled into their usual place at the small of my back.
The group of warriors relaxed their fighting stances after they processed who I was.
“Brother Kol,” the Flare with the lengthy scar began, his tone beseeching and surprised. Yes, I thought to myself, that is my name. My position was such that I would not know of every Prestigious One, but every Prestigious One would know of me. I leveled them each with a heavy stare, unfeeling and powerful.
I did not speak. I assumed it made them uncomfortable enough to blurt out their thoughts. As if I couldn’t hear them. Silence settled over the five of us; I tried to maintain my deadpanned stare but I felt like a tiny child playing with big weapons. I was beginning to come to terms with the notion that I would never be Palleman. I barely held back my startled flinch when someone finally spoke.
“Tell us then. Are we bound for the barren lands?” I could tell by the voice that it belonged to the Feeler with the deep eyes. She was apparently as straight-forward as Tane was, too. I set my jaw, determined to remove such memories.
I was more than unwilling to admit that I did not know, so I answered her question with an inquiry of my own. “What would we gain from such an invasion?”
The Prestigious group before me said nothing, but they didn’t relax from their tense postures, either. They were looking to me for leadership and answers, and I could give neither. My own mind was reeling with possibilities of war. The Prestigious did not war. We defended our home when it was attacked. There was no law against going into an intentional war, but it clearly violated every pivotal belief point in lutschau. How could it be ethical to seek to slaughter living beings if they did not seek to slaughter us?
My Palleman bravado was wearing off. I couldn’t stop blinking. I was uneasy about the prospect of war, and I was sure it showed on my features. There was an acute yearning for chewing gum in the pit of my stomach; I did miss the substance. Quickly, I turned on my heels and left to finish my patrol, but I knew where my mind would remain long after I was out of earshot.
Charlie
What was I doing? I asked myself the same question repeatedly in multiple mental volumes and with dozens of varying inflections. But no matter how vehemently I chastised myself, my feet continued to carry me through the wooded area. I shouldn’t have been making this ridiculous journey. However short the journey may have been. I was going to the site of my death, and, if one wanted to look at the glass half full perspective, my resurrection. Every step was a memory of screams and flashes of branches and fear and adrenaline. I was literally walking down Memory Lane, even though it felt more like Traumatic Flashback Road.
It helped that none of the circumstances were the same. My lungs weren’t about to burst from being chased halfway across town. I wasn’t flanked by two angels and their newest conquest. And it wasn’t a frightening facsimile of nighttime. It was a beautiful midday after last night’s rainstorm.
My hair was sticking to my neck and forehead with sweat; I didn’t usually walk this far out. My mind was in twenty different places at once, so I didn’t notice that I was almost there until I broke free of the thick stretch of trees and into the familiar field.
As soon as I stepped onto the ground, my foot sunk down at least half a foot. I jerked my leg back out with some difficulty, and stumbled backwards. I hadn’t taken into account that the rain had made the dirt into loose mud. I tried again, slipping into the gooey dirt. It was uncomfortable, but from this point, where the yellow grass came up to my ribs, I could just make out the wavering curve of the tree. I squared my jaw and forged forward.
It was more slow-going than I would have liked but either way, my goal was becoming more and more reachable. I groaned at the insistent pull of the mud, and I kept checking to make sure that my pants weren’t in the perilous situation of falling down.
I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket. The small device rattled against some spare change in my pocket. It could have been Dethany. It could have been Felix. In some alternate universe, it could have been my mom. But as I trudged through the muddy field, squishy and quicksand-ish, I ignored my cell phone.
It felt like I was breaking some secret teenage rule.
Eventually, the massaging buzzer lay dead in my pocket, and I continued to make my way to the tree. I had no idea why I was so surprised that the tree was even still there. It wasn’t a tall tree. It didn’t even stand upright. It leaned, kind of like it was very tired.
I was just as exhausted. The muddy water soaked my leg to about mid-calf; my jeans became heavier, and I had to hold them at my waist to keep them from forcing me into indecency. It felt like I was trekking uphill because my sneakers stuck to the mud with every step.
When I reached the tree, I collapsed against it. The bark didn’t feel as harsh as it looked against my back. The breeze was cool and almost tender against my face.
I tried to compile the past two weeks into a montage of good memories and reasons to pretend that I had never met Tane. Instead of a beautiful movie moment summing up my close friend turned girlfriend, my hypersexual best friend, my slightly less erratic relationship with my mother, and my comical repulsion with dogs, I saw Tane.
It was enough to make me want to murder something. She was everywhere. Especially in my head. I saw her long, fine hair. I saw how those rosy-blonde locks fell in unorganized waves against her shoulders. I saw her eyes, her hands, her timid, unsure smile. It was too much. All at once, I was hearing her voice, an echo of a memory in my head. In my mind, her voice was broken and dry, like she was crying. I couldn’t decipher words, or the intent, but just thinking about it made my chest feel warm and heavy.
My ears were picking up other things; sounds that I knew were from that night. Rustling grass, far-off commands, barking….
No. That last one was real. I opened my eyes. The mangy mutt from a few days ago had somehow found a way to track me. It didn’t look to be in any better shape than the last time I’d seen it. Its fur still clumped in awkward fur-balls that wouldn’t dislodge. One of its eyes drooped to show a half-moon of pink slippery skin. I couldn’t even tell what color its paws were because there was so much mud on them. The thing must have followed me through the small patch of forestry. I sighed when I realized that it wasn’t going to leave me alone.
It looked at me with that same blank stare. Like it wasn’t thinking anything at all. I shifted, sitting up a bit straighter against the familiar tree, my shirt snagging a bit on a rogue limb.
“Hey!” I called out to it, trying to get some kind of reaction out of it. It remained in its eerily frozen position. Not even the high grass around it moved. “Hey! Get outta here—”
Something constricted harshly around my throat. It was like getting an Indian burn all the way around my neck. I heard a startled gasp leave my lips, witnessed the spittle leap from my mouth. My hands—always reacting too late—flew to my throat, trying to pry off whatever was gripping me. Sheer panic drowned out my scream before it could get past my tongue.
A sudden jerk from the invisible pressure yanked me back against the tree. Blinding white covered everything until any sight at all skittered away from me completely. I kicked avidly, hurting my knees as I did so before I realized that I was kicking air.
I was in the air.
Violently, I twisted left and right, too afraid to look down. This was not like flying. This was something entirely different. With a fleeting sense of dismay, I watched my cell phone drop to the ground.
Speaking of the ground, it was far too far for my liking. Let’s just say it took the cell phone at least ten seconds to hit the ground and disappear into the tall grass. It was all happening too fast, but I knew where I was going, what was happening. There was no escaping the truth of it.
I was going to either be with Tane and Gaius in a fantastical land that I still wasn’t sure existed, or I was going to die. I closed my eyes and went limp in the grips of whatever had me. If it let me go, I’d be in an even direr situation.
An unbelievable pressure began to pull at my skin. The pain was too much. Between the effort to cry out in anguish and the simultaneous effort to breathe, I recognized my thoughts clearing. My lungs slipped into a faint, slow rhythm. Then, as if I’d never left, I was back in that same dark abyss I’d been dumped in the night of Tane’s departure.
And it wasn’t so bad.