Surell

I want to get as many opinions on this as I can as I want to try and redraft it to the best of my abilities pretty soon for a submission so holla:

Isaac had a moment of lucidity just before handing change out of the drive thru window at his work. As he placed the woman’s bill in his register and collected dollars and cents to give to her, he realized he was indeed at a job, that he handled a woman’s finance nonchalantly only moments before, that every moment spent in his station was another amount of currency he gathered for the twentieth, that a spider built a web much like one from the summer before which had crumbled when cold winds blew past the brick and plaster of his employment. There was a pause within him but a mechanical operation externally that allowed him to observe his common actions from a distance, as in that between mind and body.

Months later he would wake up between a knit wool blanket and a tie-dye bedspread, underneath a mattress decorated with pink flowery vines pressing against dull black bars. There was a chill around his chest but his legs verged on sweat. He’d stare at the flowers and bars for at least twenty minutes before rolling over to look on posters he’d collected in childhood from various birthdays. The sun cast directly down on the hanging shingles of the next door house, the shadow of which told him that it was about noon. He sighed like a tired accordion at this discovery and didn’t make another move (aside from looking at the cream colored wall or vine covered top bunk) for thirty minutes.

After this he placed stiff feet on the hardwood floor and looked on its lightly indented and carved sheen for a quiet moment. He could feel his hair standing on the side of his head. Brushing his teeth would usually be an option but there were plans today.

In the middle of brushing his teeth (without turning on the light), he vomited into the sink and decided to cure this with mouthwash. Isaac lingered a moment looking into the mirror at his eyes (which he noted as being less green that day) and especially the bags beneath them. In the dark his pupils looked abyssal and overall he felt his eyes looked withdrawn.

He crossed from the bathroom to his closet to put on an ash gray shirt and cut off shorts. As he put on one of his shoes, he suddenly remembered his conversations from the night before and reached hurriedly for his phone, knocking over a cup of water, which he left for the moment.

Harmony: “yeah ive got nothing going on tomorrow, when are you free?”

Isaac’s heart skipped a beat. Water pooled around his socked foot but his mind disregarded it for the moment.

Isaac: “verrrrrrrrrrry cool, i just have to drop by the recruitin station thingamajigamawhatchamacallit around 4 and then ill be free. where u wanna meet yung blud”

After sending the message and calming his heart rate, he began to put on his shoe while simultaneously realizing he needed a new sock, cursing quickly and sharply in a low voice and rushing for a towel or such related paraphernalia in a moment of mixed motives. After finding a sock, he went to the corner of the room where the turntable sat on a dull brass table and found that none of his records were satisfactory, and that he needed to take a look through what was left at Melody’s house. He was about to walk back to the bed to grab his phone from the side table when he caught his foot on a shoebox he hadn’t noticed amidst a sea of clothes, pocket litter, and the occasional record. Forgetting its being in the house and its contents, he took the lid off to find, atop many documents from his high school days, a note from Melody, folded into its own envelope and with her handwriting, tinier than usual, proclaiming “for Isaac’s eyes ONLY!!!” He closed the box with haste and wiped his eyes, remaining on the floor for almost a minute without motion. He finally roused himself to stand and went downstairs to go to Melody’s for the records.

Stepping down the stairs Isaac could already hear Liam losing his mind. As he rounded the corner into the kitchen, he saw Liam wagging his tail at a rate of at least 3 wags per second (wg/s) and leaning all the way forward on the tips of his untrimmed toenails. With a subdued smile Isaac rubbed Liam’s back and pretended to eat his head, which Liam responded to with a snapping bite upward. He saw his mother tapping keys on her laptop in the corner, facing away from him, jumping screens every few seconds from charts to emails to charts to website designers to emails to charts.

“Good morning,” Isaac’s mother greeted him, “if you can call it that anymore.”

“I call it when you wake up but I’m a radical,” Isaac responded. He exited back to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of tea.

“Can I make you some breakfast?” she inquired.

“Nah, I’ll grab a granola bar. Thank you though.”

“Yeah, no problem,” she said in a low voice. Less distracted, more contemplative, he thought.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, returning to the room, holding an already half finished glass of tea.

“Nothing. Just, really, busy.”

Isaac nodded, and went to fill his empty cup. The silence seemed unordinary to him. The keys were clacked upon at a more sluggish rate than usual. Finding his cup empty, he went to refill when his mother told him:

“Dad’s proud of you for considering doing this. He’s concerned. Really concerned. But he thinks you’re doing something really, um. Fantastic. Brave and something to take pride in.”

This statement was surrounded by silence, as his mother had stopped typing by the end of it and Isaac’s cup was empty again. It was fairly clear to Isaac what this meant. He looked at Liam, who, stiller than when he first came down, looked in turn at him with the look he gave strangers, as he usually would – it was a deep stare, trying to ascertain everything to be known in a person, accentuated by his upturned, deeply affected eyebrows and black orbs of eyes.

“Gee, mom,” he laughed slightly, “you really hitt me on my ambivalence bone.” She let out a minute chuckle and turned to face him.

“So what else is going on?”she asked.

“I’m about to get some records from Melody’s,” he replied, “and maybe hang out with, someone. After that I’ll probably go cast all my belongings off a bridge and go to Waffle House for work.”

“Sounds good,” she affirmed, and got up to give him a hug. “Be careful, ok? You know people around here don’t have a clue, and that means driving is a deathwish, right?” Isaac nodded. “Alright. Good luck with all your things! I love you.”

“I love you too, maw.” He smiled and exited the house, as she went back to her typing and Liam returned to his fascination with her typing and, occasionally, his squeaky toys.

Isaac locked the door behind him and realized it was hotter than a goddamn furnace outside. He looked at the sky just to see if it had been replaced by a radiator, but found it virtually the same as before, with some clouds encroaching by the skyline, behind the river. He crossed the cracked sidewalk to his car when his phone vibrated. As he started the car, he read:

Harmony: “bro wut. lol what is this about recruiting stations you’re telling me right now.”

He laughed, and sent:

Isaac: “ha, no joke man. im asking what i can do for my country, and what it can do about me not gettin loans and ****, nawmsayin.”

He waited a second, as the thickly hot car began to feel the air conditioner’s work, but there was no reply and he left for Melody’s house, the path to which seemed more illuminated by the dark asphalt than usual. “Tutti Frutti” played on the radio, and Isaac bobbed his head and jiggled his shoulders exuberantly to the old beat, the smell of a drying radiator radiating from the car’s hood. It was a small concern for him since it gave off the odor regularly without much consequence.

Unlocking the door and walking directly up to the one room apartment, there were some unusual happenings in the house according to him. Firstly, there was no car in the driveway but on his way up the 13 some odd stair he heard footsteps. At first he considered the possibility of a robbery but, in all his time before in the place, he knew nothing of the sort and dismissed it as paranoia. Perhaps there was someone in the garage directly below. He and Melody had to schedule or censor their love making around this before, after all. He noticed on reaching the top of the stairs that two bottles of flavored vodka were sitting on the counter by the sink, waiting for their recycling, which concerned him since she was by technical means a bachelorette with no need for two bottles of vodka to sit side-by-side, but there they were, as if they’d been drunk in unison. And just after he noticed them he heard more stirrings, like those of someone waking and rushing round the house in surprise of someone having awakened before them. Looking in the slim vanity mirror facing the bed, he saw no one. He walked around to the corner leading to the bed and saw the flutter of what might have been the curtain. It was unsettling for him, since the curtain never unfurled as far as 6 feet away. He called out “Hello!” and got no response. Just then it occurred to him that the balcony doors, both of them, were open, and the door from the stairs could very well be open. It occurred at the same time that Melody’s car was not there, nor was any other car he would know to frequent the house. No car or unusual person frequented the bounds of the property. Returning to the kitchen with his heart beating slow and heavy through his chest, he rounded the corner to where the unfolded laundry would usually frequent, it being the last place a person could hide aside from the dark, empty bathroom around which the whole house revolved. First he noticed a still, protruding gut, and then the chest and then the long, untrimmed hair of a familiar face, dressed only in gym shorts.

“Hi, Rick,” Isaac greeted. Rick let out a breath.

“Hey, man,” he said with a hint of shame. He scurried about looking for something while Isaac went to collect three records.

“Yeah I just came to get a couple records so I’m about to go.”

“No, sorry man, I was just looking for a shirt. How are things?”

“Bye, Rick,” Isaac saluted as he scurried down the stairs with three records. He suffered a throbbing pain in his forehead after leaving and sitting in the car, and thought as coffee might remedy the ache.

Pulling into a non descript Starbucks around 3 PM, the headache had retreated with a multitude of thoughts, about such things as horrible songs permeating the radio and the lack of use in art, polluting his mind. Opening his door half mindedly he caught the scent of a collection of fumes at the University/Markham intersection and could seemingly hear the scream of an incurable from St. Vincent’s in the squeaking breaks on the road only 100 ft. away. The girl at the counter had eyes similar to his, at least in days before. Her hair also had a light, welcoming sheen and her smile seemed genuine enough. Sitting at the table, he could only think, “clouds in my coffee. You’re so vain,” even though he’d ordered tea. It took him half an hour to swallow the drink and tip a smile to the girl at the counter before he was on his way to the recruiting office.

It was a gray brown, like movies based in the 50s or so. It reminded him of being in the ROTC trailer but it had velvet green curtains. He felt like they were forest colored only with a hint of monoculture vomit added. He doubted the wood that planked the walls actually came from trees. Three people sat around him and they all either stared off or down in unawareness. The green curtains actually smelled like green curtains. It wasn’t agreeable. One girl looked at the clock and showed horrible guilt over it. He almost forgot the carpet. It was like a pointillist painting of TV static, in grayscale. More grayscale. There was no white in this form, only the lightest shade of gray before white exposed itself. It made him wonder if the walls were actually brown, or if they were the oddest shade of gray that looked brown to an non-comparing, untrained eye. What of the gray curtains? Now he could feel their felt texture on his tongue, and he felt like he now had a cat’s tongue just for it. If gray could permeate the walls and curtains so thoroughly, why couldn’t he be a cat? His hair grew in whisker patches. His company even seemed to have color sucked from them as he explored the idea, and he felt his whiskers grow in those waiting moments. When a man stepped from the next room and asked him in, he realized only 6 minutes 38 seconds had passed.

In the chair, where his headache had passed and was replaced by a mental fuzziness, like that of a light gathered cover of lint on a shirt, he felt an odd fit. It wasn’t big enough for his admittedly large hips but any larger and the weak cushion underneath him might have swallowed him. He noticed a hint of skepticism on the officer’s face that the man resigned quickly, letting it shine only in his eyes but, through a stern smile, he invited Isaac in.

“So of course, I have to ask what intrigues you about the military?” the man asked, in a routine manner still inflected with genuine interest, likely due to Isaac’s abnormality in stature, demeanor, and general existence around a recruitment office.

“Well, I.” After a slight though, Isaac said “Life’s felt kinda directionless recently. I feel like this might be a step in a, direction. The right direction.”

The officer nodded. His eyes were still lit. He went on to explain certain opportunities afforded by service and by requirement certain risks. Fuzziness had overtaken Isaac’s mind though. He hadn’t realized it yet but the recruitment was barely a consideration for him. Instead he considered, among other things, how if he pressed a gun under his chin, how the bullet might glide easily through his mouth and brains, though scrambling them, but would halt a little when making contact with the skull, and how he might feel it press in his very last moment, which how could he know how long that moment would actually last; who could tell him how long that moment lasts? Finally he shook the officer’s hand, took some papers with him, and left for a Waffle house for his meeting with Harmony.

Having not seen her for two or three years, depending on what memories he accounted by that day, Harmony was as beautiful, if not more, than the days before. She colored her hair into an aqua color that intrigued his love for swimming and oceanic depth. Her eyes, though tired, were still bright with an immediate joy. Black lipstick paired itself against her fair skin. He hated that she wore skirts so often. He loved a long pair of legs in a skirt, and felt minimal guilt when admitting this fact to himself. She stood outside with a cigarette just ready to be tossed between her fingers, and she flashed a smile of a slightly mocking surprise and genuine intrigue. Isaac came close enough to hug her but instead muttered “Howdy,” and gave her dap.

At the table, after both of them ordered coffee, she asked “So really. What the **** is this about recruiting stations?” There was a tongue biting smile to accompany the question.

“Eh, I was checking it out. ****’s weird.”

“Yeah, I hear you,” she said with a slow laugh Isaac grinned at.

“So, how’s things for you man? Since like two years ago I mean.”

“Uuuuuggghghghghgghhhhhh,” she groaned, rolling her eyes. The server brought the coffee and they gave their order to her. “Yeah my school’s awful. What little they had they’re just throwing away and I have to deal for about two more years.” She met his eyes as he thought of some way to answer.

“That is terribly unfortunate,” he mustered. After a half laugh, he added “You should probably just hold the school hostage. Two thousand people and some liquor stores can’t be that hard to overthrow.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she replied with a laugh, which he mirrored.

“But really, there’s just nothing good going on?” Isaac inquired.

“Well, my girlfriend’s kinda cool, and other people too. But they’re definitely about it. No, they are it.” Isaac nodded at this.

“Yeah I know how that can be.”

“How’re things for you though?” she asked, catching his wandering gaze.

“OH fine. I’m back at my parent’s place and I’m reading philosophy all the time so I trying to join them halfway and make them not as weird together.”

“That’s what’s up.”

The food came and the conversation unfolded into various facets of life and interests. By the end of their meeting Isaac felt as close to walking like a spirited human as he had in weeks. On the drive home, the headache came back to his forehead, as he passed Melody’s house; and as he passed, he thought he’d drop by, noticing just an hour before that he had four calls and nine texts from her. It was 8:42 PM.

He pulled alongside the curb, got out of the car, and walked the 15 feet to the door at a sluggish pace, or in the space of about a minute. He knocked in three slurred knocks, to which Melody answered with hesitation. She was always hesitant of answering doors without some previous notice of company. He saw her occupy the peephole and then begin to unlock the door, her large brown eyes looking up at him with uncertainty.

“Hey,” she greeted. He nodded in response.

“What’s up?” she inquired. He shrugged. She was standing in the doorway and mostly looking down at the concrete carport.

Finally she began, “What happened earlier… I promise you have the wrong idea.”

He looked up and off and nodded, and she sighed.

“You won’t even try to believe me,” she said.

After a pause, Isaac blurted “What if you caught me in that position? What would… what would you, have to say? What in the **** would you think?”

“Yeah,” she almost whispered, still looking down. “Still, you should know, as a fact, that nothing has happened between me or Rick.”

“Yeah,” Isaac muttered gruffly.

“Look, I’m not lying to you. God damn it, you can be so stubborn sometimes.” Her voice rang honest in his ears, but Isaac’s eyes began watering. She looked into them with sympathy and tried to touch his shoulder but he pulled away, heading for the car but stopping after four steps.

“I’m not lying,” she said plainly. “I swear to you, nothing happened.”

“I’m just so ****ing happy you can move on, that you can live all ****ing willy ****ing nilly.”

“It’s not like that!”

“God, whatever.”

“I wish you wouldn’t act like this. I thought we had an understanding. I don’t want things to be like this for you, I really honest to god don’t. Seeing you like this is really god damned upsetting for me.” Melody verged on tears now, her mouth bent.

“Yeah. Well. This is all I got to live for now.” Isaac hastily stepped to the car, tears falling freely to the asphalt and staining them momentarily. As he drove off he saw her see him off.

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