It was a terribly gray sky, though the rain wouldn't fall. He sat with eyes sharply peering at the peak of a neighboring house, yet if he was asked what he was looking at he'd have no idea. He had no idea.
The funky bass line roars and her voice rips the sky wide open, at least inside his mind. There is a synthesizer that breaks up the sounds of traditional instruments while fitting so effortlessly that without knowing better you'd believe it was being keyed the way a piano would. Jazz drums is always his favorite to listen to.
It was all fitting perfectly for his day. Solitude, contemplating life's trials and temptations, gray skies darkening everything around, and music that felt as though it was just as much a part of the scenery as the clouds in the sky.
Of course, this says nothing to what he was seeing while staring at the roof top. He was seeing his former life fading from present day into the past. His best friend died a few short days ago from a drug overdose, yet he was entirely oblivious of his friend's habit.
He is reminded of some quote he heard many years ago - one he cannot fully remember - that states something about never truly knowing someone until they are under extreme suffering. It never made much sense to him at the time as he simply believed he could know someone with relative ease, but now thinking about his friend he understood that he never saw him suffering.
He tries to summon memories of his friend suffering. Memories clear from distant fogs in which he would get drunk with his friend over some girl or the loss of a job - that time he had to sell his favorite guitar to make rent that month. There was a feeling, at the time, that this was suffering, but it wasn't. It was the evasion of suffering and he only now has he begun to understand.
A tear creeps out of the corner of his eye as he begins to think back on all the little signs of heroin usage. The lame duck excuses of being too busy to reply to a text message after days. The memory of how often his friend had been sick within the recent months.
More than those memories and the feeling of stupidity crawling around in his mind, he found a great sadness in how he would never be able to laugh at some stupid shit a customer said, or share this great jazz he was listening to now with his friend.
This is life, though, and he knows that no matter how he feels that he will have to get up tomorrow and pretend everything is alright with everyone he interacts with. The only break he will get from pretending is the point in time he is at the funeral services, but even that will feel so impersonal as everyone else there will be feeding off of the emotions of one another. Aunts and uncles will be crying immensely even though they hadn't seen him in years and people who only knew him in passing will be talking about how great of a person he was, how terribly he will be missed.
He begins to acknowledge that life is just one big swath of falsehood. A display of what humanity is supposed to look like - a heroin addict near killing himself playing it off as though he is just a little sick, people mourning the loss of a life they knew nothing about, and even his job of interacting with people with a fake smile to sell whatever shit he was pushing onto the people. It is all fake.
Could authenticity exist at all in a society that rewards the inauthentic far more? The creeping thought of this was increasingly spreading throughout his mind.
He then remembered his friend, the moment in time the two met. They sat on the back steps of a house, party in full force inside, and discussed just how fake everyone inside the party was. How everyone was showing off in order to one-up one another or just to get laid, how it wasn't either one of their scenes.
They both went back to an apartment - he couldn't remember if it was his or his friends - and listened to albums all night long, critiquing the guitar playing, the drums, the vocals, and how well it all pieced together. He remembered how authentic they were with one another about it all, unashamed to hate a song or band the other loved. It was the start of an authentic friendship. It was the start of an authentic friendship, and now he had a greater appreciation for that than ever before.
-Dustin S. Stover
If you find pleasure in reading my short stories, please consider supporting me by purchasing my writing. It allows me to continue to pursue this crazy little hobby of mine as I attempt to turn it into a profession.
My collection of short stories is called Happiness in a Void of Darkness and can be found at the following links:
Kindle
Nook
The funky bass line roars and her voice rips the sky wide open, at least inside his mind. There is a synthesizer that breaks up the sounds of traditional instruments while fitting so effortlessly that without knowing better you'd believe it was being keyed the way a piano would. Jazz drums is always his favorite to listen to.
It was all fitting perfectly for his day. Solitude, contemplating life's trials and temptations, gray skies darkening everything around, and music that felt as though it was just as much a part of the scenery as the clouds in the sky.
Of course, this says nothing to what he was seeing while staring at the roof top. He was seeing his former life fading from present day into the past. His best friend died a few short days ago from a drug overdose, yet he was entirely oblivious of his friend's habit.
He is reminded of some quote he heard many years ago - one he cannot fully remember - that states something about never truly knowing someone until they are under extreme suffering. It never made much sense to him at the time as he simply believed he could know someone with relative ease, but now thinking about his friend he understood that he never saw him suffering.
He tries to summon memories of his friend suffering. Memories clear from distant fogs in which he would get drunk with his friend over some girl or the loss of a job - that time he had to sell his favorite guitar to make rent that month. There was a feeling, at the time, that this was suffering, but it wasn't. It was the evasion of suffering and he only now has he begun to understand.
A tear creeps out of the corner of his eye as he begins to think back on all the little signs of heroin usage. The lame duck excuses of being too busy to reply to a text message after days. The memory of how often his friend had been sick within the recent months.
More than those memories and the feeling of stupidity crawling around in his mind, he found a great sadness in how he would never be able to laugh at some stupid shit a customer said, or share this great jazz he was listening to now with his friend.
This is life, though, and he knows that no matter how he feels that he will have to get up tomorrow and pretend everything is alright with everyone he interacts with. The only break he will get from pretending is the point in time he is at the funeral services, but even that will feel so impersonal as everyone else there will be feeding off of the emotions of one another. Aunts and uncles will be crying immensely even though they hadn't seen him in years and people who only knew him in passing will be talking about how great of a person he was, how terribly he will be missed.
He begins to acknowledge that life is just one big swath of falsehood. A display of what humanity is supposed to look like - a heroin addict near killing himself playing it off as though he is just a little sick, people mourning the loss of a life they knew nothing about, and even his job of interacting with people with a fake smile to sell whatever shit he was pushing onto the people. It is all fake.
Could authenticity exist at all in a society that rewards the inauthentic far more? The creeping thought of this was increasingly spreading throughout his mind.
He then remembered his friend, the moment in time the two met. They sat on the back steps of a house, party in full force inside, and discussed just how fake everyone inside the party was. How everyone was showing off in order to one-up one another or just to get laid, how it wasn't either one of their scenes.
They both went back to an apartment - he couldn't remember if it was his or his friends - and listened to albums all night long, critiquing the guitar playing, the drums, the vocals, and how well it all pieced together. He remembered how authentic they were with one another about it all, unashamed to hate a song or band the other loved. It was the start of an authentic friendship. It was the start of an authentic friendship, and now he had a greater appreciation for that than ever before.
-Dustin S. Stover
If you find pleasure in reading my short stories, please consider supporting me by purchasing my writing. It allows me to continue to pursue this crazy little hobby of mine as I attempt to turn it into a profession.
My collection of short stories is called Happiness in a Void of Darkness and can be found at the following links:
Kindle
Nook
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