Hear
Do You?"Do you hear what I hear?
A song, a song
High above the trees
With a voice as big as the sea"
Choice
Xero & Seogoong
The lights glow, haloed with a circle of warm, yellow light. The snow swirls, light and fluffy, masking the world in white, so everything is frosted with perfection. Strings of color, red and green and blue and purple, wrap the trees and bushes in bulbs. From every house with boxes of warmth for windows, the smells of cinnamon and spice and pumpkin hang delicately in the air.
If I close my eyes, I can almost hear the sounds of laughter, of the night with family and friends. If I squint hard enough, I can almost see the smiles, bright as the moon dominating the night.
But, no matter how hard I try, I'm still out here. I'm still someone looking in, looking in on the happiness of Christmas Eve, standing in the cold. The cold that makes the warmth so much more enjoyable to those others, but it only makes my skin frost over and make me check, from time to time, if icicles have formed on my jacket. None yet, but there's the whole night left.
The whole night, of cold. Cold, and regrets, and wishes and thoughts of what I would do instead of what I did. But what I did is what happened, and what happened soon after what I did is me, standing, alone, in the cold. Now.
Because staying at home, with the empty rooms and me, just me, all alone, was too much. Because I am too much a despicable human being to stay home alone, and be spared the sight of happiness. Because I thought that wearing only a sweatshirt in the frozen cold was punishment enough, but perhaps it isn't.
It isn't.
I shouldn't even be alive. I shouldn't be allowed to live, with what I did, but I know this: Life is suffering. And so I will live. I deserve to suffer. I may not deserve to live, but I deserve to suffer, and suffer I will, and live I will, for those two things seem to come skipping down the path, hand in hand.
Hand in hand.
Even suffer has another, so I must be lower than unhappiness, to have no one.
I am.
Oh, I am, and no one knows it, and hates it, and wishes for it to be gone, as much as I. Maybe him. Maybe. But I know it firsthand, and firsthand is always the most direct and so the hate I have for me is the most direct hate than his hate for me, me the despicable human that will live, now, only to suffer.
And what am I, just another suffering, doing here? Here, on the streets, in the night, in the snow, in the cold? I am punishing, for one. I am punishing myself. But I am looking, also. I don't know, exactly, what I'm looking for but I know for sure I am looking.
Looking, maybe for another like me. Lowly, alone. But that is only selfish, because in looking for another like me I am wishing for another like me, and no one should be like me. No one but myself, and I am already like me.
I hope no one is like me, tonight.
Tonight is a night of love, and light, and happiness.
Who would want to be hated, so, so sad, and lurking in the dark? No one. No one but I, because I am one who deserves the dark to hide me, but I do not deserve anything, so I don't deserve to be hid. I deserve to be seen, to be mocked, to be hated by more than two, but then they would see me and feel something other than happiness at the sight of me and I would not want to ruin their happiness and so I will stay. Stay I will, in the cloaking darkness.
Stay I will.
But that doesn't mean I can't move. It just means that I can't move out of the darkness, out of the shadows. And since it is night, and the sun and the light is on the other side of the world, I can travel as I wish.
So I do.
I ghost the buildings, trying to fade into the brick as I look, look selfishly. Escape. Escape the dreams, the horrible dreams that I deserve, but I am so afraid of, that come to we when I dare to close my eyes. But everytime I wake, I remember; I asked for this. I asked to be punished, I asked for asking to be punished by being a horrible person, but when it comes I'm too much of a coward to take the punishment like I should.
So I'm running, in a way. I'm escaping, I'm hiding, I'm hating. I'm alone, I'm regretting, I'm punishing.
And they? They are celebrating, laughing, smiling. They are eating, playing, loving. Enjoying.
Christmas has such good irony, that way, that there is such polar opposites to the holiday, but only one can see the other, for there is nothing more clouding than happiness.
Here, where the streets meet, it is louder. There are more people, more sounds, more happiness than I retreat to the fringes, afraid of poisoning their joy with my me-ness. The cluster of people, talking, laughing, going on their way, it scares me. I don't know why.
I stay back, but where I can see them. They look so happy. They are with another, and are laughing, are so happy that they are glowing. Radiating with that special Christmas spirit that I don't have, and don't deserve, tonight. So what would I look like to them, if they could see me, if we're not cowering in the bushes? I would be dark. I would draw the shadows, and no light would reach me, unless the light had no choice.
Often in life, we have no choice. But I did, and choose wrong. I choose the wrong that only grew, only festered in its wrongness, until there was such a gape between the choices that I could not go back, that I could not jump to the other side and save my choice. I learned. I did. I know. But I knew too late.
And, there I was, behind the snow-clung bushes, when it happened. It was there, looking out over the happy people and happy smiles, that I broke. I slid to my knees, I squeezed my eyes shut, and I sobbed. I am selfish. I deserve to be sad, to be alone. But, at least, do I deserve to cry?
But now it's too late, even if I don't, for the tears just keep coming and coming and coming, and I can't stop them, I can't stop the salty tears watering the snow, boring holes in the white, until the snow beneath me is a patchwork of ice and white.
After a lifetime, I can finally stop. After a lifetime, I can finally wipe my eyes and try to put back the mask but tonight, the mask doesn't want to go on. So I'm just broken. I'm just broken, just alone, for another night. But I've never felt so detached, so unhuman and depressed and so like this before. I've never felt this helpless.
I can't seem to stand. I can't seem to move.
And it was here, now, in the darkest moment, that I heard a voice. Not speaking, not screaming or whispering or crying or laughing.
Singing.
Singing, in the dark of the night, just one voice rising just barely above the clatter of others. Just one voice. Not deep, not particularly powerful, but gorgeous and unique and soaring, a bird released from the cage.
I knelt there, eyes red, eyelashes catching snowflakes and leftover tears, tracks glistening on my cheeks, fixated on this voice, this beautiful voice that I had never heard the likes of.
But, when I finally recovered enough to peek out, no one else seemed to notice it. No one. They flowed like river water around a seated figure, no caring. But when the crowd parted enough, I could see him. The source, the source of this beautiful voice.
It was a boy, sitting cross legged on his jacket in the snow, a little ways from the middle of the center. His hair was bleached poorly, so his dark roots could be seen from even my distance. His clothes were thin, dirty, clearly savaged, and his feet were covered with ripped, torn boots. But his face. His face was beautiful, eyes glittering like the stars, dark and ever deep. His shirt was so thin that every time he took a breath, I could see his ribs outlined as he sang. In front of him was a hat.
No one stopped.
No one stopped for him.
I felt a pang of pity. This boy deserved something. He deserved their money, or at least their eyes. I wasn't better than them, but this boy, I felt, was. They ignore him because of his clothes and his appearance, when they should be surrounding him for this talent, this beautiful, rare talent he has.
And before I realized what I was doing, I was standing up. I was moving, crossing the courtyard as if in a dream. The snow swirled, and as I got closer, the boy's voice only sounded clearer and crisper and sadder, somehow. The boy's eyes fastened on me even as he sang, and I saw something I couldn't have from afar. Sadness. Lost hope.
But I don't want that. No. This was Christmas Eve, and this boy deserves to be happy. And right then, I wanted to make him happy. I wanted to do something for him, to make him more unlike me, more seperate from the pitiful me.
So, when I reach him, I sit down next to him, but with no jacket, so all I feel is cold, seeping, melting coldness. And then I ask him. And then I offer him the only thing I know I have, the only talent that will help him tonight.
"Can I dance?" He snaps his mouth shut; the note dies, unfinished, in the air. No one turns to look.
"What?" His voice is scratchy, but with that same beautiful tone as his singing.
"Dance. Can I dance, to help you?" From the startled look in his eyes, to the distrust that he levels at me, he has never been faced with a stranger asking him to help him. His suspicion is clear: He thinks this is some setup, some scheme, and I feel desperate to be heard right. I want to help. That's all I want.
"Please," I find myself saying, and when I don't make a move to walk away or flinch under his stare, he finally smiles. Just a little, but one that lights up his face, his saddened eyes, all the same. Suddenly, I don't feel so alone anymore, sitting in the snow, flakes falling around us, people close but so far away. I can forget my punishment, and my dealing of the punishment.
"Okay," he finally says, and finally moves his eyes from mine, and closes them. He seems to regain his train of song, and, after a hesitation, begins to sing again, starting with a long, sorrowful note. I stand up, listening to the song. I didn't recongize it, but that doesn't matter.
I get the sense of the beat, and slowly, I start. Moving my feet, my hands, closing my eyes until his voice was all I heard, all I needed to be free. It wasn't a fast song, but that didn't matter. It didn't matter that my jeans were soaked, that I was freezing, that I was alone and that I was horrible. Because, locked in this kind of understand with this boy, this strange, rare boy, I'm not alone. I'm not horrible, I'm not hated. I'm just a dancer, just a dancer with a rhythm and a song and a want, a need, to escape.
And so I do.
I escape, losing myself as the songs go on and on, and the night darkens, and eventually begins to light. As the snow falls, and falls, and the moon runs across the sky, as the star wink and glitter, down at the two of us.
Faintly, I see people stopping at the hat, stopping to watch us. My troubles, my choices, my hate, is pushed to the side. My anger, my suffering, it's all gone. And in the place is my moving limbs, my quiet, undisturbed mind. My peace.
I am at peace.
When the music finally stops, finally ends for the last time, I was tired, but not tired enough admit it, to stop this time that has been so much to me. The boy is still on the ground, cross legged. His chest moves rapidly as he strains to gulp in air, and I, as I stand, the courtyard cleared of all but us, feel a pang of regret. Did I push him too hard? Was I too selfish?
But he looks up, and smiles at me with so much happiness, so much more than last night, that it soothes the spiking worry. He unfolds his legs and stands up, slinging his jacket over his shoulder. Neither of us are cold. Neither of us feel the cold, feel the crisp winter's wind.
He walks over to the hat, now overflowing, and starts to silently count the coins. I squat next to him, relishing the silence, but clinging to it inwardly, because I somehow know that this will never happen again.
He looks up. "This is a lot more than I've ever gotten in a week." His voice is so much scratcher than before. "Thank you." He starts to slide the hat over to me.
"No, you keep it." I hold up my hands like to fend the offer away. "You did most of the work, anyway."
The boy fastens his dark eyes on me, and a small smile makes its way to his lips, and he shakes his head. I feel like everything is in slow motion. I feel like I should make this memory longer, somehow, but if I try to tamper with it I fear I will ruin it. So I don't. I just try to soak it in. The sun's light, coming up to outline the tips of his hair in liquid gold. The cold, the bite, that I'm feeling just now. The snow, melting on my sizzling skin. The smell, of cinnamon and fresh bread, and pine needles. His gentle eyes.
"If it weren't for you, we wouldn't have made this much. Please, take it." This time I do, unwillingly. But I do. When the boy sees my hesitation, he grins. "Merry Christmas." He stands again, and begins to walk away. His strides short, but he's going too fast.
"Wait!" I run after him, and he spins around. "Here." I press a coin into his palm, one that I had recongized as old, older than us and our parents and our parent's parents. "Thank you."
He looks at the coin, then at me. Coin, me. He smiles, and this time his eyes are sad, but still bright. He inclines his head. He walks away.
And, as he does, I realize I have a choice. I have a choice, now. Whether to call him again, to get to know him, to let him know me. Or I can let him go, and I can keep this memory perfect. Perfect forever.
I let him go.
I let him walk off, the strange boy with the voice soaring over the trees and the sea and the sky. The boy, just a mystery. The boy, just a stranger, but so much more, to me. From this moment on, I'll think, I swear. From this moment on, I'll stay and think and I'll treasure. I'll live. I'll let this memory stay perfect.
I think, for once in my life, I made the right choice.
Heyyyyy 2nd one! Here's the angst~ and I hope you liked it! I liked writing it:)
Anyway, if I don't get the chance to update before Cristmas, Merry Christmas! Have a wonderful day!!!!
I absolutely love it if you comment because I want to hear how I do in writing these!
Thank you for reading! *blows kiss*
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