[NANO] Part Uno WC: 2753

Dawn’s grey light struggled to breach the blinds thrown across the window. Trying to declare this this is a new day in a new town. It is a day full of opportunity, life, hope, passion and beauty. That there is no more reasons to do the thing that Link wants so badly to do. That part is almost entirely over now and a new thing is starting, a new beautiful thing. It wants to tell him so badly that things are okay now and that its sorry for all the stuff that came before. Stuff that it had to illuminate for it is the sun and it doesn’t get a choice in these things. However, a layer of clouds muffled its desperate words, turning what would be a warm soft, morning light, into a grey pallid thing that creeps across the room message so lost in the translation that it ends up coming out as, “Fish read porno while dancing with spoons”.
Not that it matters. Link wouldn’t listen anyway. His eyes closed, breathing heavily he is far away. Away from the desperate cries of the sun, from anyone who would care one way or another about his passing, away from the play that drove him time and time again to attempted self termination, away from the generator of scars, he is just away. Away, with his mistress of the hour. She lays a cold nickel-plate kiss upon his temple and leaves her lips there awaiting orders. Will the trigger get pulled, will there be a bullet in the chamber today, like there was yesterday and the day before and the day before that on through the years all the way back to the 8th grade?
Link didn’t know how long he’d been sitting there. His muscles, starting to stiffen were and indication though. Arm aching, wanting to either pull the bloody trigger and be done with it or to put the gun down. He didn’t move though, there is something, something out there. Something, a sign, an indication, a hope, something that should let him know that it is okay, that he can relax. He didn’t work hard to get to where he is today. He merely just connected one day after the next with the fervent hope that the next day would be his last. Every morning it has been the same, one bullet, one spin of the cilinder, one quick motion which snaps it back in place, still spinning, and a pull of the trigger. Each time with the vain hope that it would be the last time he would have to preform such a an ardousus routine. Yet now? Now it is different, yet the routine is the same. Sweating now, breathing heavily, reasons flooding his head as to why he should just put the gun down, the screaming in his arm, all culminate into one final action.
A trigger is pulled, a hammer falls on an empty chamber, and the noise dies so Link can live. Soon bird song sings the funeral hymn and the day begins. “Fuck me” letting out a long steady sigh he slums down into the chair tapping idly away at the keyboard. Shaking his head at the 4 white walls which seemed to do their best to be oppressive he pulls out one of his boxes, and returned the gun to its carefully hidden spot, returning it to whence it came.
College. Its strange what you can achieve without trying what so ever. The dorm room itself felt like an institution. Link’s roomate chose to decorate his side of the room with pictures of naked women he printed out from the internet. Its sad really. Link didn’t know the kid very will but he knew him well enough to know that the kid is a lost soul. Someone who puts pictures of naked women on the walls because he is away from his parent’s now and that is just what you do when you are away from home or some such nonsense like that. He grinned like a 12 year old while he did it, thinking he is just the coolest person in the world. Now he is off rushing a frat which is impressive considering it is summer semester and the whole campus is all but abandoned, which made living there even stranger.
Realizing that death is not forthcoming today he grouchily began stretching out, then working out. Midway though the crunches his mind started to wander. He didn’t even know his room mate’s name but he wondered what brought him to this school. It felt more like a place you ended up at, not somewhere you went to. That’s how it is in Link’s case at least. His grades low, test results high, got him in under the proviso that he become a full time student during the summer immediately following his high school year and that he starts on academic probation. Also you had to live in the dorms. Not a bad deal. Its pretty clear that they were just taking the high risk students, putting them in a low traffic time, so they could be weeded out effectively. It’s a good plan.
Second week of school and the parents still haven’t tried to make contact. No e-mails, no phone calls, no packages. No big supprise, muscles aching from the various push ups and crunches, Link switched over to a Yoga position. He knew though. He just knew that should he ever pick up the phone he will be guilted. Not calling or writing. He’d feel bad if he parents weren’t such hard core assholes. They couldn’t help it though. Some people are just hard wired the wrong way. The only thing you can do about it is press on and try not to pay them any mind. Switching possitons his mind drifted elsewhere. There is a class today. Student life skills or some such non sense like that. It is almost bad enough to make him want to get the gun back out and give the old roulette one more try. It didn’t seem like such a bad idea actually. The sun rose up into the sky banishing away the clouds and it is shaping up to be a beautiful day. It would be nice to die on a beautiful day. Have a small service, ashes scattered at dusk, or buried. However, he couldn’t imagine the parents taking the time to bury him. They might do it just for show, and it most certainly wouldn’t be at dusk, still that would be a nice time to be buried.
Switching positons again he started to click through his day. It is the end of the second week of classes. Someone once said that in collage you will have more free time than you will ever have for the rest of your life. For the life of him he couldn’t remember who said it, someone who you would never imagine to be right about anything. His homework? A pitiful annoyance, not much more than that. Most of his classes were glorified high school lectures taught by grad students who need money to pay off the student loan’s whoes wrath they just invoked by daring to graduate, or worse adjuncts with delusions of grandure. Still he couldn’t be to hard on them. Student Life Skills, Collage Algebra, Evironmental Science, and Introductory Socilogy doesn’t make for the most demanding schedual in the whole world, “Next semester I’ll fill up my time a little better, maybe” Frozen, towel in hand, the cold empty realization shook him down to the core of his very being. A core, rotten unfit for life, now realizing that it might just very well have to live out an entire normal human lifespan for the first time in over 5 years. Tomarrow. He made a plan for tomorrow. Not an if I am still alive, plan. Not a maybe so long my brains are in my head gaurentee, but an honest to goodness play for the time three months from now when he would still be alive. Filled with awe, unable to move, Link paralyzed shakes with the sudden turgid realization that this is done. He’s kissed his nickle plated lover for the very last time. Tasted the sweet bouquet of metal, oil, and the faint promise of gun powder. The sex has been fantastic and now, alone, he knew tomarrow would, come the same way three months from now would come. On that day, he made a plan to have a buisyer schedual so as to not spend so much time brooding, brooding on what? The future. Because the future is happening and he is now no longer going to make passive-aggressive swipes at stopping it. Fantastic.
Looking over into the mirror, green eyes piecing down into the soul of his relection, his reflection giving him the same piercing gaze he flicked back his dark, almost black hair and looked over his body. Dozens of scars, some small, some quite sevear, marring his muscular form spoke of a past with secrets, a past once ran from. It used to be a body of a man with no future. Right now? Right this very instant, however, it is the body of a man who desperately needs a shower. Nothing quite shakes up a though process as the first acidic wafts of freshly minted body odor. Five hours till class and not a lick of responsibility in between. What more could a young man of 18 ask for out of life? It’s funny the things you don’t think about when you think your death is inevitable. Pausing to spit out a wad of toothpaste, Link looks back into the mirror and smiles, “Roll with the punches. Damn never though I would be saying that. Perhaps it is time to take up therapy”. A strangely productive series of thoughts for a Thurday.
Quickly thowing on whatever came up first in the dresser drawers, which is inevitably a plain black shirt, black pants, along with black socks, Link laced up his boots, grabbed his bag and left, never once wondering where his room mate could possibly be. Class at 11 and it’s only now just past 8. Clearly it is time for breakfast. The campus cafeteria makes food. This is something you tell yourself over and over again as you shovel a strange combonation of butter, grease, and meat into your mouth, before racing to the bathroom breaking the sound barrier as you go. The caffeteria makes food, sorta is a better description, unless it is breakfast. Breakfast they turn into wonderful food making little gnome happy people and suddenly the world is buoyed up on a cloud of delicious egg based mastery. Its funny too because most people would never guess that the seat of heaven only excistied in the cafeteria between 8-10. Most people were to busy sleeping off hangovers, still drunk, in class, or to afraid of what happened to them at lunch to do anything else. However, breakfast? Always a meal worth skipping unless it includes at least three eggs.
With a nod and a swipe food is received, eaten, and utensils abandoned for greener pastures. Book in hand underneath a big shady tree, he went to go live out a dream, to read and to be undisturbed by anyone. No one knew him here, a stranger amidst a crowd, completely annomose, no one has any reason to talk to him and he no reason for anyone. There under his shady tree, apple in hand, book in lap, he could whittle away the hours in quiet blissful…
“Excuse me but do you accept the Lord Jesus Christ into your life?”. Link hadn’t even got through a single page. He looks up at her with a fury that is ordinarly reserved for the inquisition. Her stance waivered ever so slightly but she stood her ground, which is impressive considering that she just approached a heavily muscled, scarred man, dressed all in black, who clearly looks like he’s more interested in reading than talking to you.
“No I do not have Jesus’s light in my life”. He goes back to reading while taking every fiber of his being and focusing it into a megaphone which bellows loud enough to shatter mountains, “GO THE FUCK AWAY”.
Instead she shuffles her feet a bit before continuing, “Why not, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Look miss I am sorry but see this book? Right here? Need to read it for class in an hour, I am a chapter behind and there is a quiz ahead of me so you think we can pick this up latter?” Link almost wanted to beam. He managed to not just storm to his feet and yell at her until she vanishes, body dematerialized under a hail of virulent insults. Instead he lied, it is exciting.
Sadly she nods and starts to walk off, “I just think he can help you with all the sadness in your soul. I’ll be praying for you” Eyes narrowing Link springs to his feet, however she’s gone. Paranoia that is what that is. Remarkably preceptive little girl though. An hour and a half passes before he feels someone standing over him again, “You lied to me.”
Statled Link drops his book, his page vanishes burined under a hail of other pages which all look alike, “Oh god damn mother fuck-”.
“You shouldn’t take his name in vain Link” Scrambling to pick up his book, hoping the spine somehow saves his place and that the book will just magically open back up to his page he looks up with stunned horror, about to swear again an errant squrirrle smacks him in the head with an acorn.
“What the hell. First vanishing Christians and now squirrles are attacking me. Well look god, you asshole, I am going to keep living no matter how much that pisses you off, I am going to read this book, and then I am going to-” stop talking out loud right now. It isn’t so much that people are starring, it is actually the fact that people are specifically not staring. Mother. Fuck. Stalking off angerly he could still hear the squirrle making what passes for angry sounds after him. “How the hell do they throw so accurately, they don’t even have thumbs”.
Minuts pass, new spot is claimed, place in book is agonizly reestablished, and the he felt her hovering over him again, “Look you creepy little girl I just want to read my book so take your jesus and-” then Link realizes he is not yelling at the weird christian girl who vanishes but instead at a hippy girl who might be pretty if she showered and maybe shaved her legs. Before he could stammer out an apology she turns around and walks away. Fuck. Well this isn’t going to well. What the hell did the hippy girl want, and what is up with that stalker for Christ? Sadness in my soul what could she possibly know?
He did feel bad about the hippy girl though. He’d seen her around quite a bit, her being one of the only people to stand out as much as him. She probably just wanted a light, or maybe to make small talk. Damn it all. Now he needed to start dodging a weird christian, find a hippy girl, apologize, and another acorn smacks him in the back of the head, “I need to find out what squirrles eat”. The novel is getting good. Really good. It is the sort of thing that really sucks you in and make you want to just turn the pages not caring that once the novel is over it will be a long time before you will ever find something that good ever again, and re reading it just simply won’t be the same. It is a one way road down to oblivion and Link is just about to break out of a warm up and head into a full on sprint, when his watch alarm impolitely announced that it is time to head to class.
“Now it isn’t a lie. Enjoy your class, we will have time to talk after”. Link knew it is her. He knew she wouldn’t be there when he turned around so he didn’t bother. He definetly knew that this is something that wasn’t going to go on for the next several years. Moreover he has a hippy to find.