Things That Don't Matter

This is just something I wrote, it doesn’t really have much to it. My feelings towards it are neutral.

Retreat

The brass coloured cymbals shone, reflecting the bright fluorescent light that would have given the room an almost clinical feel, were it not for the fact that the light simply enabled one to truly appreciate the dinginess therein. The drum set sat in silence, the hi-hats gaping lazily, a pair of sticks laid across the snare. Damien strode with measured fury into the room, sliding between the floor tom and the wall he sat on the stool and positioned his feet on the pedals. He thumped the bass drum, and clicked the hi-hats. He grabbed the sticks off of the snare, held one in each hand, and sat for a moment looking at the set before him. He drew back his right arm, and struck at the crash cymbal with all his strength. The cymbal did as its name suggests and crashed, deafeningly so. It danced wildly on the stand for a moment or so, and then was still again, vibrating ever so slightly as the ringing faded away to silence.

Damien grinned, in an almost maniacal sort of way. There was little in the world he found more satisfying to strike a cymbal, and listen to it scream. Using both arms now he hit the crash and the ride simultaneously on their edges, producing a crash even louder than the first. He sat and again listened to the sound fade away to silence. He started a roll on the snare, softly at first, gradually adding force so that it got steadily louder, and louder, and louder. Then he switched to single strokes so that he could bring the sticks further back, and bring them down again harder. Reaching a noise level he judged to be about as loud as he could get it he struck the crash cymbal once more and moved on to playing a frenetic beat that moved about the set without any particular reasoning. He kept time out of habit, but did so badly. His focus was on exerting as much force as possible on the objects in front of him, converting his bottled up rage into sound.

After a minute or so he began to feel the effects, his pure focus on his physical exertion relieved his mind of troublesome thoughts. The world did not exist outside of a four foot radius from where he sat. If any thought attempted to intrude upon his mind he played harder to drive it away, pouring all of his focus and energy into his hands and arms which flew about him in a frenzy.

Completing a roll down the toms he struck the rim of the ride again, with more force than he had originally intended. The stick broke. The top three inches flew into the air, spinning madly and falling to the floor behind him. He stopped playing and sat staring at what remained of the stick in his hand as the sustained, shimmering sound of the ride slowly faded, and as it did so his anger swelled. He hurled the broken stick across the room where it clattered against the cinder block wall and fell to the floor. He had not yet managed to fully exhaust himself, what he felt now was all of his previous frustration fueled by an adrenaline rush.

He sat debating whether to pick up a new stick and resume playing or whether to get up and walk back out of the room. As he did so the issues he’d been attempting to escape encroached upon his mind, clouding his thought. He decided he wasn’t ready to go back out, and reached under the floor tom where he kept an array of spare sticks. He began playing again, although not quite as furiously as before to avoid breaking another stick.

He played continuously until he felt that his anger had been relieved, let loose to evaporate amongst the sound waves. What he felt in its place was a physical and mental tiredness. He got up and walked out in front of the set, heading towards the door. He stopped. He stood staring at the door. He realized that he still didn’t want to go back out there. It would mean heading back up the stairs to his room, sitting in solitude at his computer or falling into his bed to sleep restlessly. He would have to deal with homework, he would have to deal with his parents, he would have to deal with… He let his head fall back and he sighed heavily. If he thought about it all too much more it would anger him again.

His legs told him they’d had enough, he needed to sit or lie down. He did so, there on the cement floor, he lay back and stared at the light that hung from the ceiling. It burned into his eyes and he closed them. No longer seeing the outside word he looked inward, peering into a dark mess of tangled thoughts and emotions. He lost himself inside his own mind, retreating further and further inward, running from the outside.

I have done my very best so far not to be one of those whiny teenage kids who complains about their parents constantly to everyone, and so far I believe they have not yet made an appearance in any of my writings. That has at times been very very difficult. Tonight it was too difficult, tonight was the last straw. At precisely 9:00pm this March the 23rd in the year of some people’s lord 2010 I bounded downstairs eager to watch the latest episode of Lost. In the living room I found my mom and two sisters watching American Idol, and they just had to watch this one last person sing. So I thought to myself fuck News Corporation and everything associated with them, minus The Simpsons and Arrested Development, except they cancelled that so once again, fuck them and I went to go get food while whoever this guy was sang. Let me take a moment here to complain about American Idol, it’s awful, end of story. If I want to here people sing I listen to the radio or better yet my iPod where I don’t have to deal with all that god awful pop/rap/whatever the hell it is that’s on the radio being perpetually interrupted by DJs as annoying if not more so than the music they play. I do not go watch TV. TV is for scripted drama/comedy. If somebody’s not writing it, it’s not any good, and even then it’s chances aren’t all that great. So my point is American Idol is stupid. What’s worst about it is that it airs opposite Lost, and because my incredibly annoying youngest sister, who I can easily see being one of the girls I absolutely hated when I was in middle school, loves it there is always conflict. I made it very clear to everyone in my family several months in advance that nothing, nothing was to interrupt my time in the living room from 9-10pm Tuesday nights. Surprise surprise when the start of the season comes round American Idol is in full swing and my sister is not willing to give it up. I managed to take control for the premiere but was forced during every commercial break to switch it back, and then of course was yelled at every time I switched it back again, this several times resulted in me missing parts of the show, and Lost is not a show one can miss parts of. This has occurred every single week so far. Tonight after I came back with food and the guy stopped singing I took the remote and switched it over to a halfway decent network just in time for the first commercial break. I wasn’t going to take any more of the flipping so I told my two sisters to get the hell out, and needless to say my parents had a problem with that. My sisters disappeared, my parents yelled, and the TV was turned off. I proceeded to sit on the couch and give them The Look of Death, which I think I’m getting quite good at, in the hopes that it would make them feel bad and let me put the TV back on. I think it did make them feel bad, but not enough to let me go back to watching, and by that point it wouldn’t have been worth it anyway. So now instead of watching tonight’s episode which was supposedly going to be an important one I’m up here writing this to keep me from breaking something. I know it might seem silly to be this angered over a TV show, but it’s Lost. You don’t mess with Lost, those are the rules.

Wow, this is possibly the worst I’ve been yet, although maybe not quite as bad as I was over the summer. The month of February was very up and down and all over the place so I really didn’t get anything done other than spend way too much time pondering unresolvable issues, or at least issues that could in no way be resolved through pondering.

Something I did the other day that I feel is worth mentioning: a few friends and I went to see a Jukebox the Ghost show last Saturday. It was awesome. If you don’t know Jukebox the Ghost then you absolutely must go listen to their album Live and Let Ghosts, it is 100% fantastic. Also at said show were the bands Skybox and Tally Hall, neither of which I had heard anything about before the start of their tour with JTG. Skybox’s music can be pretty much summed up in one word, awesome, and Tally Hall can be done in two, weird and awesome. If you haven’t ever listened to either of them of which the chances are pretty high then again you absolutely must go check them out. You can download Skybox’s song “In a Dream” for free from their website http://www.skyboxmusic.com. For Tally Hall I recommend listening to the entirety of their album Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum not all of which I’m in love with but as a whole I think it works pretty well.

I also have some fiction for today, I’m not really sure I like it all that much but whatever it’s something.

Red Light in the Middle of Nowhere

The automatic transmission shifted into a lower gear and the engine revved as the car accelerated up an incline. The road here writhed like a snake, cutting through the thick woods on all sides, dodging around and at times darting over hills, skirting mountains that were no longer visible in the deep blackness that shrouded the landscape. The car’s high beams penetrated the darkness, illuminating the skeletal trees, and the solitary faded yellow line that ran unevenly along the center of the at times rough road. He hadn’t seen another car pass in what felt like a very long time, though driving has a tendency to distort ones sense of such arbitrary measurements as time, and distance.

He felt very, very alone. The CD that had been playing on the car stereo before had reached its end and he hadn’t bothered to restart it or find something else. The car was silent, apart from the fluctuating, muffled growl that came from the engine. The lights on the dashboard glowed softly, the neon orange speedometer pointer wavered between 45 and 50mph, an almost dangerous speed for the windy road on which he was driving, but the speed kept him alert. It was late, and he had been up a very long time. The darkened landscape which if illuminated would have revealed little more than an expanse of forest covered mountains created an atmosphere of complete isolation that ate away at him, he felt more alone than he had in a long time.

He glanced at the person sitting in the passenger seat. She was asleep. Her chest rose and fell with a slow and steady rhythm indicative of deep sleep. While he would have loved to continue gazing at her chest, garbed in a wonderfully low cut top, he pulled his eyes back to the road. He wasn’t sure exactly when it was that she had drifted off, it had probably been at least an hour, maybe two, since a word had passed between them. She was lucky to be able to fall asleep and miss the rest of the ride. He considered being annoyed at her for abandoning him to face the darkness and silence on his own but decided he should save his annoyance for situations that more deserved it. He didn’t mind driving all that much, although sleep would be nice. It wasn’t like they would have talked much if she had been awake anyway, it had been a while since they’d had a real conversation, like the ones they used to which could go on for hours if allowed.

She never ceased to confuse him, he had long since given up making any assumptions about the nature of their relationship or how she felt about him or even at this point how he felt about her. He found it easier to just not think about it, go along with whatever seemed to be working, drive the car.

The headlights passed over a bright yellow sign at the edge of the road, warning of a traffic light ahead. That was odd, a traffic light all the way out here didn’t make much sense. Another few hundred feet or so along the road the light appeared around a bend. He could see that it was red, and began to brake. He noticed that the light was solid, not blinking like most would at this time of night, this far from anything. He stopped at the white line painted onto the road. The intersecting road was much newer, the blacktop almost seemed to shine under the glare of the high beams, he could see to either side of the intersection that two vibrant yellow lines ran along it with reflectors placed periodically. The road to either side of the intersection was tinged green by the light, while he was bathed in red. Despite it’s sleek appearance and it’s green light the new road was similarly void of travelers.

The light stayed red. He wondered who on earth had thought it would be a good idea to put this light here, it seemed like a complete waste of money. There was no necessity for a light controlling two roads that no one seemed to travel. Hell even a stop sign seemed like more than was needed. At the most a single light blinking red in one direction and yellow in another would have sufficed. What hung before him here appeared to be the works, two lights faced in each direction, every one decked out with the full three colours. The ones facing him stayed red, and still no one drove past. He thought about whether he should just run the light, he doubted there was anyone else around for miles, let alone any sort of law enforcement. He didn’t though, it had only been a minute or so, surely the light would change soon.

He let his head fall back against the seat, it was firm and uncomfortable, probably with good reason. He tilted his head to look at his passenger, still asleep, but now he noticed her begin to stir. He figured that the car having stopped and the red glow of the light were what was waking her up. A minute or so passed and she opened her eyes slightly and murmured, still half asleep, “We there?”

“No, we’re stopped at a red light.”

“Mhm,” she said without any real recognition, and seemed to go back to sleep.

Another minute or so passed, his eyes began to feel heavy, and still the light did not change.

“This is one hell of a long light.”

Her voice, sharp and clear, startled him. He turned to see that she was now sitting up, fully awake and examining the surrounding area.

“How long have you been waiting here?”

“Dunno, few minutes or so.”

“Why don’t you just run it? There’s no one around.”

“I’m sure it’ll change at any moment.”

Another minute passed, and then another.

“Okay, I’ve never encountered a light this long in my life, clearly the damn thing is broken, so just go already.”

“It’s a red light, you don’t just go,” he said, not exactly sure why he was contradicting as he had thought the exact same things himself.

“Are you fucking kidding me? Not one single person has passed by while we’ve been sitting here like idiots, what possible repercussions could there be for running this one clearly broken and entirely pointless light in the middle of nowhere? If we don’t get a move on we’ll be late.”

“If we’re late it’s because you took forever to get ready to leave, I’d said we should leave a good hour before we actually managed to make it out of the door.”

“We left perfectly on time, leaving any earlier would have been pointless.”

“Clearly not, seeing as now you’re saying we’ll be late.”

“That’s because you’re just sitting here wasting time!”

“It’s a red light, you have to account for things like this, if you leave at the last minute then any delay turns into being late, and that is no fault of mine.”

“Oh, so when I’m going to go somewhere, I should factor in the time it takes to sit at red lights in the middle of nowhere that don’t ever turn.”

“That’s hyperbolizing it a little, but yes.”

“That’s completely and utterly ridiculous. Why are you being so impossible?”

“Oh, I’m the impossible one. That’s funny, I mean that’s really just hilarious.”

“What on earth are you talking about? I’m not the one refusing to drive across an empty road.”

“I… I don’t even know. You want me to go? Fine, I’ll go.”

“Than-”

He floored the accelerator, the tires screeched on the road and the car lurched forward. He brought it up to 60mph but then a twist in the road caused him to have to brake suddenly and slow down to about 45.

“That was uncalled for,” she said without any sort of tonal inflection.

“Sorry.”

“Do you know where we are, is it much further?”

“I really don’t have a very clear idea. Probably not too far.”

They sat in an uneasy silence for the next several minutes. He turned his head slightly so that he could see her face in the corner of his vision while still being able to keep an eye on the road.

“Do you love me?”

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One somewhat unfortunate result of the past few months is that from now on whenever I write a story about a male character and a female character inevitably someone or probably several someones will ask me “Is this about you and…?” To answer that question, no. (This time.)