Posted by Layla Winterborne on Tuesday, 15 December, 2009 @ 8:21 am
Music, weather, smells…all bring back memories unconnected and with no regard to rhyme or reason or time period. They just flow and ebb and sometimes peek and run from behind tapestries hung in the corridors of my mind. Doors magically begin to unlock and open, revealing thoughts that were meant to remain locked down deep…while others prance lazily about without a care in the world.
Damien Rice was playing last night…
Do you remember Tyler?
Of course you do…you wanted to kill yourself back then but you were too headstrong to actually go through with it. You disgusted yourself with your optimistic outlook on how things surely would get better while you cried yourself to sleep at night in your lonely, one bedroom apartment. Newby used to listen to Damien Rice and Jack Johnson and one day you actually ventured into the Baptist Student Ministries because you heard that they were auctioning off dates with boys and Chris Newby was going to be there. You brought along your money but in the end you slipped quietly away because you couldn’t bring yourself to bid on him. ‘It was stupid anyway’. You tried to convince yourself that you’re not like those people…you don’t WANT to be like those people…but secretly…we all do. It started raining as you walked home…
…and the windshields were fogging up because it’s summer time and in South Texas the humidity is always high…still you continue to drive with all the windows down because Toby wants to smoke and you don’t want the car to hold onto the smell. Your back itches with sand that managed to creep it’s way in between your bathing suit and skin and your lips are cracked with the salt that hangs heavily in the air. You want to scream at the boy sitting slumped in the passenger seat next to you, but there are friends riding in the back and you don’t want to cause a scene. Still, he’s chain smoking YOUR cigarettes and earlier he confessed that he’s doing coke because it helps him deal with you. There are six people piled into a car designed to seat four and your bathing suit is black and one size too small. Matt is riding with Kyle and Erin in the other car because he decided that it would be funny to see just how much he could burn using baby oil and now he’s blistering and bleeding…and all YOU can think about is how much you love that boy in the passenger seat and that one he’ll change…surely he’ll change…
…your tire needs changing because you shredded it as you ran over a myriad of refuse that lay strewn across 59. Vincent drives over to help you and you realize that this is the first time that you have ever been attracted to an Asian male…
Michael introduced you to Trigun several days ago and now you’ve been spending exorbitant amounts of time doing nothing but watching his DVD’s. It even gets to the point where you decide to take them up to Six Flags with you and watch them on your laptop during your breaks….but the weather is bad that day so you decide to leave them at home, plus you don’t trust many of the other employee’s anyway. When you get to the Character Barn, however, you realize that you and Kandrea aren’t scheduled, so you quickly sign up as K-9 with Jacob as Marvin and Kandrea as your escort and you pack up and head down to USA Stage. The weather begins to progressively worsen until the first run after lunch when Kandrea opens the door to take Scooby outside and all you can see over their silhouetttes is the top of The Titan as it’s struck by lightning. The three of you jump back in surprise as a sheet of water comes rushing into the room and you quickly slam the door shut, laughing, against whatever apocalypse is raging outside.
It’s April of 2005 and you just wrote a bad check for $200 because Toby needed it for his tux rental and you’re willing to do anything to get him to Prom because you’re so in love with him. Ignore the fact that he now owes you over $700. You just KNOW that he’ll pay you back as soon as he gets back on his feet. However, Prom, much like your birthday and later on, graduation, is ruined because Toby is insistent on telling you that once again, you look like shit. Your dress looks terrible, your makeup is all wrong and I thought you said you were losing weight….looks like you gained it to me…
…No, she looks beautiful. And you’re grateful to this boy for saying this because you still suffer from body dysmorphia although it’s not nearly as bad as it used to be.
You used to sit out on the balcony overlooking the parking lot out front and the city to your left smoking too many cigarettes and drinking Code Red with Malibu Rum. On the Fourth of July you could see the fireworks from your exact spot but for now you were focusing on the people around you and how much you loved every one of them. The sky was pink at the edges and it was too hot but the smell of incense and the sounds of Katamari filled the air and it felt as everything was right with the world.
David was sitting on the steps, upset, for reasons unbeknownst to you. Your rational mind wanted to sit out and comfort him, but you were too drunk and you can’t take care of others when you can’t even car for yourself. You stumbled around and stammered, looking for Michael because earlier he had eaten too many “special” brownies and was now sick and you were worried that something serious might be wrong. He didn’t want you, but you were too blind to see that.
He called and you finally heard his voice for the first time.
The smell of Dogwood is in the air and it’s an “October Fall” kind of day with jumbled emotions ringing like broken chords in your ears. The cigarette smoke is too thick so you roll down the window a little more, breathing in the moist, warm air as it causes your hair to lie limp against your neck. The sun hides shyly behind overcast clouds and the trees look too green…too bright…as if you were suddenly transported into a comic book…which would be fine because none of this feels real anyway. The music, the smell, the sounds of breathing and living and sorrow and joy are all too familiar and you’ve visited this place before but that street light was on the other side, lighting a path that you traveled reluctantly to get HERE. This place that you’ve been longing for…and you look back at all those memories as they skip and play and dance and hide…because they’re behind you but you can’t quite bring yourself to shut the door on them despite what everyone says.
As long as they’re there…you can traverse time.
