11/1/12
Location: Same as the last two days...
Music: Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back soundtrack (Damn it, Rhi)
Please note: This piece is rather long, for me anyway. Go and get a cup of coffee and a biscuit, and tell all of the people you're talking to on Facebook to hold on for 15 minutes. FOr optimal effect, I recommend putting on some light classical, maybe a film soundtrack or some ambient electronica in the background. And now... go for it.
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"You'll never stop the rain." A cliché. As the boy looked out onto the dry dirt of the courtyard he was amazed that rain was even a thing. Here neither scrappy weed nor a single blade of grass poked its head above the dry dirt, nor had it ever. The alien looking, most likely chemically contaminated soil refused to relent to the forces of nature.
The boy rested his hands on the glass of the window; there was no way into the courtyard, it existing solely to let a shaft of natural light into the cheap apartments without externally facing windows. The boy was a resident of one of these cheap apartments. The loud television of a neighbour echoed across the courtyard. A young couple embraced each other a floor down, the boy feeling a note of despair that he had nothing like that. The man in the apartment beneath them leaned out his window to smoke a strange pipe, the smell of which could be discerned even by the boy, through the glass of his own.
The apartment directly across from the boy suddenly illuminated. He turned his head, curious; this apartment was to his knowledge empty. A girl; perhaps 17 or 18; with slightly curling blonde hair entered, following a solemn looking man in a cheap grey suit. The man in the grey suit the boy knew, for he was the building manager. Mr. Curtis, from memory, the man's voice never seemed to synchronise with his lips. Any conversation with him, the boy thought, was like watching a badly dubbed commercial, or an ill-synchronised television. But the girl, the girl he didn't know. She was attractive, though her plain clothing and style didn't tell the boy much about her personality. Was she perhaps a student, seeking accommodation much like him? That made sense; the new term started in a few weeks. Regardless, she seemed to be settling in, Mr. Curtis handing her the keys.
"I should introduce myself" said the boy, out loud but to an audience of none.
- - -
"Perhaps I should introduce myself..." said the girl, looking across at the window opposite her new apartment.
She thought she had seen a boy through the window, but she wasn't sure. She looked out at the courtyard below her new home. There was a man smoking, another watching a huge television clearly visible from two floors above him. A couple were removing each other’s clothing whilst reclined on a couch, oblivious to the fact they were in clear view of their neighbours. The girl smiled, both for the fact that she was a witness to something she was not supposed to be, and for the couple's obvious infatuation. As trite a cliché young love was, it certainly seemed to apply. She figured the building must mostly be students; that was why she was here, anticipating her studies in a few weeks. The dirt in the courtyard below was barren and empty, but the girl could appreciate its beauty, straight raked lines in the dirt reminding her of a Zen garden.
She wandered around the apartment aimlessly, thrilled by the fact that it was, in fact, hers and hers alone. There were no parents to boss her around, but instead she was responsible for her own cooking and cleaning, and making sure she paid the utilities and the rent. Lying on her bed, she realised that there was only one thing she wasn't excited about; the fact that she was kind of lonely.
- - -
The boy sat alone, at his computer by the window, constantly glancing at the window across from him. The girl seemed to keep to her room, where the windows were understandably curtained, only moving into the visible room to cook and occasionally watch television. She hadn't noticed the boy, who kept his curtains mostly closed and his lights off. He preferred things this way - he didn’t want to be known as that creep that liked to watch people out of windows.
Turning to his computer, he glanced over the headlines with the same grim attention he did every day. The Middle East was turning into as much of a warzone as it had at the millennium’s dawn. The European situation was similar, near-bankrupt states picking the bones of bankrupt ones, free of the confines of old European Union. The United States continued its decent into a corpocracy, another sham election turning to shambles with both parties equally corrupt and financed by the same faceless men. This was how the boy saw it anyway, reading between the lines and all that. Looking out the window, he saw the girl was watching her ancient TV, a news anchor clearly visible through the glass. He sighed; she clearly had the same direly uninformed view on reality as most of the people the boy knew.
- - -
The girl smirked disapprovingly at her aging television. The news was shallow, displacing the important stories for mindless garbage about miracle diets and attention-seeking celebrities. But there were some good things. The US election looked towards electing a decent President, at least better than the corporate lackey currently in power. Peace deals were being brokered in Europe and Asia. Amongst the endlessness of human conflict, there were these glimmers of hope, these moments which showed that humanity wasn't all bad.
She had seen the boy through the window a few more times, always fleetingly. There was the constant glow of a computer screen or a small television visible through the curtains. Occasionally she saw a face, thin and clean shaven, shaggy brown hair covering a set of piercing eyes. Music, mainly classical and ambient, could be heard across the courtyard from the boy's room every now and again. She wondered what he was like. Was he an intellectual type, a thinker? Perhaps a musician or an artist? She could only wonder.
- - -
It had been a week since the girl had moved into her apartment and curiously the boy found her still playing on his mind. The boy needed milk, bread, the staples of any member of western society, so he prepared for the usual uneventful expedition to the supermarket. He waited impatiently for the elevator, the clank of late 20th-century mass production signalling its arrival. As he punched the button for the ground floor a voice came down the hall. It was emotive and feminine, the polar opposite to his own deep, monotonous delivery.
- - -
"I know you!" The girl grinned, running into the elevator as the doors closed behind her. Holding the elevator was the boy who she'd seen through the window, his brown hair all but covering his now clearly blue eyes. "You live across from me, don't you? 1208?"
The boy had strangely been playing on her mind all week, so to meet him here was a nice surprise.
- - -
"Um, yeah. I think I've seen you a few times too." The boy's voice crackled with nerves. The girl's blonde hair, pulled back in a ponytail trailed behind her like silk. She was more beautiful than he'd been able to discern through the window, so much so that he was lost for words. Any negative assumptions about her intelligence or her personality disappeared like a well-constructed magician's trick.
"So... you moved here recently, didn't you?"
- - -
The girl came to the conclusion the boy had been watching her as she had watched him. She was excited by the mere fact that she'd managed to capture someone's attention.
"I'm here to study, yes" she responded, leaping ahead of the boys questioning. "I lived out in the country, so my parents gave me some money to rent an apartment. What do you do?"
- - -
"Oh, I'm doing a finance degree" The boy sighed internally. He hated telling people this, since it seemed to be rather boring. It wasn't as exciting as a degree in architecture or fine arts, but it was secure, and that's what mattered. He looked at the girl, thinking she must be doing something more exciting. Perhaps she was studying archaeology, maybe psychology, something interesting like that.
- - -
"Hey, I'm doing the same!" the girl exclaimed, smiling at the boy with a mutual understanding of the boredom of commerce. But before she could continue their conversation, the elevator doors slid aside. A grey lobby led into a grey street. A single lamp with a red lampshade stood bright in the middle of the lobby, the only colour to see. The girl sighed internally, for she wanted to keep talking to this boy. He seemed shy, perhaps even brooding, but he was kind of cute, and she was still curious to his true personality.
"Look, do you want to perhaps come to my apartment later on? Have a coffee?"
- - -
The boy was stunned. No one had asked him to come to their apartment before, let alone a cute girl. This was the closest he'd had to a date since high school. His voice still crackled with nerves, the whole situation overwhelmingly unfamiliar.
"Yeah, sure" he blurted out, immediately unsure as to whether he'd come on too strong, if he was looking socially incompetent or desperate.
- - -
"Cool" the girl smiled, blushing a little.
"Um... 4 o'clock sound good to you? This afternoon?"
- - -
"Yeah sure" The boy said, as nervous as ever. "By the way, I don't think I introduced myself. I'm Chris." He held out his hand, awkwardly but socially conditioned to be able to do nothing else,
- - -
Taking his hand, the girl continued to blush. She was getting a little nervous now, but was pleased.
"Eve. See you at four"
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I write a lot of lovey-dovey crap. And I hate to proofread anything of a decent length, so I'm sure this is rife with errors. But I might proofread it when I get to an internet connection and put these on a blog...
The weather today was incredibly shitty, so I stayed inside and played RollerCoaster Tycoon whilst pondering the meaning of life, and whether or not Deckard was actually a replicant. I think film Deckard was a replicant, but book Deckard wasn't. If you wish to debate me on that, please feel free to not contact me ever. And the meaning of life? Jury's still out.
I have come to the conclusion the Star Wars soundtracks are excellent writing music. Intense enough to stir the emotions without causing distractions like lyrical stuff tends to.
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