dullleight

[dullleight]

“Eren.”

He came up to me one day when I was in the library, books piled high around me and my head sunken against the table like a hermit. I didn’t want to look at him. I was scared of who I might see. Who I couldn’t stop seeing. In my dreams, nightmares, and reality.

“What?” The exasperation in my voice was apparent but he hadn’t yet learned what that meant. He didn’t know a lot of things. Like the importance of water or the telling signs someone is on the verge of hitting him square in the jaw.

“I am Eren.”

And suddenly everything was beautiful.

I looked up at him and he was wearing a shabby dress shirt tucked into baggy pants. It made him look bigger. It was so not Sven that I felt dizzy. There he was — this incomprehensible thing looking like a young adult drowning in clothing three times his size and he was still my friend.

There was Sven. Standing before me. And yet there was Eren. And it was a beautiful thing, because it was the first decision he made for himself.

[dullleight]

“You’re a shapeshifter.” Sven — this being using Sven’s body — walked in a loopy line down the middle of my room. My chair scraped against the wood as I scooted until my back hit my desk.

“No?” It said, like it was questioning what it really was. Like maybe it had the wrong name and I did. “No,” it settled it for final, shaking its hair. I watched as it parted to the side and all I could see was Sven; confused as to the words I was using but sure as ever that he was Sphen and that was all he would ever be.

“Then what” — my voice cracked and I had to look away with a sniff — “a doppelgänger? A clone? Some sort government experiment. I mean, damn, you have to understand how crazy this is.”

[dullleight]

Sven was dead. I saw his open casket. I held his cold hand in my own. I looked in to his dull, greying eyes. I knew he was dead. There was no argument there. So the man in front of me was not Sven. That did not account for the way they shared the same eyes, the same hair, the same mouth, the same face; every thing was the same.

[dullleight]

His name was Tristen Ellis and his mother Jane was single; he never knew his father. I thought that was a sad thing for a boy to have growing up. No father to lean on and only a mother’s discipline. He told me that he grew out pretty fine and he’d like it if I kept my nose to my own cheeks. I thought that was funny, but I didn’t tell him that. Instead, I said,

“Why do they call you Sven?”

He wringed out a wet rag above the bucket he had leaned against the wall. The weight of the water dropping had it leaning side-to-side. “My mama likes Peter Cook.” I didn’t know what mean and I hated looking stupid so I changed the subject.

“Are you Canandian?”

“No,” he shook his head and leaves fell from somewhere. Maybe the window, maybe his hair, but he was covered in them. “Why would you think I was Canadian?”

“I don’t,” I knocked my finger back at Lilo who was sitting cross on the bench with a lollipop in his mouth. “He does. I know Canada isn’t real.”

Tristen gave me this look, the kind a ten year old should not be capable of making. He was amused and annoyed, and neither could settle on his cheeks so his thinned out his lips.

[dullleight]

I met Tristen when I was twelve years old and he ten. It was nearing autumn with the leaves turning an odd shade of grey that drained away the life for the forest but still gave some color to what had already been dulled in town.

There was a new bed and breakfast across the street for the movie theater. I first saw it after a showing of Chinatown that the neighboring kid Lilo thought was too inapropriate for us, but I didn’t care. I was a fan of Jack Nicholson.

He threw the leftover popcorn at me as we ran down the aisles to the exit. An old attendee called out after us asking where our parents were and how old were we and did we know it was illegal to sneak in. We knew. Yet we did it so much that we cared very little for whatever consequences may have followed.

The B&B took over Old Tonnson’s place, an old kook who swore a about a Civil war sergeant living in his walls and how he didn’t believe in fairytales like Easter. Lilo poked fun at the man but I always thought he was living the real story of life and we were just his supporting cast. The Lawrence Walsh to his Jake Gittes.

The building wasn’t that big but it was bigger than any I had ever seen at the time. It had three balconies on either side of its second story with long, red curtains shading the rooms just beyond. The roof was brown, the same shade at the graying trees. There was a small porch that had a stretch of stairs leading to a balcony. A table sat in the corner that looked to be a service desk but there was no chair and boxes of what appeared to be oats sat stack atop.

The building had appareaed out of no where. Overnight, my brain thought logically, though I doubted it was there before we entered the theater two hours go. I didn’t say that aloud, instead I pulled on Lilo’s jacket string and I pointed, “Look who moved in to Old Man Tonnson’s place.”

“My pa’ said they are from out of country. Canada.” He bent down to tie his shoes, swatting away my hand from his jacket before I choked him.

“No one lives in Canada.” I got on the tip of my toes, trying to look past the drawn curtains to see who was inside. We were to far across street to see. “Hey, let’s get closer,” I said and I blindly swatted at Lilo’s back. I hit his head. He hit me back with a yelp.

“Sure, they do.” He was still stuck on Canada. “My Pa’ had a distant uncle whose bosses friend’s mother knew someone in Canada. They drink milk out of bag, you know.” Lilo’s father — Pa — always knew someone from somewhere who knew someone from somewhere else. Some days I thought he was lying to be cool while others I thought maybe he was just that gullible.

“Canada isn’t real, now let’s go.” I grabbed the sleeve of his jacket before he could get a word in, stumbling across the street as the flashing red light went tk-tck-tk-tck.

[dullleight]

It was Christmas time again and the community townsfolk were stringing lights along the lampposts of the streets. It helped bring a sense of calm and unity when the next season the divide would have us at each other’s throats again. They should keep the lights year around, to avoid the constant car wrecks down 56th and towards the old railroad station. No one wanted to listen to a sick man running off of charred cigarettes and honey.

There was a bar next to the daycare. It’s been there since before I can remember. Most single parent would park in the bustling 8am parking to be relieved of their kid and then turn to get sloshed, spending the evening with a round of dominos or poker. It was an every father tradition, as well. Or every friend of my father.

It was Christmas time and my hands were turning blue in the cold. Dad’s car was old and its heater never worked the same so most days I went without warmth for hours on end. It was nearing hour four, daycare having been done and through six ago, and my fingers were stuck holden around an Agatha Christie novela.

I was going to get dad’s keys, I decided. Even as my hands shook and my teeth chattered, a deep penetrating feeling in my gut. He would get mad about the waste of gas when I left it running for so long, but then I’d tell him about hypothermia and he shook his head with a sorrowful pride.

[dullleight]

EIGHT . HE/HIM . 18+

This is a side blog, one of many, that I intend to use and keep for drafts of stories and originals characters for the sake of not losing them. I do not intend to do anything with them except right stories just for myselfz

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The Unsettling Life of Tristen Ellis

A story about two young boys who find each other across the street and start a life-long bond; until one of then dies and the other is left with the haunting image of his friends waking corpse.