Silences and Secrets
Note: Written for NaNo 2005, which I failed rather well, but I liked the idea and the characters so I'll be posting what I have and see where I go from there. If you enjoy it, leave a review please so I know that there is a reason for me to continue writing. The parts I already have written are in alternating POV, the point of view will be in bold at the top of each chapter, underneath whatever notes I feel like sharing with you.

Enjoy!

Aaron

The world is so full of chitchat and bullshit, filled with the inconsequential words that don’t mean anything, that flow out and form nets of protection around us. Why worry about bumping into some stranger in the subway, because a shouted “I’m sorry!” eases your consciences.

Because of that, I made my most monumental decision at the precious age of twelve. I simply stopped talking one day. For awhile, they thought that I’d gotten handicapped. Sometimes, they thought my parents abused me.

It took awhile, a lot of testing, for them to figure out that instead of handicapped, I’m rather intelligent. Then, it took them longer to figure out that my family was as happy as could be expected of any. No abuse there.

My teachers began to adjust to my speechlessness, and they didn’t ask me questions, though, presentations became something different for me, a high end of different mediums. Once, for history, I chose a speech that John F. Kennedy had made, and played the tape for my class while I demonstrated the rest of my project.

My friends began to believe that my speechlessness was a sign of my intelligence. I was just so damned smart, I didn’t have to speak. The strange thing was, I’d gotten so many more friends as a mute than I’d ever had when I spoke.

Slowly, my words became unnecessary, because I had others to speak for me. They knew when they were wrong, and I knew when they were right. It was a system of silence and symbols. People didn’t have to hear me snarl when I was angry. I simply wore clothes that made the point for me. Communication was a long, arduous process, which made it easier on me to feel that I wasn’t doing things unnecessarily. No soulless words from these lips, nothing pointless, nothing that I didn’t need to say. No bullshit.

My car beat across the pavement, pulling our bodies towards the graveyard, bringing our suit-clad forms to their destination.

“Thanks,” my friend Jordan said softly and pushed the dark brown of his hair out of his face. His eyes were heavy and dreamy. High. I sighed and he looked out the window at the passing shades of green and brown and gray, the forested areas turning into urban sprawl and back again.

He glanced over at me and he reached over for a cigarette. “My great aunt…” he breathed and pulled the smoke out of my front pocket. “Did you get a chance to meet her?”

I nodded. Once. Her son, Kirk, had shunted me off to babysitting his gray haired mother, with her soft, earnest face and love of Star Trek…She’d spent so much time trying to convince me that the characters were real and I breathed out. A nice woman, if a bit crazy. I’d laughed at her, then, when I got home and wrote in my journal about the crazy woman that believed in Star Trek so badly that she named her son after the main character. Lord…I could have been nicer… But, those thoughts always catch you after the fact. Hindsight being what it is, after all.

“She was a nut,” Jordan muttered and lit the cigarette before setting my lighter down.

I couldn’t help but agree, but I shrugged and rolled my eyes.

Jordan tilted his head and looked across the dark blue interior of my car, “Sometimes,” he told me, “I wish that you would trust me enough that you’d talk to me.”

It startled me and I frowned as I looked over at him. He smiled sweetly, but it could have been a smile to the cancer-stick hanging from his lips. Anything to fog the brain.

“Oh, I know,” he murmured and inhaled, “You hate filling the world with useless bullshit.” A thin line of smoke punctuated his words and he looked back out the window, now filled with the manicured green lawns of the graveyard.

I shrugged and pulled in behind the hearse, feeling sick to my stomach. A man with cold, dead eyes and skin the color and shade of a fish dead a week glared at us as he shut off the engine of the black death-car.

“Prick,” Jordan muttered, only for my ears, but with a morbid cheerfulness. Odd for someone at a funeral. Jordan opened the door, and we both crawled out because the one on his side was the only one that opened. I really should have gotten that fixed…

“Go on, Mr. Pallbearer,” he told me and grinned. Of course, he’d gotten out of it by being a scrawny drug addict, but I had no such luck.

It’s a really bad idea to play video games about zombies before going to a funeral, especially when you’re one of the pallbearers, I decided. I spent the five minutes before one of the other pallbearers came over staring at the coffin and hoping that the nice old lady wouldn’t pop out and try to eat my brains…I rather liked my brains…

Jordan made his way to the service and I smiled sadly at him. He created a gaunt shadow in the sun.

“You know the old broad?” someone came up from behind me. I shrugged, and whoever it was asked, “Can I get a smoke?” I nodded and they reached forward and pulled the pack from my front pocket. They had their own matches and they lit the cigarette calmly. Friendly, cheerful guy, with easy features and nice eyes. I lit my own cigarette and he smiled at me. “Couldn’t ever stand the new lighters, though I do like the old Zippos. Old man was a smoker, and I used to use his old Zippo…” I nodded slowly, almost encouraging him to continue.

“Damn,” he cursed and laughed self consciously. “So, ya don’t know this lady, either?” he looked at the coffin and I saw a mirror of my brain eating zombie response. “I signed a book for her once…guess she liked it more than I thought…”

I nodded and concentrated on the worn plaid tie, then my eyes went back up to the warm, comfortable wrinkles around his eyes. His hands adjusted his tie and they were ink stained and soft. Mid-thirties is where I’d put his age…

“She seemed like a lovely old woman,” he sighed and inhaled deeply.

I nodded and watched quietly as the other pallbearers came closer, chitchatting familiarly. I took a position near the middle and waited for the others to take theirs. Because I towered over them, I ducked down slightly. They laughed and one of the guys on my right muttered, “Don’t. The taller you are, the less we have to carry…”

I shrugged and stood up, all six foot ten of me, and immediately, “oomph…”

“Old hag,” one of them muttered sourly and we began to move.

“Bought the coffin filled with lead,” someone muttered sourly.

“Naw, she filled it with her Star Trek memorabilia…”

I smiled as I was supposed to, and they grew somber as we grew close to the crowd. Kirk spoke to them and he sniffled softly, while his kids watched the coffin with a guilty horror. I guess it hadn’t occurred to them that Grandma was really dead.

“My mother was a trusting woman,” Kirk told us, “Sometimes, I felt she was almost naïve, but she was the kind of woman to put up a man that could smile sweetly at her and thank her sincerely. She always swore that a man with good hands was a good man…”

I checked my hands…Were they good hands? I couldn’t tell…

“Tragic thing,” the guy I’d been talking to before muttered to my back, “She had a heart attack…” I nodded and, despite the glare from a couple near us, he continued, “I heard it said that the reason she had a heart attack was because her grandkids finally convinced her that the characters of Star Trek weren’t real…” I frowned and nodded…It did seem like something that would happen to her. So cheerfully bizarre.

“We’re breaking the sanctity,” he grinned, and the corners of his lips curled in slightly, charmingly. It made him look like an imp. I shrugged. He was absolutely fascinating and I couldn’t help but listen with my head tilted towards him, absolutely curious.

“M’ name’s Graham,” he smiled and reached out. He had nice hands, I noticed with my head tilted. Smooth and the ink stains gave them personality, as did the writer’s callous on the middle finger. “You don’t talk much, do you?”

Sometime during our discussion, though I didn’t speak a word, the service had ended and Jordan came up behind us, “He doesn’t talk at all,” he told Graham, “He doesn’t like to fill the world with inconsequentialities…”

“So, you’re his voice?” Graham noticed and looked at us with interest. I shrugged and Jordan nodded. Apparently, he figured he was my voice. I didn’t think I needed one, much less one like Jordan’s, a little bit high pitched, but not unpleasantly so, and dreamy… Usually, more than a little stoned.

“Aaron,” Jordan whined to me, “I’ve done what Mom asked me to, can we leave? This place gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

I nodded and we left, waving at everybody. I gave Graham a smile before leaving the graveyard and getting into the parking lot. The creepy man with the dead fish-face glared at us again and Jordan frowned. “If I die,” he muttered, “Please don’t let him drive the hearse.”

I frowned but nodded. I wouldn’t let the creepy fish-face anywhere near Jordan. He freaked me out too, and likely, I could have knocked him across the floor with my pinky finger.

Jordan held onto my arm, body like a furnace, hot and creating more heat. “God I need a fix,” he groaned as he climbed into the car after me. “You got anything?”

I shook my head firmly and started the engine, letting the dinky, clunky engine start. Lord, I was smarter than that. Why would I keep illegal substances in my car? Or my body, for that matter.

I glanced over at him and saw him lick his lips dreamily, while his fingers twitched on his arms. No track marks…boy was smarter than that… Of course, once upon a time, I’d thought he was smarter than doing drugs. Tell you what I know… When, or if, I ever saw him shooting up instead of just smoking, that’d be when I took him to rehab and locked the door myself. I wasn’t going to let my best friend get into that kind of shit.

His house was big and white, and his mother waited for us at the door. By unspoken agreement, we didn’t let him out of our sights for very long if we could help it… Of course, he always found a way around us, found a way to shoot up and another way to break his precious mother’s heart.

I nodded politely to his mother and escorted Jordan in. As soon as we were in his room, barren and white, with dull white walls, but a luxurious bed. I’d heard him once say that he’d fuck anybody that could supply him with just a little bit more. Several were willing to take up his offer…

He was already reaching into a drawer and he brought out a bag of weed. “Want some?” he muttered and I shook my head. While he’d given up on life and school, I still had hopes of going to college. Nobody’s going to give a kid with a drug addiction entrance into their schools.

“Of course not,” he muttered, “Don’t fill the air with no bullshit, don’t fill your body with no bullshit…” he sighed and crawled onto his bed. “Follow,” he ordered and I didn’t resist. He never tried to seduce me, for which I’m heavily thankful. He was like my little brother, and the fact I had to protect him only made that need stronger.

He curled against me, using me to fight his nightmares, like a teddy bear. I never admitted it to him, but I used him to fight my own nightmares.