Fragment 7: July 9, 2017
The half-empty glass of orange juice had long begun to sweat- even after looking through the shadow of my silhouette on the highly reflective window, where the first cracks of dawn seeped from the eastern horizon- the moisture continued to congeal around its circumference, pooling into cold beads of condensation and finally dripping down to the table's wooden finish.
I lifted the cup, the ice clinking against each other as I allowed the exuding coolness to placate my nerves. I brought the glass to my lips and took a drawn sip, taking the time to swirl the tangy flavor around the insides of my cheeks and palate before gulping.
It was still considerably dark out, having left home at five-thirty-ish with the presumption that I could meet Erin and Cinelli no less than twenty minutes later. A quick glance at the wall clock hanging from the Chatterbox's rustic brick walls revealed that it was already six-fifteen, exactly the time of day for the temporal wasteland stuck in the midst of dawn and dusk.
And so, with the diminishing orange juice on one hand, I fumbled for my phone and speed-dialed Cinelli. I counted a total of five rings before she picked up.
"Come on," I said. "What the hell happened to the plan? What happened to 'I'll be there on time'?" I uttered the last syllable in a manner that resembled a deriding staccato. I have no idea whether my frustration translated through her cellphone's speakers.
"'Kay, B-R-B," Cinelli said, not even making an effort to guise the grogginess that marred her voice.
I ended the call and anxiously drummed my fingers on the table. It struck me as odd, sure I could somewhat understand Cinelli's incapacity to do anything, but Erin most certainly should've been here by now. Downing the last of the orange juice, I proceeded call her.
The phone rang a couple of times until the monotonous buzzing fell, shortly followed by the trademark sizzle of static. I took a few quick breaths and made a cursory run through what I wanted to say.
"Uh, hi Erin," I said. Nothing instilled from the other line, but I swore I heard what sounds like the indeterminate snuffling of a cat, or maybe something remotely similar.
"Erin?" I asked. Was this a wrong number?
"Hey, Jaylen," Erin finally spoke, her voice small and hushed. "The rendezvous, right. I was just- just readying my things. I'll be there in a few, sorry."
"Cinelli isn't here yet, it's okay."
"Sure, right. Sorry again."
I wanted to dispel the notion, I could possibly be fretting over nothing entirely, but these waves of emotions- all with varying discernibility- continued to waft through my senses. I felt my stomach tighten and churn with the tentative truth presented to me. Something was up. I knew it, my guts knew it- it's just the uncontested intuition of the human mind to tell when something was wrong. I wished to inquire further, ask her if she was really alright and if she could make it here, but my hesitation broke the line, Erin ended the call.
Anxiety. I didn't have a grasp on the full meaning of the word and I had nowhere the amount of expertise to diagnose myself, but I'm confident enough that what I'm feeling in this instance is, indeed, anxiety.
As the fated encounter drew nearer (my alleged pre-comatose girlfriend's promise on taking me to a day out), I dedicated the whole day beforehand on prepping myself; engaging conversations with the mirror, rehearsing the most likely replies I'd use, even visualizing how the day would probably turn out. Still, no amount of envisioning and preparation truly acclimates one's self to the real thing.
And now, two days after re-reading the box of letters, they stood before me- Erin and an unknown accomplice with wild hair ruffled the wrong way, almost like its captured in a permanent state of having just woken up- their mere presence loomed tremendous weight over the minute hospital room which, maybe due to excessive familiarity, I oddly began calling home.
Then again, I had no idea to what a home should be like, literally anything beats me.
On the track of familiarity, my attention initially pulled me to Erin who stood near the head of the bed. She had on that same tense smile I saw not too long ago, a blouse of solid pink and faded denim jeans, short hair meticulously combed, effortlessly spilling out unto her bare shoulders.
I remain stoic on the flat mattress, her attire filling me with the slightest hint of insecurity for my own selection of clothing; a black graphic shirt (of some random boy band, I think) that clung loosely to my torso, and now that I've thought about it in the moment figured that it must've been at least two sizes too big. As if to finish accentuating my deranged line of fashion sense, I also had on a pair of dark blue cargo pants and flip flops, the latter of which only present in the one foot I can comfortably wiggle my toes in.
I resumed my attention, past Erin to the figure rooted on the far corner of the room. His foot was firmly placed outside through the ajar door, giving the impression of his willingness to bolt at a moment's notice.
"Get inside." Erin motioned over, prompting the boy to fully enter the room and close the door behind him. Now with ample lighting, I examined the neutral contours of his face- and even if it were the features of a stranger, by looking at his pupils I felt the tiny sparks of a vague connection. Maybe if I searched hard enough I can find and express the syllables of his name which I knew were at the very tips of my tongue.
"You must be Joss," I said, "Joss Whedon?"
"Uh…" The boy's eyes widened, his lips puckering a bit. I knew that feeling, perhaps far too well, when there's a lot you want to say but the words just don't seem to come.
Erin cleared her throat and pushed the black-rimmed glasses up to the bridge of her nose. "Jaylen, I would like you to meet Peter Suptic, a schoolmate from Dolores Science. You've been friends since fifth grade."
Never mind, I have no idea who this person is.
"Jeez, what a bland introduction," he said, briefly sharing a gaze with Erin who gave a plain and omitted stare.
Peter Suptic. I've heard that before. "You're the guy from the letter," I said.
"Hah, yes, that's me, the guy from the letter." Peter made a weak smirk and a tiny wave of the hand.
I nodded and waved back, but it felt more like an act of obligation rather than sincerity.
"Like Erin over there said, the name's Peter Suptic. Pleased to be re-acquainted with thee," he said, extending his arm in greeting. With a mental shrug, I acquiesced and shook it.
"How are you doing?" Peter asked as our palms broke off, a quivering twinkle of a smile now present on his face.
"I think I'm doing fine," I replied.
"That's great.".
"Sure is."
"Good to hear.".
"Yep."
And so, we nodded at each other for what felt like two seconds, maybe even three.
"Alright," Erin clasped her hands together. "Shall we go then?"
"Cinelli said she'll meet us at the bus stop," I said, pushing the phone back into my pocket. I had every reason to doubt that text, but I still wanted to believe that this day could be retrieved from its less than graceful start.
Erin nodded. "We're behind schedule, but no worries we'll just have to adjust, sorry."
Instead of dwelling on the fact that uttering consolation and apology under the same breath didn't make much sense, I decided to focus on the crisp morning air as we strolled down Main Street. I kicked an asphalt chunk from the sidewalk and watched as it rolled over at least four blocks of dappled rocks, all the while kicking off dust and residue before finally crumbling on gravel.
From my position, several steps behind Erin, I caught myself absentmindedly gazing at the side of her face, noting how a breeze off the woods brings together the familiar essence of pine and rotting bark and how the same breeze disperses her hair with the crisp morning draft, lifting and falling and lifting again to graze upon her plump and pale cheeks.
I opened my mouth but then shut it as I regarded her unusual stillness.
"Hmm?" Erin hummed, nonchalantly looking over her shoulder to me.
Abruptly thrown from my train of thoughts, I hastily downplayed the scenario and pretended to be looking past her the whole time, across the street to Seigfried's small white frame house sitting forward on its lot, boasting his large tidy vegetable garden and respectable lawn. The scheme would've worked had I not brushed contact with her eyes before commencing on faux admiration for the old man's bed of petunias.
"Uh," I uttered, forcing my gaze back to hers. She continued to look at me, wide-eyed and an inquisitive arc on one brow. She's probably wondering why I was ogling at her. I made a mental note of kicking myself later.
"I didn't mean to," I said. I felt my heart squeeze and contract in my chest.
"What?"
There was a pregnant lull between us, and with the thoughts of her swishing hair, the peculiar phone call, and Seigfried's freshly trimmed Bermuda grass circling in my head, I just now realized that we stopped walking.
"What do you mean by that?" she asked, fully facing me now. "Didn't mean to what?"
"I didn't mean to stare, I just want to clear that up. I really don't want to be labeled as some creep." I said, ensuing in a nervous chuckle.
Her charcoal eyes seemed to become more intense by the second. Deducing that I can't possibly keep this up, I broke eye contact and resorted to playing with my beaten sneakers, like they were the most important thing in the world right now.
"You were… staring at me?" Erin said, her voice almost a whisper.
What? "What?" I said.
There was another lull, with me gaping incredulously and her furrowed under agitation, or was it embarrassment? I took note of how her pale cheeks suddenly ignited to a fresh pink.
I clicked my tongue, best to get this over with. "I- uh, just, this may really be nothing at all, it's really early in the morning so maybe it's just that, but you know me, I'm an overthinker, well, not really, but in the same sense that I just have a knack of taking small details under extreme scrutiny and I can't help thinking about it over and over- yeah, that's exactly what an overthinker is, I'm such a- "
I cleared my throat and steered myself from droning on. Erin stood in attention, head cocked to the side and arms crossed over her chest.
"I guess what I'm trying to say is… I wanted to ask if everything's alright… with you?"
I stood there, scratching my cheek and rubbing the heel cap of my sneakers together, waiting for some sort of response.
"I mean, yeah- it's really just early in the morning and you're probably tired. My guts were just- "
"Yes, Jaylen," Erin said, her lips curving upwards to a soft smile. "I'm really fine. Thanks for asking, it means a lot."
I nodded. "That's good, really great to hear."
And so, we continued walking, the warm fuzzy feeling in me seemed to quell the rushes of frigid air. I worried over nothing at all.
Revelations are conceived from the consequent lack of information and experience- which then serve as precursors to mysteries. The hospital is built like a concrete square, and aside from the park, a small respite from the identical stretching corridors, located at its hollowed center, I've never really had to chance to experience the true magnitude of being in an open space underneath the vast and extensive sky with all its billowing clouds and ostensibly drifting blue seas.
Gazing up at the massive elevation- something so profound yet still so inclusive- allowed me to paint a coarse outlook on the sheer scale of this very confusing world, but by the end of it I still wasn't sure whether I felt huge or insignificant or even nothing at all.
The ride to Bayshore's local strip mall went by with such lackluster, the silence only intermediated by brief moments of meaningless chatter. Not that it mattered too much, I for one engrossed myself on the new sights and sounds passing through the taxi's open window; the squawking seagulls, the distant crashing of the ocean, but it is after a salty zephyr kicking up sandy debris into my eye that I came with a realization.
"Bayshore," I said. "The city is named Bayshore because it's a bay that's beside a shore."
The opposite traffic whizzed by, stirring Erin's hair who also peered outside the window. "It's too literal and flat a depiction for my tastes," she said.
"Shorebay, it honestly could go the other way around," Peter chimed. From our first encounter, I think I've come to grow on him in the brief period we've been together. Sure, he was still a borderline complete stranger, but at least now I can tolerate his presence. I also felt like this is a person I can trust, if that's possible for a person you just met.
"They could've been the least bit more creative into thinking up a name," Erin continued. "But yes, Bayshore is literally a bay beside a shore."
Moments later, I exited the taxi with minor difficulty. Stopping at what looked like the south side of the building, I first felt around with my crutch the ridges and cracks of the desolate parking lot's paving. The strip mall had a rectangular edifice; a flat roof, smooth featureless walls save for the few movie posters spanning across two of the four stories, and particularly pronounced corners giving way to what looked to be the mall's entrance proper.
By then the sun was already heating up the thick sinews of fabric of my shirt. I was happy with going out and all but after being holed up in that asylum for so long (exaggeration), my meek and fragile body (exaggeration, again) accustomed to constant air-conditioning naturally still longed for the refuge of my home, err, room.
"What are we doing, exactly?" I asked after the sound of the taxi's popping engine sped off down the road.
"You won't remember but we actually go here a lot," she said. "What better way to hang out than with one of your favorite pastimes?"
I squinted. "And what is that?"
Peter placed a hand on my shoulder and then got close to my face, so close that his hot and gummy breath hit my neck. "The arcades," he whispered with such jubilee and excitement.
What the hell are arcades?
The whole fifty-minute trip to Bayshore was filled with excruciating silence. Sandwiched between Cinelli and Erin from the bus's row of three-seater chairs, I contemplated on whether I should've gotten up from bed in the first place.
But then it occurred to me that this is exactly the kind of responsibility that dissuaded me from enlisting in the Writing Club, or any club at all, in the first place.
My eyes wandered to the slumbering Cinelli, her face pressed against the bus's chilled window and tucked behind messy strands of auburn locks. I couldn't help but feel lightened from her complacency, and with Erin who quietly sat with her palms resting on her lap- the memory of her reassurance of everything being okay still fresh in my mind, I figured that it was a small price to pay just to have a valid excuse on spending the whole day with both of them.
We pulled up at the last station, which happened to be the one nearest the beach.
Erin stood up and patted down the underside of her skirt. "You should wake her up," she said, nudging at Cinelli's direction. I nodded and watched as she made her way down the steps.
After making sure that Erin had truly left, I turned to Cinelli's figure lying demurely before me. I placed a hand on the shoulder pointing to me and carefully careened the other on the one trapped between the window and her weight. With guided and controlled force, I gave her a few firm shakes, sending her body into a miniature convulsion.
I couldn't stifle a laugh as she abruptly sat up, eyes dilating in frenzied panic, seemingly snared in a fight-or-flight scenario. A few seconds pass and finally the realization hit her that she was still in the bus, and after coming to terms with being thrown from dreamland she glared at me.
"Asshole," she muttered under her breath.
"God, I wish I recorded that," I said. She begrudgingly got up and scooted past me, I hurried after her and together we exited the bus.
"Here's the plan," Erin said, reading something off of her phone. "Originally, we were supposed to take sunrise photos here at the station or maybe down the pier, and then go to the viewing deck for some overhead snapshots, but since we didn't quite catch that we'll just have to adjust and substitute with sunset photos. Is that okay with you guys?"
"That's prefect," I said.
"Cool," Cinelli shrugged. "But why not just take pictures of the sun right now and just photoshop it so it's like just coming out of the sea. Or something."
Erin chuckled. "I don't think photography works like that," she said, turning to me. "Right, Jay?"
At the mention of that, I consciously readjusted the duffel bag slung over my shoulder, shifting the camera in its holster so that the weight wasn't hitting my waist.
"Yeah, sure."
Cinelli shrugged. "Don't ask him for anything, he only uses that camera for his wannabe journalism."
"Hey," I began, wagging a threatening finger at her. "You're only here today to bring my equipment, and even that you aren't doing."
"I actually caption the photos, so…"
"Photos that I'll be taking," I said. I attempted the deriding staccato again, only this time I was aware of how a penultimate failure it was as soon as it left my mouth.
"With your wannabe journalism camera?" she miffed, walking over to the nearby bench.
"Alright," Erin said, whistling through her teeth. "We've got a lot of ground to cover, let's begin, shall we?"
As we passed the threshold of the arcade- the dark carpeted floor serving as clear distinction from the rest of the mall's glossy marble -only one thought seemed to cross my mind; it's really loud.
Peter waved to me from the counter displaying all sorts of mish-mashed goodies, from small confections to stuffed bear plushies and replica handguns. I see him mouth a sentence to me and I strained to hear over the clamor of buzzing and ringing machines noisily intermingling with each other.
Overhead, obnoxious neon blinked a multitude of colors, rapidly and intermittently, stretching from one end of the room's high ceiling to another. I followed the strobing lights and traced the curvatures to letters until I ended up with one emboldened locution, which pressed on me like someone screaming at point-blank.
"Cyberzone?" I remarked to Erin, who herself looked distantly ahead.
"Yep, this is what an arcade is," she said, gesturing to the rows of wooden cabinets housing proportionally-sized CRT televisions. Sporadically mixed in yet consecutively knit together were miniature basketball hoops and crane machines, and in the variable spaces in-between lay tables containing what appeared to be flat plastic disks and matching pairs of paddles.
"It's so loud, though," I said, which made her smile.
"You and Cinelli would just lose the whole day just being here," she said.
My brows raised at the mention of Cinelli's name, and I found myself searching the big charcoal eyes behind her glasses. I imagine her recalling some sort of jovial or forlorn memory, if only delving in her gaze could grant me the answers I seek.
"Cinelli…" I whispered, the name alien on my mouth. But Erin, perhaps not hearing me, sauntered off to join Peter.
"Dude," Peter said after I caught up with them. "You may have amnesia but look on the bright side, you get to relive the experience of your first time in an arcade!"
I nodded indifferently, his enthusiasm not rubbing off to me at all.
"Where should we start, then?" I asked Peter, his eyes sparking with anticipation.
"I thought you'd never ask! There's this really good one that's fully interactive- "
I felt Erin's hand wrap around my forearm. "Right, before that, I want to show Jaylen something."
There it was again, Erin and Peter sharing a vague and unreadable glance.
"Alright," he said. "I'll just go play Polybius or something, I'll wait for you guys."
I was about to ask what a karaoke is when Erin began pulling me, not forceful in anyway, perhaps she was still mindful of my walking impairment. We meandered our way to the far end of the arcade to an arrangement of enclosed booths painted in vibrant hues. It was semi-translucent, but I could make out circles of light dancing through the plastic window of the sliding door.
"What's that?" I asked as Erin inserted two coins into the slotted compartment beside the booth.
"Come," she said. She pushed the door to the side and ushered me inside.
There was plenty of room for an individual, but just snug for at least four adults or adolescents or whatever. My current age has never really crossed my mind, yet here the thought is, during a point when it doesn't really matter.
I sat on the cushioned seat as Erin pulled the door back behind her. Across from us faced a sizeable flat screen television almost hugging the corners of the booth, in it displayed what looked like three-dimensional characters prancing around in a beach.
"Is karaoke like a movie streaming booth or…" I said, but I quickly quieted myself as Erin plucked out two mics from a hidden drawer at the television's base. She also brought out a songbook (I could tell from the taped label on the front of the thick paperback) and quickly skimmed through the contents.
"Karaoke is a place where you can sing to your heart's content," she said, indexing through the pages. "It's okay if you don't really sound that good, what's important is the connection made with the person you sing the song with. A-ha." Erin landed a finger on what I assume to be the song she was looking for.
"Okay." I reluctantly took the mic from Erin and wondered why Peter couldn't come with us. There's legroom for at least two more people and I also spotted two more mics inside the drawer from when Erin opened it.
Erin looked up from the book, our eyes locked for a brief moment before she entered in the number combination of the designated song in the karaoke's button dials.
"God damn it." I condoned Cinelli who noisily slurped her mocha latte. "This isn't our money to spend."
The school had generously allotted us a respectable budget so that we could perform our endeavors for the school newspaper (which was to provide quality photos of anything interesting really, we happened to settle on landscape shots). The budget includes and is strictly limited to transportation, printing, the renting fee for the school's photographing equipment like tripods and reflectors and extra leeway cash to enter certain establishments for optimal camera angle's sake. The list does not include Starbucks coffee.
"Relax, it's just five bucks."
"Five bucks?" I asked, averting my gaze from the camera's viewfinder for a moment. "That really doesn't change the fact."
"Want some?" she offered, forcing the green straw into my lips.
I reflexively turned my head away and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. "Oh, no thanks. I really have a severe prejudice against things that are needlessly expensive."
"So grumpy, you really need the dose of caffeine."
"Wow," I hear Erin exclaim in amazement. "You could see the whole city from way up here."
It's true, from the top floor of the High Rise's twelve stories (the tallest accessible building in Bayshore), one could really see it all behind the viewing deck's metal railings. At a single static glance, the city is concisely captured- from the old rusted water tower surrounded by swaying palms at the very outskirts to the cerulean waves plowing on the ivory sand at the beach, from the Gensan City's light tower filmed over by a thin veil of morning fog in the distance to Cinelli casually tousling her hair between her fingers- one does indeed see the city.
"Everything looks really tiny from a distance," Erin commented, sitting down on the space beside Cinelli.
"That's what distance does," Cinelli said, sipping more of her coffee. "It compresses."
I continued snapping away with Cinelli's words lingering in my head.
It compresses.
Superficially, the statement amounted to almost nothing, but after taking more and more shots of the city, the multihued assemblage of the gray streets, green palms, blue waves and white sands, I realized the rich contextual premise behind it all.
How convenient of great distances to simplify otherwise drastically different structures. How convenient of distance to blur things together into an easily digestible format.
How convenient of the future to phase the past into obscurity.
"But I don't know the words," I said to Erin.
"It's okay, the lyrics will pop up with highlights on the parts to sing. It's really intuitive, don't worry."
I nodded and brought the mic closer to my face.
The melody began with the ecstatic figures dancing severely out of beat. It started slow and sensual at first, but soon building to a gradual rhythm. I waited attentively for the aforementioned words to pop up on the screen.
"You are the ocean's gray waves,"
I croaked out the words, making sure to pace myself with the blue highlight scrolling through the white font, but my voice was painfully out of tune. I paused to gather myself at the second but in the process couldn't help but notice how engrossed Erin was.
"..destined to seek life beyond the shore, just out of reach,"
Erin held the mic close, eyes shut, mouth and soul fully feeling the words.
"..yet the waters ever change, flowing like time, the path is yours to climb."
The song picked up tempo, and I gave up all together with my struggle on pacing with the piece. Erin didn't seem to notice, or maybe she didn't care, but I stopped long before the chorus began.
"What is the present but a sliver in time,
Hoping to become a part of the past?"
I didn't know why I haven't noticed it sooner, but Erin really does have the silkiest voice I've heard. And with her singing like this really puts it to the limelight. I wasn't even listening to the song by this point, I allowed myself to drown in her music.
"In the white light, a figure shines through-
A double-edged blade cuts your heart in two.
Sing with me a song of birthrights and love,
The light scatters to the sky above.
Dawn breaks through the gloom,
White as a bone,
Lost in thoughts, all alone."
I sat with my mouth agape as Erin finally finished, her own mouth still formed to the last syllable.
"Wow," I said. "You're so…" I paused and pondered on what adjective to use.
She looked at me expectantly. "What'd you think? About the song?"
"Uh, the song. It was really… really good."
She fidgets a bit in her seat. "Did it make you feel anything?"
"It made me feel, enlightened I guess? I feel like the lyrics are telling me that there's something bigger, grander, ahead. You know?"
It was evident that whatever answer she was looking for, she didn't find it in my words. She looked dismally back to the translucent plastic.
"It's really a great song," I added.
Turning to the window let the strobing lights flicker on her face. I was mildly confused, why did she look so defeated?
"We should go back," she said.
I agreed. We should go back.
GS: How's the chapter? I'd like your thoughts on the back-and-forth storytelling between the past and present. Is it a bit jarring? Is it not cohesive? Thoughts!
I'd also like feedback on the pacing, is it getting too boring and lifeless at times?
Thanks for reading, if anyone was wondering the song is just a tweaked version of "Lost in thoughts all alone" from Fire Emblem Fates.