Glósóli - Sigur Rós
Leon was 16 years old when he left his home, his family, his childhood, and the gemstone skyline shrinking below.
He had escaped it, taken solace in the roaring airplane beast that soared through the air, lifting him off the ground, away from everything, and into the expanding darkness of the sky. Over the pollutant haze, through the barrier of clouds, ascending to the stars, their clarity a tickling whisper that brushed the nape of his neck as he leant back, hands still against the friable pillow on his lap, ears immune to the sound of the business man slumbering next to him silently.
Hong Kong shrunk into the night like an unsure mouse back into its hole, disappearing behind the mist and alabaster plane wing, overtaken instead, by an empty black land that rolled on and on, featureless, empty. Hong Kong was gone, and took with it Leon's past, present, and future, a bandit in the halcyon night.
He let it, wrapped all he had in a bow, a pretty parcel, and set it on the city's doorstep, scattering into the wind like an unseen leaf, blowing away at high altitudes, fleeing the scene. He left everything he had with the consumer kingdom, watching as it swallowed it whole and held it down like a good child.
It devoured his years, the meager 16 of them, devoured them to a state of mashed memories, tasting of overbearing family and lonely books and bitter affection and empty streets and empty beds and empty minds, but never regret, not one drop of it.
To leave had been a spur of the moment decision, one made in the rain, as Leon stood under the cover of a convenience store awning, bike slippery underneath his hands. The foggy alley glowed in evening neon, vendors gearing up for a Friday night of staggering civilians, distracted by vivid colors and sparkling sights, eyes glimmering and heads hazed. They would make purchases they would regret at prices they never checked and would wake up wondering why the magic genie behind the cash register had lied to their poor, innocent selves, always someone else's fault, never their own wrongdoing, always.
A few had straggled by then, heads low under the downpour, hoods pulled and shielding their eyes from the boy watching them pass from a few feet away. One man stopped to watch an old woman flicker her enticing advertisement on, it's glow reflecting off his face, before shuffling onward, home to his wife, kids, cat, dog, vacant life.
Then the street was empty, something Leon had never seen before, just him, the lights, and the rain, dripping down onto the fabric above him perpetually, drowning out every car horn and wailing siren.
He was alone.
Drip, drip, drip.
The lights buzzed, a pest, an insect.
Drip, drip, drip.
Alone, alone, alone, streets empty.
Drip, drip, drip.
Alone, alone, alone, chest empty.
Leon left his bicycle behind, taking off into the night, feet pushing up dirt from the puddles beneath them. He walked into his cavernous apartment without a word, gliding by the door locking his abstracted brother inside, anchored tight to his computer screen, fantasies filling up the extra space, and the cage containing his vacuous headed sister, glitter and whispers and secret journal entries keeping her content, compliant with the quietness.
Once in his room, Leon got on the computer, booked the first international flight he saw, charged it to his father's card, and made his phantom escape, a ghost traveler going up, up, and away.
Reykjavik, Iceland, the plane jostled as Leon watched it tilt and turn, twisting through the midnight. It was hardly a booked flight, him and 30 other passenger all compressed to the front of the large jet, tired and slightly soggy, trying to find warmth underneath the paper thin blankets that had been provided for them. The plane almost smelt like fish and oil and the nighttime clarity that rang outside as chilled winds rushed all around, rocking the hulking metal and the humans inside.
Leon closed his eyes and let the jitters shake him to sleep.
Summer in Iceland was different than summer in Hong Kong. It was dry, the kind of dry that dug under Leon's eyelids and parched his mouth, leaving his lips cemented to his teeth and his bones rattled to dust. A bus groaned before chugging away, leaving him stranded in the middle of the capital's downtown, carrying an unneeded sweatshirt and floundering for something to grasp.
The town was chic and modern and ringing desolation about, each citizen skipping by a dust devil of reminder nothing had changed, that Leon was still surrounded by the commercial and the exhaustion and the same old thump of his heart in his ears, pounding, pounding, pounding, pounding under the mid-day sun, dragging down his tired skin, making him an old, wrinkled man, a vampire escaping the daylight and taking solace inside a cool café, body shaking from fearful realization and the sheen of sweat.
He had done it all, finally left, finally fucking done it, acted on his instinct, an emotional decision, for once in his life, he did what he thought he wanted, what would make him happy.
But it made him sick.
"Halló," a tired boy, taunt cheekbones, spider fingers, a nametag that read 'Emil', "Hvernig hefur þú það?"
"I need something cold," Leon responded in English, apparently not a surprise as the boy left, unclear if he were walking away, or just going to make his drink, leaving another to flop about in his place.
"H-Halló! It is very hot today, isn't it?" The blonde boy smiled, jabbering on when Leon did not respond, staring blandly forward, slack-jawed. "It normally does not get this hot; I hope it cools down soon! May I ask, are you visiting Iceland? Or are you a student? I'm studying here from Finland; it is very nice so far! You should check out-"
Emil, the walking dead child returned, sliding the icy drink across the table, silently waiting for a payment, a card to swipe, an amount to count. Leon took a step back in realization, shaking his head, hands patting at his empty pockets. So much for easing his overheated body, his lack of any currency making him a void customer with no meaning.
The pale boy sighed, slightly miffed, but tried to remain calm as he pulled the plastic cup back to himself, preparing to toss it away, before the other man stopped him, hand on his arm.
"Emil, what are you doing?"
"He has no money," Emil shrugged out of his grip but did not succeed in escaping, cornered again by another constricting hand.
"You can't leave him without a drink, it's so hot out!" Emil glanced from the expectant innocent eyes to the burnt out boy on the other side of the counter, eyes roaming, mouth twitching in compound emotion. To share, to pity, to sympathize? The eternal struggle, good and evil, one eventually outweighing as he extended his hand, sweating drink filling the space between them.
Leon spent the rest of the day in the abandoned café, slumped against a round wooden table, head throbbing from on top of his arms. He did not think, he did not breath, he did not let the future creep into his mind, winding around his chest, compressing it so hard he coughed in his disturbed sleep and shook the rickety chair he sat in. He had left those things in Hong Kong, he was only a vessel now, a wandering rocket ship far off its course, parked at a stellar bar, on the edge of the wormhole.
Leon was the only one in the café when it closed, his shoulder being shaken lightly as a wooden sign was turned to mark the end of a day. "I'm sorry, but we are closed now!" The small blonde man smiled sympathetically, watching Leon get his bearing, watching Leon forget his empty coffee cup on the table, watching him exit the café, and watching him stand helpless outside, a victim to the now licentious night cold, eyelids still painfully heavy as he remained rooted outside the café door.
The boy took a seat against the wall, pulling his knees to his chest, body still quivering after all this time, watching a stray bus undulate by, illuminated in the darknes.
"Tino, stop…" A voice rung as the door was opened, the worker stepping outside, an angelic mirage in the backlighting.
"Excuse me but… do you have anywhere to go?"
Leon looked up, hair disheveled, eyes a buzzing sign that muttered vacancy into the cold, dead, dimming, dimming night, lips strung tightly like popcorn around a Christmas tree.
"They are a bit loud…well only Mathias really… but I'm sure they won't mind having another friend for dinner!" Tino was truly a pure hearted nymph descended, smiling exultantly as he led Leon to a small front door to a small wood cabin with a small stream of smoke escaping from the stone chimney.
Apparently the boys lived farther away from the city, in the planar countryside, sharing an uneven, disjointed home that looked as if it would fall apart at any second, with shingles that did not match and windowpanes that peeled under the moon. The gravel was crushed underneath Leon's feet as his ankles rolled in an attempt to stay balanced on the ridged ground. The garden at the front of the house was dead and wilting, crispy with dehydration and desperate for attention that it did not receive as the three passed by, unworried, uncaring.
But it was beautiful, so beautiful, so dark, so quiet. Real quiet, not the quiet that rung in your ears and drown out every other living thing that rushed by, the false quiet, the quiet that you felt despite being so surrounded by others you were smothered into a diminutive, tiny, nothing, quiet nothing. It was the quiet that recoiled off the mountains and the fuzzy white dandelions and off of every blade of grass and every slice of foam that splashed against the black ocean rocks. The quiet that inflated your insides to the point of pain, which swelled your heart, made you cry, made your teeth itch and your mind buzz, real quiet.
Emil inserted his key into the door silently, the same stone he had been the whole ride over, never once opening his mouth, maybe angry, or sad, or confused, or something other than the mask he had sealed on top of his pale face. He opened the door, letting out light, the smell of food, an exuberant laugh, the humble Friday nights of an intimate group; one Leon did not belong in, but would be content at watching from a distance.
"Emil! You're finally home! Took you long enough, I'm starving." The house was like a gingerbread box of individuality, shimmering different lights, varying decorations of varying styles dangling from the walls, couches and chairs that did not match shoved together and forced to coincide in peace, creating chaos and rushed amiability.
"Sorry, sorry, there was traffic leaving the city, I'm glad you waited to eat!" Tino entered the house, removing his light jacket, draping it over a casually placed wooden chair. "Hello Ber, have a nice day?" He bent down to lightly kiss a large, pensive, giant sitting at the head of the table, newspaper now set down and glasses skewed upon the entrance of the other leaning over him, receiving a presumably positive grunt in reply.
"Everyone, I have a surprise!" The chattering group quelled, watching Tino as he began to speak. "We have a guest tonight!" He turned to gesture toward the door where Leon stood, a milk shadow against the night outside.
"Well, come in, don't be shy!" Tino motioned for him to enter, slightly nervous, not helping to ease Leon's own anxieties. "His name is Leon, he is visiting here, I think, he hasn't really said much but I guess we can talk more at dinner. Anyway, he did not have somewhere to stay, so I invited him to stay with us for tonight." He ended with a faltering laugh, watching the other three surprised men glanced between themselves.
"You went along with this Emil?" A velvet voice questioned from behind equally dead blue eyes and the boy shrugged, tossing his coat to the chair.
"I'm just hungry," Emil walked toward the table, leaving Leon abandoned by the doorway, alienated, an intrusive weed.
"Same! Well get in here Mr. Leon! I need some food, now!" A booming blonde echoed from the table, surely making a flock of birds take off outside, Leon doing as he was ordered.
The family was different, odd, as misplaced and patchwork as the broken hinged decorations all around. Berwald was married to Tino, Tino was married to Berwald, Lukas was an over affectionate brother to Emil, Emil was a wary, distant brother to Lukas, Mathias was Lukas' best friend, Berwald's best friend, Tino's best friend, Emil's best friend, and now Leon's new best friend, his hand draped over his shoulder as he waved a glass of beer in the air, dramatically emphasizing the words escaping his mouth.
"No, but think about it! All the countries in the world, coming together to make a giant Viking ship! How cool would that be?" Mathias muttered and roared and mumbled to himself mostly, ignored, above all the boy he was originally supposed to be speaking to.
Leon was watching Emil, watching how he pushed the half-eaten fish around his plate, slicing it with his fork, then crushing it to bits, then slicing it with his fork, then crushing it to bits, then slicing it with his fork, then crushing it to bits, then…
"Do you have much homework this weekend?" Lukas asked, spooning a collection of peas into his mouth, eyes surveying his brother with all of the eagerness of a voyeur, or maybe more like a concerned mother. Emil shrugged, taking a sip from his glass, scraping his chair across the ground as he stood up.
"I'm full," he tried to leave, but not before Mathias caught his hand, large fist fitting around his skeleton wrist.
"Full already? What, you don't like spending time with us anymore?" Emil rolled his eyes, jerking his trapped limb, helpless against the overpowering grasp, "Oh, I get it; you got a girlfriend now don't you? Is that who you text all the time? Is it that Lilli girl? Or Michelle? What's her name?" The muddled blonde gazed at Lukas for help, but received only another sharp tug from Emil, finally succeeding in freeing his hand.
"No, stop being stupid…" The boy ran a hand through his already ruffled hair, heading for the door to the great darkness outside, not quite there yet before Mathias could speak again.
"Haha! Look at that, little Emil's got a boyfriend! I mean, girlfriend! I mean, wait, is it a boyfriend?" Mathias leant across the table, sloshing liquid onto Leon's hand, making Tino lean back in disgust. "Hey Emil, have we ever talked about your sexuality?"
"I said shut up!" It was like a volcanic eruption, his face spewing lava as the door shut, rumbling the walls and shaking ashy dust off of the trinkets.
"Damn, such an emotional queen, must be a boyfriend then." The unblemished man leant back, taking a long swig out of his cup; lips paused thoughtfully on the glass. "Hey Lukas, did I ever tell you about the time I caught a fish with my bare hands?"
"Only 27 times…" Lukas drawled in his low, earth shattering voice, dumping another load of peas in his mouth, the rest of the table returning to their regular conversation, as if the previous conversation had not taken place, like it was normal, typical, traditional.
But Leon was shell-shocked, hands fluttering against the napkin in his lap, eyes fixed on the still fiery door. Emil had been so quiet, so solemn, a shadow that slipped between the cracks and disappeared from one's mind until they saw him again, embarrassed to have forgotten his existence. He was a spirit, a cool, clean, poltergeist that had exploded into one brilliant star of emotion, flinging words and slamming doors, taking off into the night.
Leon helped Tino clear the table, he helped Mathias find a good radio station, he let Lukas show him where his room was, but when all the lights were turned out and the only sign of life was the rumbling fireplace that still clung to the oxygen around for menial support, Leon slipped out of sight, forgetting his jacket and shoes.
The quiet was back, stabbing his toes with rocks and tickling his ankles with dew, an endless expanse of fairy's playground before him, dotted with flowers and speckled with shimmer. Emil sat right in the middle of it, a humming hub of electricity, drawing Leon in, sitting him down right next to the comet dust pale boy.
"It's not a boy you know," Emil was watching the sky, his words not loud enough to sink through the silence, just floating on top of the surface, "The person I text, I mean."
"I never asked," Leon pulled up a few blades of grass, trying to contain the shit eating smirk that twisted onto his face when Emil looked at him, all disgust and annoyance. When he finally could not take it anymore, shredding the plants in his hand to dust, leaning forward, chest exploding into laughter, Emil's eyebrows forked down in agitation.
"What? What's so funny?"
Leon could not stop, the toxic wordless black filtering into his lungs, making his head spin and his eyelids flutter closed. He was shaking and screaming and destroying the ground and laughing, laughing, laughing so hard it hurt his sides and swirled his full stomach. The moon watched him and the stars watched him and Emil watched him as he bit his lip and curled in on himself, still cackling and crying through the dark horizon.
"You, you're funny," Leon finally answer after a minute, still not correcting his seating position, bent forward, eyes half open, half seeing his toes curl into the Earth, "You ignore everyone and try to keep oh so hush hush but then you just explode, like a rocket, or a geyser, or maybe a deep sea eruption."
Emil watched with disbelieving eyes, pressure mounting, an aftershock in the near future.
"You don't know me!"
"I know you well enough."
"You're a creep."
"Shh," Leon leant back, rolling to the ground, grass collecting around his face, now overwhelmed by stars, and light, and the wonder behind them, seeping into his eyes and making his skin tingle.
Nothing changed for a while, Emil ripped all of the grass out from around him, mowing down the field, creating a little home to take shelter in, to protect him from the impious truth hanging in the air, and Leon sat, still and cold, arms folded behind his head.
"You know me so well, but do you know yourself?" It was like he was afraid to say it, his voice a sliver of noise against the quiet all around.
Leon did not respond, he chewed his lip, and counted the stars, and watched the face on the moon move, devoid of any answer, because what was there to say?
That he did not know himself? That he did not wish to know himself? That he had run from himself, scared of himself, scared of what he could do, what he was destined to do? Scaredy, scaredy, scared little boy, scaredy cat, all alone now, underneath the coupled stars.
"Where are you from?" Leon sighed, rolling over to pat the ground next to him, beckoning the cagey boy to rest next to him, patient as he did.
"Hong Kong."
"When did you get here?"
"This morning."
"Why?"
Emil's hand bumped his, an accident, but before he could pull away, face squirting up molten rock again, Leon grabbed onto it, clutching for dear life, shattering the frail bones underneath as he clung like a climber from a crumbling cliff.
"Why do you come out here to look at the stars? The quiet, the peaceful, the seclusion, the feeling of knowing something for once, of being something for once, of breathing in air and not wanting to vomit it back up, of waking up and feeling free."
Emil's face had slowly changed, to wonder, a loose lipped, bright eyed child at the candy store, reaching out to touch, to taste, to run their tongue over the feeling of sweet satisfaction.
"I want to feel it too."
"I can show you."
Hello.
Hah, self insert ahoy. Basically, my plan for after highschool is get the fuck out of dodge, my first destination being Iceland. I wish I had the guts to do it now, like our dear little Leon did, but alas I am not okay with arriving in a foreign country without money or clothes or a place to sleep. Just doesn't feel right, y'know?
As for the Icelandic, I just used online sources to translate that one line. Way too hard of a language man. It just says "How are you doing?"
I don't know if I have any more notes about this. It's late, I'm tired, my foot is asleep, my cat is asleep on top of my foot, my music is too loud, goodnight.
Please review, favorite, and have a beautiful day.