Hello! This short little song-inspired fic is also somewhat based around the ideas of Transcendentalism. What is Transcendentalism? It is a movement in literature that uses a main theme of getting to know your inner self (look up some Thoreau or Emerson works to get a better idea). Anyway, this also somewhat differs than most of my other song-inspired fics. Me hopes you like!
Song Inspiration: "Snare Drum" by Lucy Wainwright Roche. To me, this song has many meanings. My inspiration came from like, a line or two, but I also feel the whole songs fits this short little drabble somehow.
Seasons change. People change. Feelings change. Lives change. Change. It can be brought on by the most mundane of things and by things of a much larger scale. This was a fact so many people learned in one night. They saw change right in front of their eyes. They saw how a childish game of cat-and-mouse escalated into an all-out war. They saw three others' lives cut short because of misunderstandings and judgments. They saw death, the most permanent kind of change there is.
That same night, a girl caught in the midst of this hate, spoke of another kind of change. A kind of change that was much needed. She spoke of how foolish they were being; waving around knives and guns as if they were plastic toys meant for children. She scolded them for playing a sick game of tag, making three boys "not it" for good.
They all took that girl's words to heart; even the most hardened of the bunch. Her words ran throughout their ears, questions arising in all of their minds; questions of beliefs, questions of morals, questions of what made up their true selves. This inner reflection was new territory for them. For they were always told what to do. Go for his left side; it's his weak side. Use a bottle, not a blade. You better fight real good tonight, damn it! Never once had any of them, be they Jet or Shark, question what they believed to be right. Because that's what you do in a gang; you listen to your leader, shut up about what your ideas are, and help each other out in tough spots. Gangs have no room for nonconformists. In a gang, being a nonconformist gets you killed; Tony found that out for himself. But yet, that didn't scare any of them. No, it sort of...gave them hope.
Hope that maybe more of them could "do their own thing" and create a new fight; a good fight. Because when you are stripped of the people who always told you what you're fighting for, only one question arises: What will we be fighting for next?