~30 Kisses~

~14: Radio-Cassette Player~

Marron rather liked to listen to music.

At the end of the day, he wasn't sure that he was somebody who found himself having many interests. There was of course television, it wasn't as if he didn't watch television... the popular programmes that everybody talked about, sometimes he couldn't help but watch them, just to see. The reality gameshows, the new drama series... sometimes the programmes were good, sometimes Marron couldn't quite figure just what it was that everybody adored about them. There was probably some sort of group mentality he wasn't privy to, he supposed.

There was television, television and the computer. The computer certainly offered a lot of promise; computer games, the internet, graphics programmes, writing programmes... Marron liked to try a little of everything, but honestly he could never find too much that would sustain his interest from day to day. It was alright to play around with things on the computer, try that graphics program again, try to draw a picture... he wasn't too sure how artistically minded he really was, but with different paint tools, blur tools, smudging tools, tools of light and darkness, he could work out something that would make him smile and save to his hard drive for later perusal. No real reason for it. What would he do with the picture afterward? Sometimes he wondered what the point was. Send it to somebody over the internet? He didn't really know anybody well enough for even instant messaging programs, let alone for sending them his random products of boredom. He wouldn't print the pictures out to show anybody, though on occasion he entertained the notion of printing the pictures out to put on his bathroom wall, or something. Those walls always were a little bare.

Writing was something different. Perhaps it could have been argued that that sustained Marron's interest more than other things might have done, but while it could have, it could also have been argued that Marron might not have let it.

When it came to writing, strange things tended to occur to him. Strange ideas of lands and places and people he'd never thought himself capable of thinking of in such detail. Well, it wasn't as if there weren't a lot of popular fantasy novels out there in all of the bookshops, but... still, Marron was a little loathe to put many of his thoughts down to paper (or WordPad). He could never really think of specific storylines, for one. He could imagine the wide expansive fields or the quaint countryside towns of a different world, imagine the peasants going around their daily business, imagine that that was a land that contained magic... but why? Why could he think of those things so clearly? Why did he think of things that seemed to hold no creative purpose? It all seemed to feel so terribly familiar, though...

Due to that, Marron supposed that such things had been written about already. Maybe in a book he'd read and forgotten as a child, or something. Whatever there was to be written, he didn't feel himself the one to write it.

Sometimes he would dream. He would forget his dreams upon waking, left empty but for the knowledge that he had dreamt. There was something there, certainly - something just beyond thought, beyond memory... he'd second-guess his thoughts, a word upon his lips and a figure in his mind, a presence that he couldn't quite sense...

Still, day-to-day life brought what it did and dreams were easily forgotten. He'd wake up, go to college, come home, sleep. Other things were in there - schoolwork, homework, washing, eating - but generally, his life followed the same pattern. He supposed he was content with that - after all, what more was there? He'd work at his studies, get good marks, go to university... get a good job, raise a family... something like that, probably. All of that... it seemed expected, but distant somehow. He felt resigned to it happening, feeling content that all of those things would happen in the future. He didn't have to worry about them for the time being. The pieces would all fall into place eventually.

None of that explained that strange feeling, though. That feeling which felt present while sat in front of the computer, staring at a blank page in WordPad; that feeling which manifested in a dream before vanishing for waking life. That feeling that would catch Marron unawares while he sat in the kitchen, a cup of hot tea steaming by his hand, the radio player on the shelf playing.

He would tape songs from the radio, sometimes. Most people seemed to do that as a kind of mix tape - find their favourites on the radio and tape them; it was cheaper than buying, though you would often catch the announcer at the start and the end. That was the inadvertent price to pay. Most people did that, but Marron's purpose was different, not that he felt he could explain it to anybody.

He supposed he wasn't the first person to be moved by music - such was the nature of a creative venture, to stir memory of life and emotion... but sometimes he felt that to the degree that it felt... abnormal, somehow. He would rest his head in his hands, not feeling sad or upset but feeling moved to tears, somehow. He'd wipe them away with vague irritation.

Sometimes memory stirred in a stronger fashion. He tried to capture the songs that did this on the blank cassettes he bought, but by the time the songs played, it was too late. Marron worried about himself; it was natural to be moved by a song, but was it normal to find oneself curled up on the floor, thoughts fading and flashing and appearing and vanishing faster than he could comprehend?

A place he recognized. People he recognized. Things he recognized.

One person in particular he recognized.

A memory of contact. A memory of being close to somebody... emotionally, physically...

The straining melodies held memory of touches and kisses and something so overwhelming that Marron could barely stand it - and he'd forget it all as the song ended, wondering if perhaps he couldn't stand those things at all. He'd pick himself up, shaking and trembling. He'd brush a finger over his lips, the memory gone but not forgotten. What was that?...

He wrote it down in a notepad, when those things happened. Most of his accounts were that something had happened that he couldn't describe or remember, but... he felt it important to keep some kind of record, still. All he seemed to understand was that he couldn't understand what was happening, and that worried him somewhat. Was it stress? Was he feeling over-worked? He thought he was keeping on top of all of his schoolwork, his homework... but perhaps these things were subconscious, perhaps he wouldn't really be able to feel such a thing... maybe it was more a matter for a doctor to diagnose. He'd sigh as he looked over the notebook. Perhaps he was going mad.

He'd listen to the charts in an attempt to replicate the events in an effort to pinpoint their cause. It didn't take too long for him to work out that whatever song was twenty-third in the charts would catch his ear and not for the music.

Twenty-three...

Two...

Three...

That feeling. A memory. A person. A name? A title.

Such thoughts only convinced Marron further that something was wrong. That he would feel so moved by the suggestion of one word... like that... he was alone, wasn't he? An only child. He remembered little of his parents but was quite sure that he had no siblings... but that one word always seemed to echo louder than any other. In a forgotten memory, that would be all he could recall.

"... Nii... ...san..."

That word seemed to tie together the frayed ends and yet still made no sense.

Perhaps, like those other things, it would make sense eventually.

Christmas was approaching, the radio announcer said.

Marron turned the switch, sending the kitchen into silence. He made himself another cup of tea. Christmas had never been something he'd paid much attention to in the first place.

~fin~