"Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship"
Insomnia
In french they called it a "white night", a night of wondering, of pondering, of musing. Insomnia:"noun: Latin, from insomnis, sleepless; Lack of sleep; inability to sleep, especially when chronic; wakefulness; sleeplessness". Insomnia, a word loaded with howling cats, damp alleys and rumpled sheets, a word that smelled of cold ashes, of left over pizza and of stale water. Common folks seldom realized how remote was the world of insomniacs, how foreign. A universe of half-finished paperbacks, cold coffee, and harsh streetlamp lights, inaccessible to the occasional restless sleeper, only the initiate were allowed.
The sun had not yet appeared on the horizon and the blue light swam diffusedly above the smashing water of the Market street Docks, Tree Hill, North Carolina. It was that hour of the day when all silhouettes still blend together, as dark as the night yet evoking the possibilities, the could-bes of the coming day. Jake sat, motionless, on the cold stone steps that wove their way down to the roaring water beneath him. He enjoyed the thunderous rolling of the waves that echoed in the body of the guitar, the slight tremor of the strings beneath his fingers, a melody too low for his ear but which seeped through the wooden instrument into his chest and reverberated in his lunges, eclipsing the pulse of his heart. During the short recess between the waves, the hollow in his chest was filled with simple, random notes, sometimes a short melody, never a song.
Songs were kept for happier moments, they were treasured and savored, they were offered and unceremoniously accepted. No, the wind could tease him and badger him, but it would not carry away a song from him. D, G, D, G, A, A, the notes led his fingers, D, G, D. Bob Dylan said it best: "How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?" An ever present question these past...
He heard a rap on the cobblestones behind him, his fingers stilled on the vibrating strings as the waves crashed once more against the concrete wall. He waited for another sound, an indication of the intruder's intentions, but heard nothing above the howling of the ocean. At length a shadow skimmed at the edge of his vision, a glance told him all he needed to know. Another insomniac, another shadow in the night. He had seen her on a few occasions, at a cross road or in a public park, late at night. She had taken off her shoes and sat on the parapet, peering at the immensity below. The tide thundered again.
"The answer is blowin' in the wind" Dylan had written, so many years ago. F, G, C, his fingers followed his thoughts mechanically. He liked the sound of the instrument in the crisp air of the spring morning, he savored as the hard rock reverberated the notes back to his ear.
He stood up when the first ray of light hit the cold stone steps. His eyes wandered over the vastness of the ocean until he met the gaze of the other one, the second sleepless soul. For a brief moment the warm pool of her eyes locked with his, silent, before drifting to the guitar he held by the neck. Her eyelids drifted shut and when she opened them again, she was searching the greatness before her, he was forgotten.
---{--{ยค}--}---
A/N: I posted this for about 24 hours a couple of months ago but then took it down because it seemed a little too... murky. As it is, I've decided the murkiness was not all that bad, and that I should put it back up. It was written thinking of what would be if Nikki won the custody of Jenny. Originally I wrote the girl at the docks to be Haley, but then as things progressed on the show between Peyton and Jake, I realized it could be pretty much anyone. Ooh, yeah, one last thing: I don't own One Tree Hill, the characters, the song Blowing in the Wind or well... Bob Dylan (my hero!). So don't sue, because I got no money.
JDLawrence