Disclaimer: Nothing that's mine here, nada, zilch and zero.

A/N: Man… It really was a long time ago since I last wrote something new. Plus, and this is a quite important fact I guess, it was a heck of a long time ago since I last wrote anything properly in English only. But here goes. The fic's inspired by the song Something Vague –thus the title- by Bright Eyes. Wonderful song. But for now, please read and please… enjoy!

Something Vague

By Placebo pill

My fingers fumble as I dig trough the inner pocket of my bag. I am searching for the keys to the grey brick apartment building. There is the most peculiar sensation in my skin, and I know it is due to alcohol. Nearly giggling stupidly at the mere fact that despite my knowing the cause, I still think it is peculiar, the thought also crosses my mind that the biting winter cold of the night might also be doing its job at fucking up my nerves. And my hands too. Finally finding the blue band I use to tie my bunch of keys together, I realize they are so numb I can barely grasp the band, and even less am I able to pick out the right key and push it into the lock. I do not want to sleep outside in this fucking snow stuffed street. However, the way the alcohol works on my system saves me from any feelings of panic. It does that to me, kind of puts the edge away from everything, and I end up in an emotionally anaesthetized bliss.

I look down at my hands. Pale, I register dumbly. And sort of blue-tinted. My eyes stare and I remind myself to blink. When I get inside, whenever that will be, my fingers will go all pinkish red and itch. I hate it when that happens. But I lost my mittens. I have no idea where they went. One second they were on, the next they were gone. Drunken acceptance accompanies my musings.

Even more snow is falling from the sky now. I no longer care about my spiky hair, which I so carefully fixed up with gel this morning; therefore I step out from under the tiny roof above the front door. Bending my neck back, I squint at the stars. They are like silver spike pricks. Like if you would stick a hundred of those kinds of needles you use when you are sewing, those with little heads on them, into a big piece of dark velvet, so only those heads would be showing. And then you would stick a flashlight in the right direction hence it all would sparkle. Maybe I could make my own starry heaven above my bed if I would ever get home into my apartment.
Large, white flakes land on my face. The cold makes my eyes dampen, and the tears mix with the water of the melted snow as they run down my cheeks. Okay, so it might not only be the chill making me cry.

I have always had a flaw of sinking moods. Call it a tendency of depression or whatever, it more or less feels like it is some kind of sadness, dug into my spine and, impossible to remove, always stays with me. Sometimes it shows, making itself reminded, and sometimes resting for a couple of days. Those days are like paradise to me. Usually, the 'sadness' is just lying there, under the skin, gently yet persistently tugging at my threads. But what I loathe the most about it is its peaks. The times it just goes out of my ability to handle. It is from during fits like those I have learned what the word 'panic' means. Everything is just such an overload the brain snaps. You cannot trust what you see, what you hear, where you are or even who you are. The whole thing is just a spinning, sputtering haze of too many thoughts, memories, faces, feelings, impressions, expressions… everything just snaps.

But let's not get lost in those thoughts now…

I always wondered about that warmth people claim to bring about around Christmas like this. Could that heat not melt all this snow and thaw out the freeze? Sure does not look like it. Or is there merely too few people living in this town to warm it up? Still, I doubt the idea. How many people that ever would bunch up in this neighbourhood could never achieve any warmth worth what they call Christmas spirits. These exact words in my head, I go back under the mini-roof and sit down beside the front door, leaning my back against the glass of the huge window that cover a metre or so of the wall to the left of the door. In the late autumns, the last spiders always use to squeeze up around the joints, so I reckon at least a little heat from inside the building leaks out there.
That is another mean thing about the house. The nice, polished glass makes it perfectly easy to see the interior, so viciously inviting when your hair is growing glittery with frost.

I sigh and pull the black hood of my shirt over my head, tilting it back. My winter coat is obviously not made to survive hour-long, nightly outside visits. Crap. I feel tired. My wristwatch tells me that the time was half past five. The cursed door opens at six. That is when the code starts working again. That very instant I begin to hate the way they shut the function off at nights. Just another half an hour of waiting to do for me.

I shut my eyes, resting them from the crisp air and trying to fight back the painful lump that was steadily growing in my throat.

Drunken logic does not speak highly of any man or woman's intelligence, and tomorrow I will most certainly question the decision to simply give up the try with the keys at the lock, but at the present I only undergo unprovoked and pathetic despair.

Slowly nevertheless, my mind is slipping away. I fully let it go, feeling the unsteady sleep clutch at my consciousness until it completely grasp it.

A breeze pulls softly at my hair. A few bangs get in my eyes and automatically I brush them away. My body extraordinarily light and easy, I stretch my back like a cat, my arms pointing up, aiming towards the clouds. The usual tension in my neck and shoulders is gone. Lips parting somewhat as I take a breath, my mouth remain slightly open even after I have exhaled.
Looking down, I see my feet standing on a thin railing. Beneath is the edge of a concrete bridge, and under the bridge is a forty metre gap of air, then the grey of a motorway. The noise of the cars rushing by down there muddle together to an even roar. Strangely, I feel no fear.

Leaning my head forward to see better I lift my arms for balance.

I know where I am. The view is familiar. I used to live here, once. I smile at the memory of my little brother playing in a pit of sand. He is only three years old in the picture, and his favourite spade is small and brightly pink. All the other kids used to tease him about it, even the girls whose own favourite things were pink as well. My brother never cared. I remember admiring him for it. I was newly turned eight.

Not a very outgoing child, I only had one real friend, and if it had not been for a careless driver and a careless kid by a crossing, he would have been eighteen today, eight in the reminiscence. I never did get any pictures of him so I cannot really recall how he looked. His grieving mother refused to give away anything that was connected with him in any way, and a few months later she was found dead in her bathroom by a neighbour that wondered about the strange smell that had seeped out of the apartment. In the bathtub laid the ashes of her dead son's photographs, as well as his stuffed toys and favourite books.

A short distance from the highway are a few blocks of flats. They are grey, like most others. I can pinpoint my old bedroom window. We lived on the third floor, in an apartment of three rooms. My mother and my father slept in the same room, and my little brother slept in the same as I did. Through the bedroom window you could see the street, and I used to be able to wave goodnight at Eiji, that was his name, since his mother and he lived right across it, on the same floor in their building as we did in ours.

I want to go there. I want to see his face again. An extreme longing fills my heart, growing in my chest like a balloon.

Suddenly and without any warning, the bridge disappears. I had not jumped; it just ceased to exist, vanished. The wind does not scream in my ears, it does not rip at my clothes, and my stomach is not making summersaults; my body is plainly not plummeting headlong, in spite of that there is absolutely nothing solid under my feet. I am standing on air, just hanging there. Lungs breathing freely, eyes seeing all worth seeing. There is nothing holding me up. There is a sort of bulging feeling inside that just will not go away.

Eventually dusk fall, the light softly leaving everything but me. Soon I am the only thing burning, shimmering like a fucking glow in the dark sticker. And people are starting to notice me. They slowly flood out of the grey buildings, as more and more cars stop and the drivers and passengers climb out. Their pale faces staring as though it is something their eyes have been starving to see all their lives. I know that somewhere below, in the maze of people, are my parents, my brother, Eiji, and even I. What is going through their heads right now? What are they wishing upon? Because there must be something, those huge eyes looking up at me as if trying to penetrate me with their gazes.

Now I am not really there anymore. Now I am just confused.

My back is sore again, even worse than normally. My limbs are not the slightest bit graceful. Thick layers of cloth hinder their movement. My winter coat and my hooded sweater. I ache. The cold around me has made me half paralysed. With great effort I manage to push the coat sleeve up a few inches so I can see the watch on my wrist. The tiny numbers read zero six zero seven. Have I slept for thirty five minutes?

I painfully crawl up, and leaning against the glass window I get myself standing. My joints pop and my muscles are made of heavy, heavy, dry clay. It was hard to believe how I even succeeded to get myself this far. It seemed impossible to move a measly leg when I was down on my numb butt.

Any trace of feeling is gone in both my arms, and most of my legs, and in a miserable way I limp the few steps there are to the metallic box of buttons where you push in the code. After a good six or seven times of trying, I manage to poke it in using my nose – my face being more or less the only part of me that had not gone completely numb. My hands are useless. I crook my elbow around the large handle and pull the door open. The sensation of the wall of heat that collides with me is indescribable. Almost enough for me to collapse there and then, right on the floor, which for the moment seems as warm and cosy as any luxury bed. If the drunken mist fogging my brain had not been clearing a bit, I probably would have. But I force my feet to keep moving, past the laundry room, around the corner… The front door slams shut somewhere behind me. There are the stairs. I curse the lack of an elevator. My hands clasp the banister on each side of the narrow flight of steps spasmodically, fighting off a dizzy spell.

One foot up, another foot up, the first one up a step again, the other, the first, the other… I am dimly aware of my gradually heightening ability to move and bend. Before long the skin will start pricking. I recognize the warning signs. It was indeed already pinkish red.

I at last climb the final step. The second floor. Feels as though it would have been the eighth. Once again digging deeply into my bag, still slung over my shoulder, for the keys, I stagger forth to the door wearing my name. As my fingers are a bit warmer now, I am able to stick the right key into the lock and turn it around. It clicks and I pull the keys out, putting them into the pocket of my worn, baggy pants. The door easily swings open when I push the handle down and pull it against me. Hurrying inside, I hold on to the handle, dragging it closed as I walk further into the silent apartment, not bothering to lock again. Besides, no-one has ever had any burglaries here from what I have heard. All this talk about protection is only bullshit. Just some big-ass companies trying to scare people into buying unnecessary security devices.

I flop down on the mattress in the middle of the one room of the apartment. It is lying directly on the floor. I have never been one of home decorating. In fact, my apartment looks close to a coffin. The dark blue weft tapestry has an odd, kind of old-time pattern (I have not changed it since I moved in), and as there are no paintings on the walls, the rectangular shape of the room actually creates a similarity rather intimidating. Adding the current darkness as well, it makes the effect even stronger. Yet I do not feel like putting the light on. There is no particular use for it anyway. I know the place like my own pocket. I am facing the wall where the front door is. Behind me to the right is an old stereo and to its left all of my CD's. To my right there is nothing really. Maybe a magazine or an old newspaper on the floor at the most. To my left are the minute refrigerator and a cupboard, about a metre away from the mattress. The bathroom is a shared one, in the corridor beyond the front door and my small space of living area.

I reach my hand out to the left, towards the cupboard. There is still snow in my hair that has not melted, kept cold by the frozen hair gel that creates my brand new icicle spikes. Finding the knob, I push the shutter away and pull out a bottle of vodka. What is it – half empty or half full? That silly question has been plaguing me for years, ever since I first heard it, prohibiting me to describe any container of a substance as either. I just cannot decide. It really is both, but I do not want anyone judging my mental state by whether saying it is "insert positive answer" or "insert negative answer".

Just then, the pricking of my chill-abused skin begins, itching and stinging so much I almost drop the bottle. Regaining control in the last second, I manage to save myself from some serious cleaning up, picking razor sharp shards of glass from the floor and drying the vile liquor the flask had been either half full or half empty of.

With unsteady hands I unscrew the cork, ignoring the tingling sensation. The first swig tastes just as vile as usual. I take another.

The liquor burns in my throat, spreads like fire from the mouth and down to the stomach.

I lie back on the mattress, putting the bottle on the floor beside it. Cloudy thoughts are swimming through intoxicated areas of my brain. That is just the effect I am looking for. A strange sort of heat slowly settles in my body, due to the drink. It feels wonderful when it finally gets to my hands, reviving my frozen fingertips.

I draw a deep sigh of pleasure, unhappy relief and self-accuse, knowing that tomorrow I will suffer the consequences of this night like shit. I always do. I am not even really sure what I was doing this for anymore. I just need something to fill me up. Or maybe something to fill up the days rather than me, or perhaps the first one… who cares? Some fuel to keep on.

Sinking into the mattress and myself, I pray for a few more hours of this state of nothingness.

My brow crease when the elements of the dream from earlier comes back. Once again can I see the white-faced people staring up at my glowing form. Where had Eiji been? In the dream I had been sure he was alive, but I had not pinpointed him in the crowd. For moment, it again feels unreal to imagine him dead, although he has been rotting in the soil of the graveyard for years and years.

Did it have any meaning? His death, I mean. Or well, it would be even more worth knowing if his life had had any.

Shoving the musings that had been processed so many times before they were more or less worn out by now, away, out of my mind, I begin to wonder why I even had been dreaming anything, all of a sudden? My nights are usually plain black.

I look at the bottle again, wishing it had been right in my hand instead of on the floor, just out of comfortable reach. Having neither the energy nor enough motivation to move, I stay put, closing my eyes. What really is the point of it all? Or of anything. I do not need that final mouthful before the fall. I am already falling.
Asleep? No. Or… I am not sure.

A plummeting sensation clutch at my stomach, quite like the lacking one I would have imagined having in the dream as the bridge evaporated, and I have the urge to throw up as the muscles convulsed with the deceptive change of gravity. Groaning, breathing hard, I try to focus my eyes as tiny beads of sweat appear at my brow. There is only darkness around. Only darkness and the sound of my breaths and the old ventilation system of the apartment building. I realize I still have them shut. My eyes, that is. With that silly insight I am able to calm down significantly. I let out a small, nervous chortle.

Really need to cut down on this stuff…

My muscles at last settle down.

There really is no point. And what would be the point of a point anyway? Why is it so important to find a reason for everything? I do not care… I do not call for it, never have. What would my free will stand for if there only is a pre-decided purpose there alongside it to haunt and to bend. I do not want a boundary that my background, surroundings, or even if I, myself, have unconsciously marred my mind with.

There has to be something more, that I cannot see, no matter how I squint and what effort I make… Something more… like a feeling.

Yes, yes, that feels right… To feel, something, something that makes me warm, that puts a smile on my face, that would spread… a light of some sort… I am not even sure I know what I am thinking about. It cannot be dressed in words, or clad in splashes of colour on canvas. No, it is too big. Too amazing. Too abstract. This is getting out of hand, or rather out of brain, I am aware of it, yet I keep on probing the mindless impression.

I grit my teeth in a painful smile and sob, unaware of the hot tears that run down my cheeks. If I could only grasp it for a while, only touch… I would only need that much.

A feeling of something outside of myself.

My breath seems to freeze in the air as consciousness is slowly tugged away from me. Tomorrow, I predict the nearest future again, I will have no memory of this. The thought, however, does not bother me. Swallowing one last time, I welcome the numb slumber with open arms.

A/N: Now PLEASE REVIEW! I'd really like to hear your opinions on this one. Hope it did not flip out too much in the end though… I had a really hard time coming up with anything for it. Umm… well, I've said it once, and I'll say it again: PLEASE REVIEW !