(i'm not sure if i'll ever finish this but here's something to share anyhow.)
There was a boy outside the window of a house in the middle of December, lying in the snow. His hand is reaching up to the sky as if he can almost, almost touch it. Because he knows if he tries hard enough, his hand would hit the ceiling of the sky.
His bike is left abandoned a few feet away and he's sprawled haphazardly on a rising of snow just beneath the window.
He doesn't serve much of a purpose outside of the window of a house except that he's lying in the frigid cold, bundled up in layers of layers of clothes, and reaching for the sky. And his breath comes slow and deep and he can see the cloudy puffs of air spiral towards the sky that he knows he can reach if only he just tried hard enough.
He didn't seem like he was going to move anytime soon outside of the window of a house that wasn't abandoned. What would be the point of hanging outside of an abandoned house? He doesn't see any point of it so he's lost in his own thoughts outside of this house with a person or two in it.
He's waiting.
He's been waiting for an hour but it's always, always worth waiting.
And then it starts.
In the middle of December on a very cold, snowy day. It starts.
His hand drifts down slowly to his side, he tilts his head, closes his eyes, and the softest of smiles is on his face as he listens.
It starts beautifully slow and soft today. (the music starts like that) Like the beginnings of a sweet dream. He imagines one of those pretty horse things with a horn, white and magical, delicate in movement and breathtaking to look at. What was it? A unicorn? That's the scene. A spring-like summer with a warm breeze and an endless grassy field and that mythical creature thing picking its way through the field, almost without touching the ground.
It starts like that. The song curls around him, sweetly promising warm sunny days and he can almost believe that he isn't lying in the snow where his face feels like it's frozen. The illusion of warmer weather is only held for a moment and he knows it's going to change like he knows the colors of his eyes and his hair. A fact.
Sometimes the change is subtle, a sweet caress of summer turns into the gentle touch of the wind on his face. A whisper. But today the change is the beginnings of insanity. The gentle tones of warmer air and the summer stroll of a pretty horse sharply veer into burning despair. It almost feels like there's an edge of a knife slicing across his face as he grits his teeth at the beautifully razor sharp sounds coming from the window. (the window of a house with one or more people)
He knows that the hands (belonging to the person past the window and in the house) breezing across piano keys probably didn't even lose the grace of the elegant dance performed on slim, black and white bars. Didn't lose a single bit of grace despite the sheer violence spilling into the air.
Summer is torn to shreds and it's not a pretty image in his head anymore. Instead it's just feelings of piercing edges, barbed wire, and screaming. Bloody murderous sounds of screaming. Like the keening of a dead animal or the inhumane wailing of a wife with her husband's blood on her face and his dead body in her arms. All of those things in one place. A place where light is afraid to touch because the darkness will eat it. Always cloaked in pure cave-darkness. A place where someone could scream and scream forever and ever but no one would ever hear them.
He shuts his eyes and doesn't even try covering his ears because he knows the music will somehow snake into his hearing and whisper crazy things. Crazy, insane little things that would be so, so simple and they sound so, so sweet. Killing things. People, animals, everything, everyone, himself. Destroying the world. Burning it all, piece by piece.
He always wonders how anyone could ever harbor such pure and utter madness. Madness that he could almost touch and wrap his hands around because there's so much of it. Too much of it. And it's probably not even half of the madness that spills out in the form of music that the person has. The person who is just through the window, inside the house, and somehow caging in all of those feelings.
If that person even cages it.
But then.
The never-ending song suddenly melts into what must be sadness if it were ever once a sound solidified instead of an imagined feeling. Slowly the sharp swords in the air playfully slicing into his face fade, replaced by the enthralling sound of despair. It's even more beautiful than the beginning of the music because tragic beauty is always more appealing. The ugliness surrounding it sharply contrasting against its own simple loveliness, making it shine. Making it look dazzling.
A broken dance sliding in and around him to make sure all that silly insanity is swept away. So he's relaxed again, lying in the snow beneath a window. Relaxed but feeling like the world is going to break at any moment.
The first time he had heard this part (it's always there in each and every song), he had cried. Trying to hiccup quietly, trying not to climb through the window, and share contact with that person on the piano making the keys sing the elegant descent of a dying star. A star that knows in perfect crystal clarity that its burning its life away to crash into a home that is not its own and the tragedy and sadness but acceptance it must feel.
He had wanted to try and make the sorrow go away if only a little bit with the warmth of another person because sometimes human touch is really, very healing.
But he hadn't. Instead he'd sat underneath the window, open-mouthed and crying. Despairing for this person through the window.
Finally.
The last bits of music are finally committing suicide in the air. He is edging himself away from the beneath the window to the side of the house. Always careful. Lifting himself from the ground, pushing away, and stiffly working out frozen muscles to retrieve his bike.
It's a routine now as he gets on and rides away.