Title: The Apartment
Author: Sargent Snarky
Rating: T (for now, though it may be bumped up, later, for language, drug & alcohol use, violence, sexual references and possibly content, etc.)
Genre: Supernatural / General
Summary: (very postRENT) I didn't believe them when they told me it was haunted. I was an idiot. And yet… I don't regret seeing them. Meeting him. And learning their story.
Notes: Basically, this is a first person narrative told from the point of view of someone of an unspecified sex (I haven't decided quite yet if it's male or female) who moves into the apartment Mark and Roger lived in years before this story takes place. This person has ignored warnings that the place is haunted and is therefore quite shocked to meet the ghosts… To see them replay scenes from those Boho years.
For reference, the entire cast is dead by now, but I've no specific year in mind for this to take place.
And feel free to be as harsh as you want in reviews, though please DO review. I LOVE feedback. Keep in mind, though, that I've only ever seen the movie and read detailed synopses of the play. Also, I've only seen the movie once, unfortunately, while it was still in theaters, so pleas forgive me if I am not entirely correct in my details. If I had a copy of the movie or something, I'd try to be more accurate, but, alas, I do not. I can only hope I get characterizations and whatnot correct.
Also, I am aware that the prologue is a bit rambling and not that greatly written, but oh well. I intend to be better in writing the chapters themselves and probably will, at some point, rewrite the prologue once I've got a better idea of where this story is going.
Lastly, in case you are interested, this was inspired partially by me not being able to sleep, partially by assorted bits of music I was listening to, the reading of lots of RENT fanfiction (and finding no ghost ones) and partially by an ongoing roleplay with one who, at this site, goes by The Elfmaniac. Yes, it is a RENT roleplay (I play Mark, Maureen and Joanne, though mostly Mark), but it has nothing whatsoever to do with this story; it's just what reminded me just how very much I love RENT, despite disagreeing with some of the underlying principles of it, as well as much of the bohemian lifestyle. Heh. Not all of it, but I myself would never be a bohemian in anything but how I dress and accepting people as they are.
Prologue:
I didn't believe them when they told me that the cheap, shitty, industrial apartment I was intent on renting was haunted. Why should I? Who believed in ghosts, anymore, anyway? All the "unexplained phenomena" could be explained, after all, with science. With observation. With analysis.
Things, forms, spots, hazes appearing in a photograph when there hadn't been any visible to the human eye? These were motes of dust on the lens, in the film developing chemicals, light distortions caused by reflection and refraction of light.
Strange balls of light appearing without a source? Just like St. Elmo's Fire, these were bursts of static electricity and nothing more.
Whispering voices that didn't come from any living throat? Echoes that had been distorted through distance and bouncing off of other surfaces. Or air currents whistling and murmuring through nooks and crannies.
Shifting objects? Drafts in the room. Changes in air pressure. Light, almost imperceptible earth quakes.
Need I really go on with all the different symptoms of a haunted area and their scientific explanations? You get the point, right? Well, even if you don't, I'm moving on with this story. I don't want this to turn into a lecture, after all.
Anyway, where was I? Ah yes… the apartment.
Well, the apartment was just a loft in an old industrial apartment building in Alphabet City. It wasn't the best part of town, but it wasn't the absolute worst. It was mostly a community filled with rejected, dejected artists. The ones that, when asked what their job was, muttered something in a slightly bitter tone about being freelance. And the ones who spent their days too drugged out to care. But, they left me more or less alone, save for warning me about the apartment.
I had asked why this place I'd selected to live in (mostly based on pricing, proximity, lack of nosy neighbors and vacancy) had been cheaper than all the nearby apartments, and why no one else had wanted it. They'd told me that it was haunted. They said that usually there was only one ghost, a thin, pale, geeky sort of young man with piercing blue eyes hidden behind glasses and a black and white striped scarf always around his neck. He always carried one of those old home video cameras that one had to crank, wind up in order to get it to record. He usually sat there, somewhere, staring off into space. Sometimes he'd cry, sometimes he'd hum, sometimes he'd be filming something, and other times, he'd be watching things one could see reflected off of his eyes and his glasses and the lens of his camera. Not that anyone had ever stayed long enough to look.
But sometimes, they also said, other ghosts joined him. And other times, he'd play out scenes entirely his own, alone.
Sometimes, in June, he'd be in the bathroom, staring at a too thin, young girl, who was in the bathtub, her wrists each bearing a deep slash, reaching all the way to each artery. If one stayed long enough, one would see her turn her pallid, damp face towards him and smile. She would whisper to him and gesture weakly to the mirror, where, for a brief few moments, one might have seen written in lipstick a suicide note. No one stayed long enough after that to see how the grisly scene ended.
Sometimes, during the next few months, one might see him in the apartment with another man, a taller, sturdier built, though still gangly pale man with green eyes and blond hair, no glasses. This man had bags under his eyes and a wild look in his eyes as he demanded just one more hit, begged to be allowed to get his precious smack. Ranted and raved at and fought with the blue eyed man to let him out of the apartment. Often, these fights were violent, and the blue eyed man suffered almost more than the green eyed one, who was going through withdrawal from his drug. And sometimes an older man with light brown skin and hair that was prematurely graying would be there, helping the blue eyed man out with his efforts to assist the green eyed one in becoming clean. Whether they succeeded or whether in one of the withdrawal induced rages the green eyed one managed to escape, regain his precious substance, no one was really certain.
Sometimes, on Halloween, one could find him talking to himself about a previous Christmas Eve, musing depressed thoughts aloud about an Angel who had just died and how things were steadily falling apart.
Sometimes right after, sometimes within a few days of that scene, a new girl would be there, with curly hair and a lithe body, as would a new man. He was black and dressed nicer than the others. Two other women were there, too, a black woman who had that look all lawyers have about them and another flamboyant, energetic voluptuous woman. And the green eyed man of before was there. And they all argued with each other, even as the blue eyed man did his level best to be peacemaker, as the graying man stared at them with sadness in his eyes, wondering how things could fall apart so badly. What happened next, again, no one stayed to see.
But Christmas… Christmas was the day upon which the ghosts acted the most. It always began with the blue and green eyed men ranting about rent. Soon after, another man would enter, the nicely dressed man, and he would promise them free rent in exchange for a favor, and they would always refuse. Later, the graying man would come in accompanied by a transvestite who danced around, drumming on the tables and walls, bringing life into the place. Three of them would leave, eventually, and the lithe curly haired girl would come in, asking the green eyed one to light her candle. Or, at least that is how various witnesses pieced together the day.
On New Years, all of the ghosts were gathered, save for the transvestite, and the lithe girl would be lying on the table, breathing her last while the green eyed man clutched her frail body, singing to her. Whether she died then or not, no one was sure, because, as usual, no one ever stuck around long enough to find out.
And there were other days during which scenes played out. Not all days, but enough. Enough for there to be plenty of witnesses, attesting to these dramas. Attesting, but offering no proof.
They had told me all of this with great sincerity, warning me only to live there at my own peril. Who knew if the blue eyed ghost – the only, they said, who seemed most real – was merely a grieving soul trapped in his own memories or a demon taking the form of one who'd left part of his soul there.
And I had laughed in their solemn faces. And they had looked at me with sad pity. Then, they'd left me alone.
Now, I only wish I'd listened to them.
Now, I wish I hadn't scoffed at them, thinking them all delusional, or all just pulling my leg. And yet… In a way, I'm eternally grateful for the chance to witness the phantoms and to see love, hate, friendship, betrayal, life, death and all manner of things flow so strongly there. And, of course, I will never forget meeting him, that blue eyed ghost who told me the story that pierced my soul.
All the same, I miss the bliss of ignorance.
AN: First chapter coming whenever I've time to write it; most likely, that won't happen for at least a week. Furthermore, if everyone ignores this story, I may not even bother. Although, knowing me, I'll at least post the first chapter, and keep on writing until I lose inspiration, which'll happen all the sooner if I've got no reviews to inspire me, but whatever.
Sargent Snarky