by ACinBC
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Harvest Moon. I do not own any lyrics that are written, and if I do, I will say so. I do no own the album or any of the songs this story is based on. I do not own any of the characters, just the situations I put them in and the personalities I give them.
WARNING: Story contains teenage bad-assyness, adult language, alcohol (and plenty of it), mild sexual content, and mild violence.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thank you for reading my story. This story is about a young adult who used to live in Mineral Town, but returns because of circumstances. I got the plot of this story from the Bright Eyes album "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning", so if you notice any references or lyrics from them, that is why. Yes, I know this chapter is going to be extremely boring, but every story has to have a boring chapter that explains who the character is and why he or she is where he or she is. The ending of this story is going to be amazing though, I guarantee it. Expect anywhere from a day to months for each chapter because I am writing it as I go along. I am open to any comments, reviews, and constructive criticism as long as they don't bash me, my story, or the band Bright Eyes. Please read and review, and enjoy.
Chapter 1:
At the Bottom of Everything
The sky was a glorious blue outside the rectangular window with curved edges. The clouds were playing hide-and-seek with the sun as a lady with blonde hair glanced left and right on an airplane seeming high above the largest ocean.
"May I get you anything, sir?" A flight attendant asked the man sitting next to her. He seemed to be in a far off, distant area, an abnormal reverie of sorts. Or he could possibly be drunk. He had quickly drained the contents of a black flask about fifteen minutes earlier. But his eyes, those eyes she would never forget; they danced around like a flame, flickering to their own rhythm, and then turning to smoke as a pair of parted lips douses the flame. His eyes opened and closed, and tear up and went bloodshot, and grew softer and grew angrier all at the same time. That man's eyes were the color of a frosty, winter evening's sky, transparent like beryl yet sterile like a therapeutic vaccine.
"A Bloody Mary, please." His tongue rolled over the words as the woman avoided the flight attendant's gaze by looking at the magazine in her lap. It lay open to page forty-eight. She had tried to read the article a few times, but how can one read an article as arduous as this about foreigners in a third-world country that can't even be pronounced? So, she stared at the beautiful landscape pictures and indigenous tribes of this third-world country. The attendant walked off, and the blonde girl turned her gaze back to the man. The woman turned her head toward him several times and opened her mouth to start a conversation but every time she failed and words fell into unintelligible grunts or moans.
He had wispy white hair cut meticulously an inch above each ear and combed to the right. His eyebrows were more of a gray as the arced up and down as he sipped, sipped, sipped from the Bloody Mary and swallowed, swallowed, swallowed. She could almost feel the burning vodka pulsating down her throat and poisoning her arteries and veins, destroying her blood cells, and being a plague, pestilence to her brain cells. She didn't drink much anymore, not after having her son twenty-two years ago.
The man's face was severe and grave at the moment, but she could see jovial laugh lines. He must be a good grandfather, she thought to herself. At least he had a grandfather appearance to him. He wore a navy cardigan sweater with a white oxford t-shirt underneath, the collar peaking over the v-neck sweater; he had on khaki pants that were neatly dry-cleaned, black socks, and a brown belt to match his brown loafers.
"Where are you headed to?" she spoke up. The man turned his eyes towards hers, moaned, and pulled out his ticket stub.
"My hometown," he replied.
"Well, where is that?" she asked feeling elated that one of her several attempts to start a conversation might actually work. But before she knew what had happened, his drunken eyes mystified, and his head fell upon her shoulder. She let it rest there. What else could she do? He was cute like how all grandparents seem to be.
Alarms were buzzing and lights were flashing. The blonde woman opened her eyes. I must have dozed off; she thought to herself, I was feeling really bored and despondent earlier. She turned her head to see the old man with his hands folded in his lap. His head was bobbing as he placed an empty glass down, another Bloody Mary down the hatch. She looked around and saw that everyone on the plane seemed to be in a state of panic. She pulled the blind up from the window and joined the mass of people staring out the window. However, she couldn't see pass the smoke jetting out of the wing, but the childish, easy-going game of hide-and-seek among the clouds now felt like it had turned into a violent game of monkey in the middle with the airplane being the ball.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, oh my God, I'm sorry." The woman steadily looked up. The pilot was on the speaker just crying out and bellowing and losing control of himself. A low whistle began to blow, piercing all ears' silence.
"What's happened?" she asked the man next to her as she tried to remain calm. He cleared his throat and raised his hand slightly. His fingers fell loosely as his eyes burned red. He opened his mouth to talk, and his enlarged tongue made his voice tremble.
"Well, it seems there has been a huge mechanical failure, and we are falling thirty-thousand feet above the largest ocean."
"Oh my God! You can't be serious?" Her eyes looked back out the window. My son! Will I ever see my son again? He had invited me to his apartment to visit, her thoughts rattling around her head.
"Where are we going?" she asked in a state of panic. It took him a while to answer.
"We're going to a party." Finally, he appeared to be drunk. She turned from the window and looked questioningly into his eyes.
"It's a birthday party. It's your birthday party." No matter how deeply she stared into his eyes he did not appear drunk at all. Besides his speech being slurred, his eyes read full sobriety.
"Happy birthday, darling. We love you very, very, very, very, very, very, very much." She shook her head in shock. How could this man know it was her birthday and that she was going to visit her son to celebrate her fiftieth birthday?
"I never caught your name," he said.
"Laura, it's Laura." She looked deeply into his compassionate eyes.
"Laura, what a pretty name." She turned her eyes back to the window. The man suddenly said, "One, two, one, two, three, four," and started humming a little tune. It sounded like an Irish drinking song but flirted with a Scottish tale of a lost love. The notes and pitches danced around with one another in a conflicting way with harsh, loud downbeats and then suddenly quivered to a soft, slow tempo and back again. The man pulled out another flask and began sipping frenetically. Through the smoke and fog she saw her son's face and a tear fell down her cheek.
Fast-forward hundreds of miles away and approximately two weeks later, a young adult stood peering into the water on a bridge south of a farm. His feet dangled over the water as he stared at the water. The tears rolled freely down his cheeks and stuck in the stubble on his face; he hadn't shaved in days. His brown hair hadn't been combed in days either, and the back of his hair flew and stuck out loosely; the front of his hair appeared better than the back, he had matted the top down with water and flung his hair to the right so his bangs curled to the right. His skin was pale in the bitter late Winter weather. He had on a white long-sleeved oxford t-shirt, black slacks, and brown suede slip-on type loafers with loose laces. He was thin, thinner than usual. A cigarette hung loosely on his cracked lips. He sucked on it every now and then but mostly just let it hang there as ashes fell into the water below. The water was a deep gray and splashed roughly on the shore. Brave fish were traversing against the current swimming trying to find warmer water. The sky was gray and clouded. Everything was mourning with him.
"Hey, Conner…" A strong but timid voice uttered. Conner turned and looked upon the only 'father' figure he had had in his life. His real dad hadn't been too fatherly.
Doug, the owner of the inn at Mineral Town, slowly stepped forward. He had his orange-red hair loosely fallen forward, and his orange moustache was now surrounded by red stubbles. Apparently, Doug hadn't shaven in a while either. His eyes looked weak but not tearful. His daughter, Ann, was behind him. Her orange hair pulled back into a ponytail. She had on a white shirt with blue denim overalls. She had freckles and was extremely tomboyish, but she was definitely beautiful. Conner fretfully wiped his eyes and stuttered, "Yeah?"
"I'm really sorry, you know—" His daughter cut him off.
"We both are."
"Yes, we both are. And you know you can stay with us—" Again he was cut off, but this time by Conner.
"No. I want to stay here at my mom's home." Doug appeared hurt.
"Al-alright," He said with difficulty. Conner didn't care at the moment if he hurt anyone. He knew he would sooner or later regret what he just said, but it didn't bother him now. He did, however, stand up and approach Doug. He grasped him stalwartly for having lost someone so dear to him. He motioned for Ann to join in on the hug.
"I love you, guys," Conner said weakly as tears began falling. They all joined in on a good cry.
"We love you too," they said.
Conner sat in his room a few minutes later and stared at the walls. It had been five years since he had been in this room, and it looked exactly like how he had left it. The walls were white. The ceiling was white. The carpet was white. Everything calm, sterile, collected, refined, and annoying. That's why he had left. He hated the town. He hated most of the people even though they were the kindest people he had ever met. He hated feeling stuck in the town with barely one hundred residents and without any other town around for many, many miles.
Mineral Town was a quaint, pastoral town. It had one road that lead to a highway that lead to an interstate. Every other road was a walking road. The roads were cobblestone with their own unique patterns of circles, arrows, and lines. The town had a library, a supermarket, a clinic, a church, a winery, an inn, a blacksmith shop, a shack on the beach that sold food in the summer, a dock, a nice beach with a nice view of the ocean, a lake, mines, a spring, a river, a waterfall, a woodcutter, and three farms. The town had everything it needed. They grew and cooked their own food and needed no one or anything from the outside world. That's why Conner hated it. He had always been destined for city life but had been trapped in rural hell.
After he had finished his studies and got a high school diploma, he moved to New York City where he attended New York University and majored in music while minoring in photography. While attending college, he rented an apartment and got a job playing his trumpet and singing at bars and other locations. The barhopping only earned him a few bucks on tips, so he also did some freelance photography in his spare time. Eventually he got a part-time job at a local and popular café. His mom visited him often and didn't approve of some of his habits. He became an obsessive alcoholic and a chain smoker mostly to deal with the depression of not feeling good enough or feeling that he had caused his parents' divorce over fifteen years ago. The last time he had talked to his mom was to invite her to New York to celebrate her birthday. She had enjoyed the city, go-go life but preferred rural life.
Conner began to flip through his old diaries. He knew his mom had read some entries of them, but she loved him too much to ever really delve into them. He had been a rebel in the villagers' eyes. He didn't belong. Girls wanted to date him. Parents wanted to get rid of him. He had done strange things as a kid. The old preacher said he was going to hell. The old doctor said he was crazy. He probably was crazy and probably was going to hell, but he didn't care. He read one quick entry from when he was eight.
Summer 23rd
Another boring day. I am really sick and tired of this town. After eating and doing my morning chores, I continued my never-ending task of prank calling. I first went to the phone at the inn and prank called all the kids I knew. They don't mind. They find it funny. I then ran to the phone booth and called as many adult numbers I could remember, pranking them about their refrigerators running. They didn't find it very funny, which just made it hilarious to me. I then came home and spent the rest of the afternoon, evening, and night teaching myself as much as I could about computers. I am really getting the hang of HTML and Java. I can't wait to start learning C++. I finally was able to break the library's firewall, and I started arranging the books on their online card catalog incorrectly. Mary will really get angry. She's cute when she's angry. I don't understand why her parents let her work in the library. She's only nine, so hopefully her parents will blame her for the mess-up.
Conner mostly did what he read on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. He spent Tuesdays and Thursdays doing what he read next.
Summer 24th
Lame. But whatever. Mary didn't know I messed up her computer system, but boy, was she angry. I spent the morning talking to her. She's really nice although a complete bookworm. I wonder what she would look like without glasses. I went fishing for lunch and caught a couple fish. I cooked them and brought Mary some. She liked it. I then left and sneaked back in. I then ran around ripping out every epilogue in books I could find. If they didn't have an epilogue, I would rip out the aftermath or the last chapter. I just hate how authors think that 'the end' is the end. Nothing ever ends. They need to learn this, so I'm teaching them this. I then wrote random messages into books whenever I wanted.
Conner did rip out every ending in every book at the library and eventually burnt the pages. It took many seasons for him to do it, but he did accomplish the feat. He then made himself braver by watching the news and reading newspapers and staring into the faces of criminals that would be executed in some big town. At first he would shudder, but he eventually made himself strong telling himself they would never hurt him.
Conner grabbed another diary and flipped the pages randomly. He found an entry from when he was twelve.
Summer 11th
My medicine stockpile is growing greater and greater daily. I started out with only medicines I had and my mom had. I would then ask some of the local kids if I could go to their houses. While there, I would sneak off into their bathrooms and steal as many pills as I could. Just today I hit the jackpot when I was able to convince the doctor to run out of the clinic to help someone. I stole so many pills; it was amazing. Valiums and Darvons, Premarins, Aldactones, Estinyls, Estraces, Darvocets, Percodans, Compazines, Nembutals, Percocets, Oral estrogens, Anti-androgens, Progestons, painkillers, antidepressants, flu pills, cold pills, sinus pills, testosterone pills, anything and everything. I have them all hidden in my sock drawer. I take some every now and then but not enough to kill myself. Just enough to get a buzz, and what a wonderful buzz! The whirling and twirling and spinning and flying. It's amazing. I love it, but I won't let myself get addicted. I found these to sell them. I read in a recent magazine that a lot of prescription pills were not going to be made anymore, and I know there are worse pill-popping junkies than me out there that will need their pills. I have already created the website, and I only have to pay twenty bucks a month to use the hosting site. Once people start buying, I will be rich.
Conner's plan worked significantly well. He earned almost a thousand dollars by the time his stock was depleted, and once he ran out, he shut down the site. He put the money in a shoebox and marked the box 'Getting Out of Here' money. He knew he wasn't the smartest kid, and since home schooling wasn't going to get him in the finest universities, he had to have some sort of plan to get out of town.
Conner turned many pages ahead and found another entry.
Fall 9th
This preacher is really starting to get on my nerves. He found out about my prescription pill market (what do you know? Priests can be junkies too!) and brought it out into the open after explaining why he found the site (although not mentioning he bought a crapload of estrogen patches from me). I think he's gay. I have a plan to end him. Here's what I'm going to need: gasoline, matches, and a dildo. He's gonna be out of this town by the 13th; I guarantee it.
Conner was right. He broke into the church in the middle of the night, poured gasoline on his hands, and wrote on the wall. He then threw a match at the message, and it read, "Hell will come one day, but for you, it is today. Oh, you sad, sad woman. Like your present? It's in the Bible." Conner hid the dildo in the Bible with a one hundred dollar bill attached to a sticky note that read: "Buy yourself the vagina you want." The preacher took Conner's advice and left town. Conner had warned the priest on countless occasions to not mess with him, but he had crossed the line by almost getting him arrested by revealing his stash. Months later, Conner repented to the new priest, Carter, whom he liked a lot better. They got to know one another and became acquaintances.
Conner turned ahead some more.
Fall 15th
I think I just wrote the best song ever. As you know, I've been researching as many anarchists and rebels known in history and after learning as much about them as I can I normally get inspiration to write a song lyrically and sometimes even musically. But this most recent song is the best, and I have to tell you about it, diary. This song is about how I used to sit on the roof and watch mom water plants on the farm and father load his twelve gauge shotgun elsewhere, the time I am recalling in the song was when I was five. I find all of it extremely ironic (ironic, I learned that word a few days ago! I've been using it as much as possible). Love, new birth, and kindness growing from mom while hate, death, and destruction brewed from father. Dad was a really rough drunk. Although he normally was verbally angry when he was drunk, at times he would beat mom or me. But the weird thing was that he would say some really profound things when drunk like when he said, "Death will bring us back to God just like the setting sun is returned to the lonesome ocean." I never really understood the insightfulness of the statement, but I would have to say that I agree. That's what the song is about.
Conner turned the page.
Fall 17th
Recently I've been performing my songs at the inn to all of the alcoholics. The songs I play on the piano Doug supplies are normally sad while the ones I play on the acoustic guitar mom bought me are normally happy, or angry. I also play my trumpet sometimes. I've only been earning a few bucks in tips every time I do it, but the song I told you about a few days ago has helped me earn almost one hundred dollars! They seem to like it so much. It makes me happy. The song I wrote incorporates all three: piano, guitar, and trumpet. It ranges from sad to happy to lively to slow, and it ends with a big trumpet explosion. I love it. I can't wait to make more songs like it.
Rewind hundreds of miles away and approximately two weeks earlier, the sound of the plane hitting the water made Laura's ears hurt, and blood gushed from her outer ears. She looked at the man next to her. He was still humming the song. It had the same tune of a song Conner had written years before.
"Where'd you hear that song?" she asked in desperation. The man wrapped his arms around her in a comforting way. He was somber but happy.
"That was a wonderful splash, wasn't it?" Water gushed into the airplane quickly. "Sing along, please," he commanded. She sang the words as he hummed. Her voice was weak and shook, so she grabbed the flask and chugged some whiskey. She felt it warm her. She felt happier. Although he wasn't there, she felt like Conner was there with the song flowing from her lips. The ocean swallowed them up.
Fast-forward hundreds of miles away and approximately two weeks later, another page turned in Conner's diary as he recalled his childhood. This entry was from when Conner was fourteen.
Summer 17th
I joined the church's choir. Mostly because mom asked me to, she said she wanted people to hear me outside of drunken stupors. We had our first practice today. I love singing, don't get me wrong, but I hate having to blend. I'm a soloist. I hate blending and singing static with the whole. We have to memorize nine numbers! It's insane. In a group you have no soul. You are just one. I don't want to deny I have a soul because I do have one. Whatever. I'll do it as long as it makes mom happy.
Conner quit the choir a few weeks later and went back to singing solo and playing his trumpet.
Conner grabbed his teenage diaries. He flipped through pages reading brief accounts of the many lyrics and random statements he had written when he was drunk. Conner would hang out in the church's belfry when he wanted to get drunk. He would get so wasted he could hear the bats and moonlight laugh and wrote lyrics about bats and the moon. The world spun constantly and he spent days up there until the alcohol depleted and the hangovers ceased. When he was sixteen, he bought a crystal ball and learned how to use it, but when he tried to see his future, he only saw his past. On nights when he had no alcohol, Conner would take a flashlight and his trumpet with his love of music and go into the caverns way deep in the mines. He would play and play and play. The noise was exhilarating as the frequencies bounced off the stalagmites, stalactites, and walls. He would often not come up for days as he just played and sang and thought. He thought about where he wanted to go and what he wanted to do. He thought a lot while down there.
Rewind hundreds of miles away and approximately two weeks earlier, Conner's mom continued singing and singing.
Fast-forward hundreds of miles away and approximately two weeks later, Conner read his last entry in his last diary. It was a song that he wrote before he left for New York City. He smiled weakly recalling the times he sang it all over New York and over the phone to his mom. He started singing.
Rewind.
The words echoed off the plane as tears rolled down her cheek.
Fast-forward.
The words echoed off the wall as tears rolled down his cheek.
Rewind.
"Oh, my morning's coming back—"
Fast-forward.
"The whole world's waking up—"
Rewind.
"All the city buses swimming past—"
Fast-forward.
"I'm happy just because—"
Rewind.
Fast-forward.
Repeat.
Repeat.
"I found out I am really no one."
They both screamed into the somber silence. Tears burning their pores, tracing their noses and lips. Their vocal chords tearing as they screamed the last words. Spit flying.
The bubbles traveled upward as Laura continued singing underwater. Her hair billowed around her, and the salt burnt her eyes, but she kept singing. She sang until she lost all oxygen and drowned.
Conner fell to the floor and threw his diary against the wall. He dragged himself to the kitchen and opened up a bottle of wine his mother had received as a present. He looked for a wine glass, found none, and just drank from the bottle. He swallowed, swallowed, swallowed. He finished the wine bottle and went through celebratory champagne and wine. Enter celebratory depressant. Exit all vision, judgment, and coordination. The morning will bring a brand new day.
A/N: I had no idea how to end the chapter, so I kinda just did. Again, please r/r. I'm sorry for such a long and boring chapter, but please continue reading my story. Again, thank you.