A/N: To commemorate Simple Plan's new album, Get Your Heart On!, I'm writing some songfics. This is the first. Hope you like them. Character Death. Implied Homophobia.
Astronaut
The teen stood in the alley, a little radio he had fixed whispering the empty promises of a radio contest-he wasn't paying attention to it. He shivered, clutching his heart. He was in Los Angeles, Hollywood to be more specific, so it definitely was not the cold getting to him. Rather, he say something across the street. Something that threatened to kill him with its very existence-something that might as well have killed him what seemed like forever ago.
The radio slowly changed into song.
Can anybody hear me?
Or am I talking to myself?
My mind is running empty
In the search for someone else
It was a person. A confident blonde male, seventeen years old, with a certain charisma about his person. The blonde didn't notice the teen in the alley, how could he? It wasn't like people looked into alleys across the street all the time.
Who doesn't look right through me.
It's all just static in my head.
Can anybody tell me, why?
I'm lonely like a satellite?
The teen turned around, looking at the radio with disgust, a single tear managing to stream down his dirty face as he slumped into a chair that threatened to break at his every breath, that creaked at the blink of his eyes. How the world loved to screw with him-it had been planning to do so from the start anyways.
'Cause tonight I'm feeling like an astronaut
Sending SOS from this tiny box
And I lost all signal when I lifted up
Now I'm stuck out here and the world forgot
Can I please come down?
His only constant companion nowadays was that radio. That radio that played songs just to screw with him. But he couldn't change the channel. It was far too fitting, he couldn't deny that.
Cause I'm tired of drifting round and round.
Can I please come down?
Before him, traffic went on, people walked on, and life carried on. Nothing was different with him gone. He looked at a bus bench across the street, spitting at the "BTR" poster that adorned the glass walls of the stop. Three familiar teen boys smiled against the white poster.
I'm deaf from all the silence
Is it something that I've done?
I know there are millions
I can't be the only one, who's so disconnected.
He gave a sick laugh, nostalgia welling up past his heart-filling him to the brim with its irreversible grip. Shit happens. Shit happened.
It's so different in my head
Can anybody tell me, Why?
I'm lonely like a satellite.
'Cause tonight I'm feeling like an astronaut
He was in Hollywood, the city of Shit Happens. And it happened to him, of course, and hard. Now he was the resident reject. The scum of the underclass. But it didn't matter to him. It never would have mattered. There were a few people who mattered. Now he wished they didn't.
Sending SOS from this tiny box.
And I lost all signal when I lifted up
Now I'm stuck out here and the world forgot.
Can I please come down?
But they still burned in his heart, in his memory. He couldn't let go of them. He never would be able to. They were too deep in his heart, too buried in my mind, too raveled into his conscience.
Cause I'm tired of drifting round, and round
Can I please come down?
Now I lie awake and scream, in Zero Gravity
And it's starting to weight down, on me.
He shook it off. He had to focus away from his old life. He needed to live in the now. He needed to survive. He needed to live his way out. He was determined to find a better horizon, a silver lining. He stood up, the chair shaking and creaking at the sudden motion. He had no where to go.
Let's abort this mission now
Can I please come down?
So tonight I'm calling all astronauts
All the lonely people that the world forgot
He wandered his mind for some sort of dream, some sort of vague hope to cling to. The hope for others? He laughed bitterly at himself. He looked at the waning traffic, as the people passed by him without looking at him twice. His hands tucked in his pockets, he turned around abruptly-focusing his attention on the moon rising in the far off sky-Venus stared at him sadly. The Planet of Love. He blinked, and the planet seemed to fade from his sight.
If you hear my voice come pick me up
Are you out there?
'Cause you're all I've got
He didn't move. He just stared at the sky, hoping for some sign.
And tonight I'm feeling like an astronaut
Sending SOS from this tiny box
And I lost all signal when I lifted up
Now I'm stuck out here and the world forgot
'Cause tonight I'm feeling like an astronaut
Sending SOS from this tiny box
To the lonely people that the world forgot
Are you out there?
A shooting star shot across the sky, almost no one saw it, being almost entirely invisible in the setting sun.
Cause you're all I got!
Can I please come down?
Please, Please, Please
Cause I'm tired of drifting round, and round.
Can I please come down?
Can I please come down?
Can I please come down?
His name was Hortense "Logan" Mitchell. And, for all his intelligence, he never had delved so deep as to wonder if his friends, his family, were homophobic. He learned quickly. But not fast enough. Not soon enough. And he learned it the hard way.
Three monthes later he would be found with a letter taped to his back. His last will and testament. His last cent, spent on paper and pen. His final goodbye.
For all his mistakes. He had no regrets.
Until the end.
He was content.
With being alone.
Him, and his memories.
And he spoke his mind. He spoke his ease into a content with his new life. However, he also knew it was a life not fit for the living. Using all his knowledge of health, he killed himself shortly and silently.
"Maybe. Our fearless leader was wrong." The voice of a Latin boy, a little younger than Logan, was whispered over the body. It was too late now. Too late for regrets.
And too late for good byes.
Those few at his funeral looked at the P.S. on his letter.
"It's better to Rip Through the Night, then to Drift endlessly"
The old ending was corny. So I changed to a reference. Rip Through The Night is a Shooting Star Reference ("A Shooting Star never falls into darkness, a Shooting Star Rips through the Night") If you don't know your astronomy, a Shooting Star is what happens when Debris burns up in the atmosphere. In Laymen's Terms: It's better to die and be noticed than to be alone for the rest of your life"