--André Breton
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Chapter One: Inspire
The world was a sepia landscape that afternoon. The winter had turned everything brown and gray, and the wind seemed to color the rumbling sky a deep amber.
Lily Randall plodded through the mushy ground with a deep reluctance. Her eyes kept darting through her surroundings as if some demon might pop from behind a bush. Her wool sweater was starting to become itchy and irritating, however, and she became less paranoid of her surroundings and more discouraged for her comfort.
If there was one fascinating thing about Roscoe, it's that it seemed to have been designed by some sort of strangely fascinating genius. There were small footpaths cutting through the surrounding forest, which most of the children from Roscoe had explored when they were younger. It seemed as if people traveled them all the time, because there were always well worn and free of forest debris. Occasionally, you would see sign of travelers: a beer bottle, a discarded joint, sometimes an action figure. But, for the most part, you had the distinct impression that you were one of the first people to travel down a road in years. A road that intention's are so unclear, you make up reasons why they were made in the first place: an illegal whiskey run, a lover's meeting place, a secret society.
The wind was howling angrily through the trees when Lily saw him. He was leaning against the gray stony wall of the town cemetery. He held something odd in his hands, which he was watching with strange disinterest. His eyebrows were knitted together in concentration and occasionally he would survey the sky as if he were waiting for the heavens to finally issue forth the thunderstorm it had been threatening all day.
Lily stood there for a long time, staring at him, wondering what exactly she should do. Her foot was sinking further and further into the soft ground, the muddy soil enveloping her shoe. However, she paid no mind to it. Instead, she stood extremely quiet, like a deer glancing at a fellow forest creature, deciding whether they were dangerous or perfectly safe.
Then, as if she had issued forth a cry, his eyes instantly snapped towards her. They shone in some kind of gray and ethereal light. The gaze hurt her, pierced her. But Lily simply ground her teeth and bore it all-- it was like self-destruction; opening old wounds and letting the blood pour out, adrenaline pounding fresh and painful through her veins.
There was a registry of surprise on his face when he first saw her, but it quickly wore off. Soon, his face softened and hardened at the same time-- a look of approachability was painted across his features, but there was no invitation to read his feelings.
However, even though it was very clear that she might approach him, Lily didn't. A shiver blew it's way through her body; she drew her sweater tighter, ignoring the wool scratching against her bare flesh.
Through her squinted eyelids, she surveyed him with suspicion. He never failed to intrigue her. And yet, there was something so spookily familiar about him, she couldn't help but not be surprised by his presence. Sometimes it was as if she expected him to show up at the most uncanny places and the oddest sort of hours. Although she had no intention of him being here, it shocked her very little.
Travis Strong was an endless tapestry of nature which she had tried to unravel. But then she had realized that she had gone about it all wrong; she wasn't supposed to figure out how he was woven. It was the fact that she could identify that he was a complex pattern of paradoxes; that was what was important.
Of course, no one understood this. Ray had told her that she was creepy when she finished his sentences or excused his frequent and moody absences.
"It's not normal, Lily," Ray had commented one day while scarfing down a krueller at the local bakery. "I mean the only people who understand him are people like," an indefinite pause, "well, no one really. Even Audrey says that he's a freak."
And then Ray received a swift punch that rendered him hardly injured, if not a bit encouraged. Shaking her head mournfully, Lily said that it wasn't that hard to understand people as long as you aren't a close-minded baffoon.
Ray had raised an eyebrow before glancing at her through mischievous eyebrows. "So. . . are you saying that Audrey is a close-minded baffoon?"
Another punch.
But, staring at Travis now, Lily realized that he wasn't a freak. Yes, he was unique and bit quirky, but the fact that he was different didn't make him weird. It made him Travis-- and people who were void of their own idiosyncrasies were the people who had lost something.
The sky rumbled with some kind of impatient frustration, tearing Lily from her brooding. Blinking, Lily double-took the spot that Travis had been standing. Her thoughts must have swept her away so far that she hadn't realized that he had taken leave of her gaze. Swallowing down a bit of bitter disappointment, Lily uncurled her arms from around her frame before jogging quietly down the muddy hill. Looking around her surroundings, she hoped to catch a glance of Travis. Unfortunately, she caught none and she slowed at the bottom of the hill, near the entrance of the cemetery.
Shoulders sagging dejectedly, Lily sighed. Travis had taken more and more leave of Ray, Robbie, and herself lately. She didn't know what he did by himself or even if he was by himself. However, he would always appear for RFR in the afternoons, albeit distant and angsty. His stolen glances at her had never fallen short of Lily, making something flutter in the pit of her chest. Sometimes, when he was in a good mood, he would take her out to eat at Mickey's, but most of the time they were accompanied by Robbie, who always seemed to be disapproving of the situation on the whole, a visible scowl painted across his dark features. Ray would never go just with Lily and Travis, always coming up with some half-grounded excuse to dismiss himself. Robbie would always be present for the occasions were Ray and Travis hung out together, and even though Lily nearly died of the grimacing tensions that hung in the air, she would writhe her way through these excursions and the awkwardness that accompanied them.
And despite of the way she felt-- no, she would not feel. That was the problem. As hard as she was aching inside, she would bravely swallow down any passions or feelings for the noble cause of normalcy and civility. And because, officially, things had been set to neutrality between Ray and Travis, Lily wouldn't dare selfishness and tip that scale.
Suddenly, she heard someone light a match. The smell of sulfur hit her nostrils before the heavy scent of sweet tobacco burned in her senses. Eyes drifting slowly, Lily caught glimpse of someone sitting in front of a tombstone inside the cemetery walls, a cigarette in their hands. The side of their face was visible to her, and she found that she could recognize it instantaneously.
She opened her mouth to sound a greeting, but instead, she shut it and tried to harden herself. Then, trying again, she remarked stonily, "I didn't know you smoked, Travis."
He looked up before offering her a thin smile. "I don't."
Lily, who wasn't expected to hear that reply, clamped her mouth shut of a retort that was about to come out of it. Eyebrows furrowed, she watched as Travis held (only holding, never releasing a bit of it's pleasurable poison into his system) his cigarette for a few gray minutes, his stormy eyes glued on it. The paper strip of nicotine would flare every once in awhile, burning in a flame of glory before it would singe back into his normal gold and black kindle. Ashes would fall occasionally, some scattering on the ground, many collecting on his rough fingers.
In a final burst of glory, the cigarette would burn itself out, smoldering waves of smoke emitting out of it, showcasing the death of something that had once seemed to live. As this happened, Travis dropped it, grinding it into the ground with a defiant push of his toe.
He stared blankly ahead for a few seconds before he turned to her, his face full of some kind of uncharted emotion, sparking something odd and unexpected in Lily's throat. He surveyed her face before saying, gently, "So, is the world crashing down on you today also?"
Lily suddenly realized that she had been crying. Bristling at her own tears, she wiped them away defiantly before wrapping her arms around her stomach. She looked at Travis in desperation before making some sort of coherent response, "I'm unwanted, Travis. I'm rejected. No-- don't open your mouth," Lily raised a shaky but strong hand to an interjection that was forming on Travis' tongue, "it is nothing to be pitied about. I have brought my own fate on me. I have rejected some part of me that I don't think I can ever find again, and it leaves me feeling like some sort of broken spirit, wondering these desolate moors of Roscoe with a empty and sickening feeling." Closing her eyes, she felt another tear leak through her eyelid dam.
When she opened her eyes, Travis was staring at her with a cryptic expression. There was no pity on his face; instead there was something strong and beautiful. Understanding, perhaps? Lily didn't know. She swallowed her thick tears along with another sob that was arising like a hiccup in her throat.
He dropped her gaze before saying, "If it makes you feel any better, I don't believe in fate, Lily. Or at least not the silly sentimental nonsense definition that they've placed on it today. There is too much to it, to fate, Lily," he looked up at her, a quizzical expression on his face, "and further more, you know that too. And that frightens me, because. . ." he trailed off before shaking his head, a ironical and dark chuckle arising from his throat. Then, with a quick look that Lily failed to decode, he growled, "Me and you, Lily, we're enemies unto the world. And it knows it. It is compelled by it."
Lily knew there was no real rationality to his words. But they spoke some kind of truth that shook her so hard to the core that a dark chill shivered up the back of her neck. The world suddenly turned inside out of her. The trees seemed to groan and shriek at her. Looking around, as if she had displaced some of her common sense on a hanger to dry, Lily looked at Travis in horror. There was a slight knowing smile gathering at the corner of his mouth.
"Have a cigarette," he said, pulling a pack out of his jacket pocket.
Lily did have a cigarette. But she never pressed it to her mouth. Instead, both of them simply watched as the life and death of something beyond this world transpired right before their eyes.
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A/N: Hey ya'all! How did I get this done so fast, you ask? Just call me genius. Or, er. . . also call me a cheater because this story is actually pretty much finished already. Heh. . .
Anywho, leave me a message after the tone. . . or you know, just press the pretty 'ickle review button, take a minute out of your life and write a review. Tell what I need to improve, what you like, if your Aunt Sally went sky-diving, whatever. Yeah, that'd be beautiful. Oh, and thank you guys who did review; I appreciate it muchly!