Hi guys!

There was this day where I just felt smacked in the face by inspiration, and I wrote this really short story. I'm not really sure where it came from, but here it is. In case you want to know, the song this guy is listening to in the story is Pills by The Perishers. I decided to experiment with writing in second person ever since I read The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, and this is the least messy story that's come out of it.

Have fun!

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You sit across her on the tube, like you do everyday, slipping in your headphones. She looks at you, and you look at her, just like you do everyday, but then both of you avert your gazes, not sure whether you’re strangers or secret lovers, because you feel this strange affection, but it’s not really love is it? Pieces of song drift into your ears as you recover.

My fists can fight for two...

And then suddenly, you’re walking over to her, just for once, being someone that you aren’t, and then, suddenly, you are you, just sitting next to her, talking to her, and you both know you’re best friends in an instant, but her eyes are too pretty to look into platonically, so when slipping your earphone bud into her ear, you ask her if dinner at Il Volo is fine. Of course its fine, only both of you know Il Volo is where every flies off the ground, into romance, which drips off of the air, and that both of you are very okay with this, because your romance for each other already cloaks the air and of course everyone can tell, of course, this is love this is love this is love and we are all in love both of you sing, the distance only deepening what both of you knew to be true. 

My love can blind you…

That night at Il Volo is where you take off, where the ground beneath your feet is finally removed. Sex on the first date, of course this is true love, and sharing dessert is also great on the first date, true love is true love and anything can happen oh anything can happen and both of you are singing as you take off and that’s the last both of you knew about the ground. You are floating on clouds, and this is true love.

Within the next month, both of you are living together, and you are living together in a fairytale and love is literally dancing in the air. You can see it in the bow of the tuxedo as you walk down the aisle, and all he can see is you, you in your little white gown, all ready to kiss him as his Mrs. Perfect and this is so much of a fairytale with the wind blowing your hair, and February whispering beautiful promises in the air.

Ooooh, ooh.

Then suddenly you are having your first fight because he is tired and you are also tired and this is the first slip up but it’s also the last isn’t it? Isn’t it?

One may think we’re doing fine…

Then suddenly that slip up seems so mild, and some nights when it’s not that bad, you can actually creep up into the same bed and share some human warmth with this person who is a stranger, who you once loved and with who you took off the ground at Il Volo, but you are landing and this is not okay, this is not okay.

I hope my arms can blind you…so you'll never have to see what we’re going to be...

Sometimes you are okay, and you smile stranger smiles across the dinner table, but once you take a walk after dinner, if any road takes you near Il Volo, both of you shy away, because suddenly the song this is too hard and we are too fast and crashing is inevitable is stuck in your head and both of you smile and hard, tight smile, and you turn around and head home in a chilly silence.

We need lies to make it through the day...

Both of you are only hanging on by a thread and that thread is thin and only one of you can hang on but this was true love and true love always lasts, always, and both of you were picture perfect but now it’s not and the voice of doubt it singing in your head saying is this it? is this it? can it be it? I can’t sing anymore god please end this for me I don’t want any pain. 

We’re not okay...

This is hitting both of you quick so you both recreate fairytale scenes, but they need actors, and actors are not what you are and both of you once prided yourselves for your honesty, but now you are shabby pretenders, shabby thieves with unshaven beards and hair that hasn’t been washed in a long, long time, but you cling to each other like you need each but you don’t.

But that’s one thing I would never…say to you

And then suddenly you remember the words of the song, and the song is not telling you your fists can fight for two, the song is desperately hoping you can, because this song knows your secrets, and this song knows you’re not okay. This song hopes loves can blind you but this song knows because it is a knowing song and when it sings in your head it sings in the key of paranoia paranoia and you are collapsing, collapsing and going to sleep shaking in the dark. You have hit ground zero. This is an airplane crash, no, a nuclear bomb inside the both of you, with no survivors.

...But that’s one thing I would never…say, to you.

And then suddenly the song ends, and it ends in three sad piano chords, and you are sitting in the Tube again, and she can see through your eyes that something has gone wrong.

Next morning, when she sits on the Tube, she sits in the corner, and you sit exactly where you used to sit, but something has changed and the air is not the same when she is not in it. Repeat, repeat, you have hit ground zero.