"Because the wind is high, it blows my mind"
I stayed up all night. I was engaged with Nabokov. he inspired me to try my hand at writing again. This time from a much more personal place. Anyone who knew my life well could identify those who I based my characters off of. I want to finish this novel. I don't expect it to be that good. I just want to finish something at some point in my life.
Crossing Lines
A love story
Chapter 1
It started out as a series of dreams. Somehow connected by the crisp, clean blond who haunted them with his cold, grey-eyed stare that always penetrated my own soft gaze into my very soul. I saw him in flashes, or just feeling his presence when the dream did not include him. In my waking state I cannot completely picture him, but a mere shadow of him that becomes familiarly detailed every time I dream.
There are two more people who are crucial to the telling of this story. One is the elusive Bradley, who I have known for as long as I can recall. We were friends when we were young, I still am not sure quite how. He was always bossy and controlling, always sure of what he was doing. I was a similarly power-hungry child, but not quite to the extent of Brad, to whom I was grudgingly submissive throughout my elementary years. At the age of ten I learned some sense of independence, no longer following the strict example of my brother, Eric, but coming into my own. At this time I allowed my stored up resentments of Brad take control-I loathed him as I had never loathed anyone before. We went to different schools after that, and I welcomed the break from what I saw as his tyranny. I reunited with the estranged Bradley quite suddenly and awkwardly, when we were placed as orchestra stand partners at the beginning of high school.
At the time I was unsure of my skill on the cello, though I knew it was going to be involved in the story of the rest of my life because of my sheer love of the musical forms built around the quivering contraption of wood and metal strings. Brad, on the other hand, flaunted his power over the instrument, though I was never quite sure of his intention of creating real music. Instead, he would rush through the formalities of scales in order to show off his new Bach etude. He always worked to produce an effect much like that of an artist who has failed to shade in the musculature of his naked model because it looks nice enough as is. People raved of his talent, and the inexperienced orchestra director fell for his confidence and his irksome charm that seemed to fool everyone but myself.
Brad talked to me sometimes, usually to ask me some bland question about the music we shared, his knowledge of music theory lacking. It was not until my last year of high school that we connected in any friendly way, finally acknowledging our childhood years as inseparable pals. His winsome personality captured me as it never had before. It was because somewhere along the line, through his years of half-hearted rehearsals that were constantly praised by Victor Selsum, (the flamboyant, yet mysteriously dark and sinister orchestra director) Brad had developed a passion for the cello as strong as mine. We were no longer stand partners; Victor (he hated being called by his last name, being only a decade our senior) had promoted him over the years to first chair, while I remained several chairs down. It was apparent to everyone but Victor that the people who had the highest rankings in our orchestra also happened to be friendly with him, but that is a different matter.
We shared certain secrets. Brad was gay, but only a few of his friends knew. I was open to the world at this point. Somehow, I had not quite noticed until then how attractive Brad was. His short brown hair that was always styled, but unlike anyone else’s. The sideburns that drove me wild. His long face, coated in a creamy skin that always made him look melancholy, except when his perfect, white smile lit up his features. His clothes that were not quite fashionable except on him. The way he smelled when I passed him, a deodorant or cologne, I was never quite sure which.
I could not believe I was falling for Brad, who I had known since I was five and hated since I was ten.
The other person who is crucial to my telling of this ordeal is a girl who crosses from the realm of best friend to psychic partner, worldly ear. Valorie. I met her around the same time I re-acquainted myself with Brad. The beginning of high school was certainly rough for me as it was for most. In eighth grade I had a faux-depressive complex built of insecurities. I would cut my wrist (not deep enough to leave a scar) and talk to my friends about suicide in some vain attempt to make them appreciate me more. Most of this passed the following summer when I met more people as passionate about art and life as I was. My first year of high school, though, some of my attention-seeking habits still lingered.
This was when I met Valorie. We shared a cello teacher. We had periodic recitals, and during rehearsals for one, Valorie and I sat in the rear of the theatre, and began to talk out of boredom. We have never lacked for anything to talk about, and we each have insight into the problems of the other. I don’t believe in God, but if I did, I’m sure it would have been divine providence that led me to befriend Valorie that year.
Valorie is quite difficult to describe, her face and body seemed to morph constantly as her moods changed. Her physique was that of a thundering storm cloud when she was angry, a harmless cumulus when content, and when she chose to compose laughter, her body jerked and swayed in time with her diaphragm’s contractions. Valorie was awkward with her gestures in speech, the way she stood and walked, yet she somehow had a fluidity to her that revealed her true nature. She was my dearest, closest ally who I had told secrets not even those I would get drunk on weekends with would understand or knew.
This story begins during the spring of my senior year of high school, when college applications were no longer an issue and classes no longer mattered. The three of us, that is, Valorie, Brad, and I were accepted to a week-long program for the best orchestra students in the state. We were put up in a posh hotel with all of the other hundreds of orchestra geeks that had enough talent to be selcted for the program. I was to room with Brad, Valorie was in the adjacent room with a private door connecting the two for the convenience of large families or groups of friends who choose to stay there.
We were confined to a bus the first day, driving eight hours merely to reach the destination of the Honors Orchestra we were all to be a part of this week. After a rather dull few hours of mindless bus games, staring out windows at unpolished fields, and taking rest stops at grimy restrooms filled with greasy truckers, I took a nap. This is when the dreams began. I wrote these dreams down in a cute notebook I found in the overpriced giftshop at the hotel later that evening.
I am standing in the middle of a vast desert late at night, red sand underneath my bare feet. The air is unbearably chilling. Off in the distance I see the lights of a city. I decide to walk towards it, when suddenly I hear an overbearing male voice speak my name.
“Seth, “ It calls.
“Ace.” My childhood nickname. I turn around and I see a boy, probably my age. His eyes are a lurid grey, yet altogether enticing. His face is serious, un moving, accented by his silver-blond hair that is meticulously cut and styled. He wears a blindingly white bathrobe, yet does not seem cold in the chill of the night. He begins to remove the robe, never breaking his gaze, his eyes riveted on mine.
I begin to back away but fall, finding myself inexplicably attached to him. He drops his robe, his muscular torso reflecting in the brightening blue light of the moon. I feel somehow that he is evil, yet cannot break my stare. He turns around suddenly, jerkily, and vanishes. I find myself standing again, just on the outskirts of the city I found earlier. Here, it has been raining, the crumbling office buildings and boarded up shops demonstrate that nobody has been here for years.
I notice that the traffic signals are still functioning, changing in rhythm to my footsteps. Red. Green. Yellow. Stop. Go. Slow. I approach the lights. Now I am not sure if my feet control the lights or the lights control my feet.
I step on a manhole cover, but it breaks just as I step. The hole widens and I fall inside.
I woke up again to the driving patter of disinterested voices and the humming engine of the stuffy bus. We were under ten minutes from the hotel, and I borrowed the opportunity to put away my food leavings and CDs I had strewn across my seat throughout the drive. Valorie was humming softly along with the music only she could hear through her headphones. Brad had switched seats so many times throughout the journey that I wasn’t sure where he was anymore. I yawned.
Crossing Lines
A love story
Chapter 1
It started out as a series of dreams. Somehow connected by the crisp, clean blond who haunted them with his cold, grey-eyed stare that always penetrated my own soft gaze into my very soul. I saw him in flashes, or just feeling his presence when the dream did not include him. In my waking state I cannot completely picture him, but a mere shadow of him that becomes familiarly detailed every time I dream.
There are two more people who are crucial to the telling of this story. One is the elusive Bradley, who I have known for as long as I can recall. We were friends when we were young, I still am not sure quite how. He was always bossy and controlling, always sure of what he was doing. I was a similarly power-hungry child, but not quite to the extent of Brad, to whom I was grudgingly submissive throughout my elementary years. At the age of ten I learned some sense of independence, no longer following the strict example of my brother, Eric, but coming into my own. At this time I allowed my stored up resentments of Brad take control-I loathed him as I had never loathed anyone before. We went to different schools after that, and I welcomed the break from what I saw as his tyranny. I reunited with the estranged Bradley quite suddenly and awkwardly, when we were placed as orchestra stand partners at the beginning of high school.
At the time I was unsure of my skill on the cello, though I knew it was going to be involved in the story of the rest of my life because of my sheer love of the musical forms built around the quivering contraption of wood and metal strings. Brad, on the other hand, flaunted his power over the instrument, though I was never quite sure of his intention of creating real music. Instead, he would rush through the formalities of scales in order to show off his new Bach etude. He always worked to produce an effect much like that of an artist who has failed to shade in the musculature of his naked model because it looks nice enough as is. People raved of his talent, and the inexperienced orchestra director fell for his confidence and his irksome charm that seemed to fool everyone but myself.
Brad talked to me sometimes, usually to ask me some bland question about the music we shared, his knowledge of music theory lacking. It was not until my last year of high school that we connected in any friendly way, finally acknowledging our childhood years as inseparable pals. His winsome personality captured me as it never had before. It was because somewhere along the line, through his years of half-hearted rehearsals that were constantly praised by Victor Selsum, (the flamboyant, yet mysteriously dark and sinister orchestra director) Brad had developed a passion for the cello as strong as mine. We were no longer stand partners; Victor (he hated being called by his last name, being only a decade our senior) had promoted him over the years to first chair, while I remained several chairs down. It was apparent to everyone but Victor that the people who had the highest rankings in our orchestra also happened to be friendly with him, but that is a different matter.
We shared certain secrets. Brad was gay, but only a few of his friends knew. I was open to the world at this point. Somehow, I had not quite noticed until then how attractive Brad was. His short brown hair that was always styled, but unlike anyone else’s. The sideburns that drove me wild. His long face, coated in a creamy skin that always made him look melancholy, except when his perfect, white smile lit up his features. His clothes that were not quite fashionable except on him. The way he smelled when I passed him, a deodorant or cologne, I was never quite sure which.
I could not believe I was falling for Brad, who I had known since I was five and hated since I was ten.
The other person who is crucial to my telling of this ordeal is a girl who crosses from the realm of best friend to psychic partner, worldly ear. Valorie. I met her around the same time I re-acquainted myself with Brad. The beginning of high school was certainly rough for me as it was for most. In eighth grade I had a faux-depressive complex built of insecurities. I would cut my wrist (not deep enough to leave a scar) and talk to my friends about suicide in some vain attempt to make them appreciate me more. Most of this passed the following summer when I met more people as passionate about art and life as I was. My first year of high school, though, some of my attention-seeking habits still lingered.
This was when I met Valorie. We shared a cello teacher. We had periodic recitals, and during rehearsals for one, Valorie and I sat in the rear of the theatre, and began to talk out of boredom. We have never lacked for anything to talk about, and we each have insight into the problems of the other. I don’t believe in God, but if I did, I’m sure it would have been divine providence that led me to befriend Valorie that year.
Valorie is quite difficult to describe, her face and body seemed to morph constantly as her moods changed. Her physique was that of a thundering storm cloud when she was angry, a harmless cumulus when content, and when she chose to compose laughter, her body jerked and swayed in time with her diaphragm’s contractions. Valorie was awkward with her gestures in speech, the way she stood and walked, yet she somehow had a fluidity to her that revealed her true nature. She was my dearest, closest ally who I had told secrets not even those I would get drunk on weekends with would understand or knew.
This story begins during the spring of my senior year of high school, when college applications were no longer an issue and classes no longer mattered. The three of us, that is, Valorie, Brad, and I were accepted to a week-long program for the best orchestra students in the state. We were put up in a posh hotel with all of the other hundreds of orchestra geeks that had enough talent to be selcted for the program. I was to room with Brad, Valorie was in the adjacent room with a private door connecting the two for the convenience of large families or groups of friends who choose to stay there.
We were confined to a bus the first day, driving eight hours merely to reach the destination of the Honors Orchestra we were all to be a part of this week. After a rather dull few hours of mindless bus games, staring out windows at unpolished fields, and taking rest stops at grimy restrooms filled with greasy truckers, I took a nap. This is when the dreams began. I wrote these dreams down in a cute notebook I found in the overpriced giftshop at the hotel later that evening.
I am standing in the middle of a vast desert late at night, red sand underneath my bare feet. The air is unbearably chilling. Off in the distance I see the lights of a city. I decide to walk towards it, when suddenly I hear an overbearing male voice speak my name.
“Seth, “ It calls.
“Ace.” My childhood nickname. I turn around and I see a boy, probably my age. His eyes are a lurid grey, yet altogether enticing. His face is serious, un moving, accented by his silver-blond hair that is meticulously cut and styled. He wears a blindingly white bathrobe, yet does not seem cold in the chill of the night. He begins to remove the robe, never breaking his gaze, his eyes riveted on mine.
I begin to back away but fall, finding myself inexplicably attached to him. He drops his robe, his muscular torso reflecting in the brightening blue light of the moon. I feel somehow that he is evil, yet cannot break my stare. He turns around suddenly, jerkily, and vanishes. I find myself standing again, just on the outskirts of the city I found earlier. Here, it has been raining, the crumbling office buildings and boarded up shops demonstrate that nobody has been here for years.
I notice that the traffic signals are still functioning, changing in rhythm to my footsteps. Red. Green. Yellow. Stop. Go. Slow. I approach the lights. Now I am not sure if my feet control the lights or the lights control my feet.
I step on a manhole cover, but it breaks just as I step. The hole widens and I fall inside.
I woke up again to the driving patter of disinterested voices and the humming engine of the stuffy bus. We were under ten minutes from the hotel, and I borrowed the opportunity to put away my food leavings and CDs I had strewn across my seat throughout the drive. Valorie was humming softly along with the music only she could hear through her headphones. Brad had switched seats so many times throughout the journey that I wasn’t sure where he was anymore. I yawned.