I just live
Disclaimer: I do not own The Strokes.This is a product of my sick imagination, not written for profit.
Apologies to all the parties involved.
Notes:I came up with the idea for this fic last morning walking to work, while listening to “Stop me June”by Kent.I know it’s weird and it starts nowhere and finishes nowhere.
Please tell me what you think.
The title has been suggested by viveleroi
Thank you!
English is not my first language. Apologies for bad grammar and spelling mistakes.
I used to live downtown, an old apartment on the 4th floor of an ugly grey building. I used to live there with Albert, but he moved out once we started making a little bit of money. I missed him, but after a while I discovered that no matter where we lived, in a way or another we where always together.
Five of us, on the verge of being massive, together, always.
If we were any closer we would have been joined at the hip.
So my apartment was just a place where, occasionally, I was going back to rest or change.
A place, where my belongings were stored, a place to recover from too much alcohol or too little sleep.
I lived 2 minutes from the nearest subway station, but I’ve never used it. Too crowded, too scary and my hours aren’t really sociable, so I could not have used it, even if I wanted to.
I travel by taxi, I don’t drive, I let other people do the rushing around this nightmarish dream-city…
I live.
I breathe.
I spend time with my friends.
I write.
And I drink.
A lot.
It was one of those days in which, probably for lack of clean clothing, I was going back to my place (how ironic to really think about it. Nothing in that apartment had any sense of belonging, not even my guitar… I used Nick’s more than my own…) very early in the morning, after a particularly long party.
My head was fuzzy, my thoughts wrapped in the misty cotton wool of drunkenness, I didn’t even notice that the taxi driver had stopped in front of the wrong building at first. I stared at the unfamiliar door for a couple of minutes before realising that it wasn’t my house.
I started walking back, up the slight hill, cursing the taxi driver trough gritted teeth, the beginning of a raging hangover, throbbing at my temples.
She was walking briskly in the crisp October hair. It was around 7 in the morning and she passed me by in the grey Autumn light, heading towards the subway, a long mop of red hair, swinging on her back, neatly braided.
She didn’t stop, we didn’t make eye contact, she just walked by, a dancer grace in her steps.
I went back to my apartment suddenly more awake than I thought I would be. I showered, I think, the memories are blurred by the amount of alcohol I had consumed the night before. I sat by the window in my bedroom, watching the sidewalk and the life slowly stirring in the houses in my neighbourhood.
Students running, delivery vans, an old woman and her battered shopping trolley, coming up the slight hill, slowly, carefully.
Everyday life. Unsheltered. Real in all its banal glory.
I was so out of that picture that it was like watching a foreign film without subtitles.
It lost its novelty pretty quickly anyway, I got bored and I just went to bed, sleeping most of the day, till a phone call woke me up. One of the guys probably, I don’t really remember, but I am sure it involved, another party or another gig or both. I went of course, my little trip to reality soon forgotten, the lights of the city too alluring, the amber liquid purity of whiskey, already dancing in my bloodstream.
I went out that night.
And the night after.
And the night after that.
I don’t remember precisely when I saw her again. I know Thanksgiving was approaching, because we were finally home after touring for what it looked like a lifetime and I was going to spend the day with Fab’s huge family. My mum was in Europe. My dad I didn’t know and I didn’t care.
It was very cold. An icy November with a leaden sky, still dark in the early hours of the morning. I had awoken from a fitful sleep with the strong urge to relieve myself. I was stumbling back to my bed, naked except a pair of loose brief, I stopped in front of the window, shivering, and I don’t know why I opened the blinds and looked down.
And there she was.
I recognised the long, thick red braid, swinging on the rhythm of her graceful steps.
I checked the time 7.10am. She was probably going to work. An office maybe or a hospital, she looked like she could have been a nurse, or a dancer, or a waitress. The possibilities were endless.
For a few moments I tried to picture her life in my head, like that game you play when you are kid, stuck in a traffic jam in your parents car, looking at other people, in the endless stream of cars, trying to imagine their lives, playing God…
I tried to imagine her life, but I wasn’t a kid anymore and I’d never been stuck in any traffic jam with mum and dad arguing about which one of them had the brilliant idea to hit the highway at that particular time, in that particular day.
I tried to figure out which type of person she could have been, but I came out with nothing. I shivered violently and went back to bed. Sleeping my hangover away.
The morning after I waited for her by the window. For the first time in ages, since my time in school, I had set the alarm, like I had a place to go, important things to do.
I hadn’t. I just wanted to see her again. Walking by, her stride secure, purpose set. She was going somewhere; out of necessity or pleasure I didn’t know.
But she knew. Her light, graceful steps guiding her there. She disappeared in the entrance of the subway a couple of minutes later.
I went back to bed, trying to figure out why the fact that I couldn’t make out a fictional life for her bothered me to the point to interrupt my sleep.
I didn’t find an answer and I kept waking up at 7 for the next week, for a glimpse of her long rope of hair, for her steps fragile and secure on the icy sidewalk, for her breath coming out in white, little, glistening clouds… Still trying to figure out why.
Why.
How.
How was the real question.
How could her and all the millions people living in this city, go on with their lives. How did she managed her bank account, the money for her groceries, the time to see people, to clean the house, to make love to her boyfriend/girlfriend.
I stood by the window every morning for 3 weeks, watching Christmas approaching in the cheap decorations on other people windows, watching the snow falling on the street, downy and pure and then sloshing grey and muddled with dirt by the road side.
I watched her walking to the subway every morning, the ever present braid partly trapped under a black woollen hat, a backpack on her shoulder, thick leather boots to protect her against the cold, the rain, the snow…
Day after day, Monday to Friday. Regular, at 7.10 each morning. The more I thought about it, the less I understood. I knew it wasn’t about her, I mean, it wasn’t just about her, it was about life. A life I didn’t have the co-ordinates to decode the system, to understand the mechanisms.
She was a symbol maybe. I don’t really know. I really don’t.
How did she live? What did she do? Did she think about the whys and hows or she just lived through it pretending? Not questioning what reality, normality is, like all the other millions of people?
I don’t even know how to open a bank account. Isn’t it sick?
I mean, I know I have a bank account, I think more than one, but I don’t think I could actually write a cheque if I had to.
But I don’t have to. I don’t have to pay the rent, my mum used to and now there is the management company and their accountants. I don’t have to worry from where my next pay cheque will come or how many days I can go on before I run out of food or toilet paper.
I don’t care about those things.
I don’t know how to care about those things.
I just live.
I breathe.
I spend time with my friends.
I write.
And I drink.
A lot.
It was the 6th of January last time I saw her. Christmas holiday over, New Year celebrated in style, fucked aplenty. Drank even more.
I was in my bed. Awake. I didn’t need to watch the clock to know what time it was. It was just about time for her to walk past my building, her long red hair neatly plated.
I walked towards the window, wrapping an old blanket around my shoulder. I didn’t really want to leave the warmth of my bed, but I did it. Out of habit? If you can call 3 weeks a habit.
I don’t know.
I pressed my forehead against the cool, cool windowpane and she appeared, just few seconds later.
She appeared in that clear, frozen morning holding the hand of a little boy. He could not have been more than 4.
A tuft of thick red hair escaping his little black hat.
He was wearing red mittens, the ones with just one finger, the ones that makes you look like a penguin, but are great for snow balls.
She held his little hand, slowed by his tiny steps, her braid stilled by the slower stride, her eyes fixed on the road.
She was talking to him, I could see the air puffing out in white clouds in front their mouths, it was almost 7.12, they were going to be late, but the little kid could not go faster than that.
He tried though and felt face down on the icy sidewalk.
He started to cry even before he hit the pavement. She knelt by his side, pulled him up, scrubbed his knees and talked a little more, I think he stopped crying. She looked at him, then licked the tip of his nose, he exploded in a fit of giggles. His little “penguin’s hand in hers again. Walking towards the subway.
She disappeared in the entrance like any other day, the little red haired kid in tow.
I went to bed.
Tried to think about what I had seen. Tried to play God with her life again, I had an advantage, I knew she had a son, which kind of life did they live together? Was there a dad in the picture? Why was she bringing him with her?
Why?
How?
Again I couldn’t come up with a story for her.
Maybe because she already had a life of her own and she didn’t need me to make up another one. Or maybe I simply couldn’t because I didn’t have a clue what life really is.
I don’t know.
I moved out few weeks later.
I live up north Manhattan now. An arty neighbourhood, with no families and cheap decorations on the windows, no old ladies and battered trolleys, no kids and early delivery vans.
I fit in.
I am an artist.
I made up lives in songs.
I am blessed.
Ain’t I?
Apologies to all the parties involved.
Notes:I came up with the idea for this fic last morning walking to work, while listening to “Stop me June”by Kent.I know it’s weird and it starts nowhere and finishes nowhere.
Please tell me what you think.
The title has been suggested by viveleroi
Thank you!
English is not my first language. Apologies for bad grammar and spelling mistakes.
I used to live downtown, an old apartment on the 4th floor of an ugly grey building. I used to live there with Albert, but he moved out once we started making a little bit of money. I missed him, but after a while I discovered that no matter where we lived, in a way or another we where always together.
Five of us, on the verge of being massive, together, always.
If we were any closer we would have been joined at the hip.
So my apartment was just a place where, occasionally, I was going back to rest or change.
A place, where my belongings were stored, a place to recover from too much alcohol or too little sleep.
I lived 2 minutes from the nearest subway station, but I’ve never used it. Too crowded, too scary and my hours aren’t really sociable, so I could not have used it, even if I wanted to.
I travel by taxi, I don’t drive, I let other people do the rushing around this nightmarish dream-city…
I live.
I breathe.
I spend time with my friends.
I write.
And I drink.
A lot.
It was one of those days in which, probably for lack of clean clothing, I was going back to my place (how ironic to really think about it. Nothing in that apartment had any sense of belonging, not even my guitar… I used Nick’s more than my own…) very early in the morning, after a particularly long party.
My head was fuzzy, my thoughts wrapped in the misty cotton wool of drunkenness, I didn’t even notice that the taxi driver had stopped in front of the wrong building at first. I stared at the unfamiliar door for a couple of minutes before realising that it wasn’t my house.
I started walking back, up the slight hill, cursing the taxi driver trough gritted teeth, the beginning of a raging hangover, throbbing at my temples.
She was walking briskly in the crisp October hair. It was around 7 in the morning and she passed me by in the grey Autumn light, heading towards the subway, a long mop of red hair, swinging on her back, neatly braided.
She didn’t stop, we didn’t make eye contact, she just walked by, a dancer grace in her steps.
I went back to my apartment suddenly more awake than I thought I would be. I showered, I think, the memories are blurred by the amount of alcohol I had consumed the night before. I sat by the window in my bedroom, watching the sidewalk and the life slowly stirring in the houses in my neighbourhood.
Students running, delivery vans, an old woman and her battered shopping trolley, coming up the slight hill, slowly, carefully.
Everyday life. Unsheltered. Real in all its banal glory.
I was so out of that picture that it was like watching a foreign film without subtitles.
It lost its novelty pretty quickly anyway, I got bored and I just went to bed, sleeping most of the day, till a phone call woke me up. One of the guys probably, I don’t really remember, but I am sure it involved, another party or another gig or both. I went of course, my little trip to reality soon forgotten, the lights of the city too alluring, the amber liquid purity of whiskey, already dancing in my bloodstream.
I went out that night.
And the night after.
And the night after that.
I don’t remember precisely when I saw her again. I know Thanksgiving was approaching, because we were finally home after touring for what it looked like a lifetime and I was going to spend the day with Fab’s huge family. My mum was in Europe. My dad I didn’t know and I didn’t care.
It was very cold. An icy November with a leaden sky, still dark in the early hours of the morning. I had awoken from a fitful sleep with the strong urge to relieve myself. I was stumbling back to my bed, naked except a pair of loose brief, I stopped in front of the window, shivering, and I don’t know why I opened the blinds and looked down.
And there she was.
I recognised the long, thick red braid, swinging on the rhythm of her graceful steps.
I checked the time 7.10am. She was probably going to work. An office maybe or a hospital, she looked like she could have been a nurse, or a dancer, or a waitress. The possibilities were endless.
For a few moments I tried to picture her life in my head, like that game you play when you are kid, stuck in a traffic jam in your parents car, looking at other people, in the endless stream of cars, trying to imagine their lives, playing God…
I tried to imagine her life, but I wasn’t a kid anymore and I’d never been stuck in any traffic jam with mum and dad arguing about which one of them had the brilliant idea to hit the highway at that particular time, in that particular day.
I tried to figure out which type of person she could have been, but I came out with nothing. I shivered violently and went back to bed. Sleeping my hangover away.
The morning after I waited for her by the window. For the first time in ages, since my time in school, I had set the alarm, like I had a place to go, important things to do.
I hadn’t. I just wanted to see her again. Walking by, her stride secure, purpose set. She was going somewhere; out of necessity or pleasure I didn’t know.
But she knew. Her light, graceful steps guiding her there. She disappeared in the entrance of the subway a couple of minutes later.
I went back to bed, trying to figure out why the fact that I couldn’t make out a fictional life for her bothered me to the point to interrupt my sleep.
I didn’t find an answer and I kept waking up at 7 for the next week, for a glimpse of her long rope of hair, for her steps fragile and secure on the icy sidewalk, for her breath coming out in white, little, glistening clouds… Still trying to figure out why.
Why.
How.
How was the real question.
How could her and all the millions people living in this city, go on with their lives. How did she managed her bank account, the money for her groceries, the time to see people, to clean the house, to make love to her boyfriend/girlfriend.
I stood by the window every morning for 3 weeks, watching Christmas approaching in the cheap decorations on other people windows, watching the snow falling on the street, downy and pure and then sloshing grey and muddled with dirt by the road side.
I watched her walking to the subway every morning, the ever present braid partly trapped under a black woollen hat, a backpack on her shoulder, thick leather boots to protect her against the cold, the rain, the snow…
Day after day, Monday to Friday. Regular, at 7.10 each morning. The more I thought about it, the less I understood. I knew it wasn’t about her, I mean, it wasn’t just about her, it was about life. A life I didn’t have the co-ordinates to decode the system, to understand the mechanisms.
She was a symbol maybe. I don’t really know. I really don’t.
How did she live? What did she do? Did she think about the whys and hows or she just lived through it pretending? Not questioning what reality, normality is, like all the other millions of people?
I don’t even know how to open a bank account. Isn’t it sick?
I mean, I know I have a bank account, I think more than one, but I don’t think I could actually write a cheque if I had to.
But I don’t have to. I don’t have to pay the rent, my mum used to and now there is the management company and their accountants. I don’t have to worry from where my next pay cheque will come or how many days I can go on before I run out of food or toilet paper.
I don’t care about those things.
I don’t know how to care about those things.
I just live.
I breathe.
I spend time with my friends.
I write.
And I drink.
A lot.
It was the 6th of January last time I saw her. Christmas holiday over, New Year celebrated in style, fucked aplenty. Drank even more.
I was in my bed. Awake. I didn’t need to watch the clock to know what time it was. It was just about time for her to walk past my building, her long red hair neatly plated.
I walked towards the window, wrapping an old blanket around my shoulder. I didn’t really want to leave the warmth of my bed, but I did it. Out of habit? If you can call 3 weeks a habit.
I don’t know.
I pressed my forehead against the cool, cool windowpane and she appeared, just few seconds later.
She appeared in that clear, frozen morning holding the hand of a little boy. He could not have been more than 4.
A tuft of thick red hair escaping his little black hat.
He was wearing red mittens, the ones with just one finger, the ones that makes you look like a penguin, but are great for snow balls.
She held his little hand, slowed by his tiny steps, her braid stilled by the slower stride, her eyes fixed on the road.
She was talking to him, I could see the air puffing out in white clouds in front their mouths, it was almost 7.12, they were going to be late, but the little kid could not go faster than that.
He tried though and felt face down on the icy sidewalk.
He started to cry even before he hit the pavement. She knelt by his side, pulled him up, scrubbed his knees and talked a little more, I think he stopped crying. She looked at him, then licked the tip of his nose, he exploded in a fit of giggles. His little “penguin’s hand in hers again. Walking towards the subway.
She disappeared in the entrance like any other day, the little red haired kid in tow.
I went to bed.
Tried to think about what I had seen. Tried to play God with her life again, I had an advantage, I knew she had a son, which kind of life did they live together? Was there a dad in the picture? Why was she bringing him with her?
Why?
How?
Again I couldn’t come up with a story for her.
Maybe because she already had a life of her own and she didn’t need me to make up another one. Or maybe I simply couldn’t because I didn’t have a clue what life really is.
I don’t know.
I moved out few weeks later.
I live up north Manhattan now. An arty neighbourhood, with no families and cheap decorations on the windows, no old ladies and battered trolleys, no kids and early delivery vans.
I fit in.
I am an artist.
I made up lives in songs.
I am blessed.
Ain’t I?