¡°Come outside with me,¡± Oli says, standing up. ¡°I want to show you something.¡±
Lark follows him without speaking and puts on his Converse at the back door when Oli steps into a pair of Birkenstocks. They walk through the backyard to a haphazard-looking shed. It¡¯s a new addition to the property, an easy-clean hut built of interlocking plastic instead of wood.
Lark waits while Oli fiddles with a combination lock. It¡¯s summer and, even in the dead of night, there¡¯s a tropical warmth in the air that surprises Lark. He¡¯s gotten used to shivering in over-airconditioned interiors and is surprised by the physical relief he feels being outside.
His muscles unclench. The sky is clear.
¡°Our location isn¡¯t great, but it¡¯s a good night for it, and it¡¯s as dark as it¡¯s going to get,¡± Oli says from inside the shed. When he emerges, he¡¯s holding a fat telescope with a series of digital complications. He hands it to Lark to hold while he sets up its tripod in the center of the yard. The weight of the scope is too much for Lark and he has to rest it on his feet. Oli helps him carry it, does most of the work to lift it up onto its stand.
When Oli has everything set up, he shows Lark the computerized display, the input pads. ¡°What do you want to look at?¡± he asks.
Lark doesn¡¯t know, so Oli shows him the rings of Saturn, making Lark gasp at the level of detail he can see through the fancy equipment. He had never looked at the sky with anything more than his naked eyes before.
When Lark finishes with the planet, Oli inputs something else into the telescope and looks through it himself. ¡°Perfect timing,¡± he says, and ushers Lark back. ¡°You¡¯ll like this.¡±
Through the scope¡ªwhich is moving a little on its own, making adjustments according to the mysterious instructions of the computer¡ªLark can see a man-made object flanked by shimmering solar panel wings. ¡°Is that a satellite?¡± Lark asks, squinting against the eyepiece.
¡°It¡¯s the space station,¡± Oli tells him. ¡°There are people up there, looking down at earth or up at the stars.¡±
It¡¯s been strange for Oli to look at Lark¡¯s photos. Their perspective is so small, so limited. His eye is obviously trained on the tiniest detail; there¡¯s a specificity of memory, an obsession with small kindnesses.
Oli, though, looks at the stars, and when he is not looking he is at least thinking about them. He knows the earth is small and he himself is a speck; the things that Lark is grateful for or hurt by are negligible. Though he understands that anyone¡¯s interior life can grow to fill the whole of their universe, Oli likes the possibility of offering Lark a new perspective, an escape from the close scrutiny of his own feelings.
Lark tracks the ISS hurtling through its orbit until it disappears beyond the line of roofs that obstructs his view of the horizon.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
When I finished high school, my parents started charging me rent. They refused to help me with the financial aid papers when I decided to go to conservatory, too. Though the seeming cruelty of that decision left me disoriented for weeks, I was eventually able to contextualize it as part of a campaign of tough love. My parents never missed a chance to remind me that I lived under their roof, and I understood by the time I was eighteen that anything I hadn¡¯t earned with my own sweat could be taken from me.
I moved out six weeks after graduating, paying pennies for Reed¡¯s box room in the duplex he rented on the other side of town. I barely spoke to either my mother or father, aside from brief exchanges on holidays and birthdays; I didn¡¯t, though, forget their lesson.
Whatever harsh world they thought they were preparing me for, it was not Portland, not the sweet enclave of artists and academics that orbited Jules and Quinn. They had friends over for dinner or games nights, welcomed quick visits from school friends on their way home from work, hosted whole bands en route to gigs. Friends, who came with books and cakes and new music, left with borrowed recording equipment or Criterion DVDs from Quinn¡¯s collection.
Even when I was well enough to be sociable, I hid away in the guest room during these visits. I felt crushingly embarrassed that I was being given so much by this clearly beloved couple, certain that everyone else would see me for the pitiful drain I was.
I told myself I was giving them space, respecting some boundary, but I felt aware even then that I had some maladaptive conditioning. Jules was always offering to introduce me to local bands, and still I kept myself to myself, pretended to be asleep whenever Quinn checked in on me.
Still, the next day, there would always be food left over for me from takeaway meals, a slice of someone¡¯s apple pie, a demo tape Jules thought I would like.
I ate by myself and played the upright piano when the house was empty. Jules kept regular hours, either in the studio with their artists or hot-desking at a local collective for freelancers and artists. Quinn spent more time at home, absorbed in his laptop, sometimes dozing on the living room sofa, but he still left a couple days a week. I tried not to be caught practicing when he returned, or he¡¯d tell me not to stop and I¡¯d hesitate with my hands on the keys, mind blank with anxiety.
I played a lot of Chopin, shuffling through preludes that had been in my repertoire for years already. It comforted me to think about the composer in similar situations, sick and dependent in the house of strangers. Still, some days all I could do was sleep.
Quinn had bad days, too. These were events I was only obliquely aware of: days he spent in the master bedroom or bent with a pain I didn¡¯t ask about. Once, he called for me when we were alone in the house, asked me to bring him a glass of water. He was sitting up in bed, pale and sweating, his hair stuck to his face, snarled around his shoulders.
Thank you. For asking me, I said to him, even though it sounded weird out loud, clumsy. I meant it, though; I was grateful to have something, even something pitifully minor, to do for him.
Quinn laughed at me, dredging up a smile. You see? I¡¯d want you to ask me, too.
He would tell me, again and again, that I didn¡¯t owe him a debt, that I needed to stop apologizing for taking up space, for taking the rest I needed, for living, but the ledger in my mind didn¡¯t go away, even as I knew, with ever-increasing certainty, that it couldn¡¯t be squared. I wasn¡¯t sure what that meant for my future, what I could count on.
Instant #15 - Mayhem
¡°It¡¯s gone,¡± he says. ¡°I didn¡¯t think it would move so fast.¡±
Oli nods. ¡°It goes around the earth like fifteen times a day. Every hour and a half.¡±
Lark isn¡¯t sure why, but he had assumed the station only went around once a day, specially tethered to the earth. He imagined a rocket going straight up in the air, sticking in its orbit like it was captured in jelly, hovering always over the place it had launched from. In orbit, to his mind, was some fixed place, a destination.
¡°That¡¯s a geostationary orbit,¡± Oli explains. ¡°Some satellites are like that. I had a roommate that specialized in orbital station-keeping. It¡¯s a whole art to keep satellites at the right speed, the right height. Everything needs regular correcting.¡± Lark didn¡¯t entirely follow what Oli was talking about: thruster burns, directional maneuvers. He stops Oli when he starts talking about premature re-entry.
¡°You mean it could fall out of the sky?¡±
Oli nods, though he obviously thinks Lark¡¯s language is hyperbolic, a bit dramatic. ¡°Especially when something¡¯s in a low orbit, like the space station, there¡¯s still a lot of force¡ªit¡¯s still getting pulled back towards the earth. Think about it,¡± he says. ¡°The earth¡¯s pull is more powerful than you think, even up there. It¡¯s why you need so much energy to reach escape velocity. And there¡¯s all this drag¡ª¡±
Oli keeps talking about space and satellites and non-Keplerian forces, a reassuring explanatory patter accompanied by the electric whirr of the telescope as Oli directs it towards something new. Lark lays down in the grass and tries to feel the force of gravity pulling him down. He imagines the earth¡¯s dense core dragging him through the dirt until he reaches its super-hot center¡ªa white flash of light after all the darkness.
He thinks, maybe, he can feel it. Barely, though, and maybe imagined. It¡¯s strange to him that a force that could rip the space station out of the sky is exerted on him all the time with no ill-effects, no pain or heaviness. He¡¯s not crushed into the ground.
It makes Lark grateful for how adaptable life is, that it evolves to survive the pressures regularly exerted on it. Even he is able to live under certain patterns of stress. Perhaps, though, that¡¯s the same quality that makes it so hard to change. There¡¯s a kind of emotional escape velocity required, more arcane than Oli¡¯s chemical thrusters.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
¡°Are you okay?¡± Oli asks, after a while. ¡°Are you tired? Or just bored?¡±
Lark opens his eyes and sees Oli has come to sit next to him. ¡°I was listening,¡± he says. ¡°I was thinking about gravity.¡±
Max called me almost three weeks after we¡¯d arrived in Portland, and announced he had found us a place, told me he was coming over to pick up cash for my share of the deposit. When he hung up, I awkwardly shuffled into the kitchen to ask if it was alright for Max and Dana to stop by.
I explained badly: He needs to pick-up something. From me.
Quinn gave me a questioning look, but Jules just shrugged, said it wasn¡¯t a problem at all. They also, for the first time, brought up the gig Max and I had played the night we arrived. I hadn¡¯t asked Jules what they thought about Squires of Gothos, and they hadn¡¯t mentioned it to me, either. What I had assumed was a silence just to spare my feelings turned out to be a compassionate stay from work-related thoughts.
I haven¡¯t wanted to stress you out, but with Max coming, I¡¯ll have to bring it up, they said, then offered to work with us to develop a full-length album. Promised they would start finding us gigs when I was feeling up to it.
Talk about it with Max. I¡¯ll call him. Send you both some paperwork. I opened my mouth to express a kind of wonder at the opportunity, but Jules waved their hand to quiet me. I will expect you to take it seriously, they said.
Dana hugged me in the doorway, burying her face in my shoulder. Max swept past us, slapping me on the back and making himself comfortable. He was talking non-stop, planning recording with Jules already, throwing some zines he¡¯d picked up on the table.
Max looked different somehow, even though it hadn¡¯t been that long since we¡¯d seen each other. His hair was unwashed and snarled, but he was newly shaven, and his familiar wardrobe was reassembled with a different flare. Beneath his neon windbreaker, he was wearing all black and an old Mayhem shirt. The combination, finished with white high-tops, looked ironic, cynical.
Max asked for a coffee before anyone offered it to him. It was a small thing¡ªJules had made me a coffee most days¡ªbut I felt my face flush, embarrassed. Jules, of course, started filling the V60, offered Dana a drink as well, and didn¡¯t seem annoyed.
Max used to tell me I should ask for more.
People can always say no, he said. You don¡¯t have a gun to their head.
While I thought there might be some truth to that, I heard a demand in all of Max¡¯s requests and I didn¡¯t like to risk a fight.
Max showed me photos on his phone of the place he and Dana had found. A pre-furnished three-bed squat with a tiny living room, a hot plate on a shelf that apparently counted as a kitchen. I had not been expecting much¡ªwe hadn¡¯t come with enough money to be choosy¡ªbut after the light and space of Jules and Quinn¡¯s house, it seemed particularly squalid.
Happy? Max asked. Should I put the deposit down?
I said yes, because I didn¡¯t feel resilient enough to say no. I thanked him, washed the coffee cup he left on the table.
Instant #16 - Silverfish
¡°Literal or metaphorical?¡±
Lark laughs shortly at the question, seen through. ¡°Metaphorical. I¡¯m sorry to disappoint you, doctor stars.¡±
Oli rolls his eyes. ¡°Sorry. I have gravity of my own. I talk about space all day. So I talk about space all night, too.¡±
¡°There are worse patterns,¡± Lark says. He has not lifted his head from the ground, and he still feels weighed down by this imagined force, the pull of the earth. It comes to him that he is tired, but he knows he¡¯s not so exhausted yet that he could sleep. Still, the prospect of getting up makes his heart sink.
He turns his head, looks through the grass at Oli, and feels the cold slick of dirt against his cheek. Lark says, ¡°I was thinking about being crushed by the dense core of the earth.¡±
Oli frowns at this, looks away from Lark. ¡°Sounds pretty literal.¡±
Lark feels bad for making Oli unhappy. He hadn¡¯t meant it to sound so sad, so wrong. He shouldn¡¯t have let his guard down; it was harder when he was tired, and once he started talking, he didn¡¯t always stop. He had to watch himself at the end of his therapy sessions for this reason. Even when the dark things he said had no emotional content for him¡ªbeing crushed at the center of the earth, for example, was only a fancy, not a desire or despair¡ªthey made the people around him worry.
¡°I was thinking,¡± he says, trying to turn his last statement into a joke, ¡°about Portland and how I could have stayed with Quinn and Jules, but instead I went with Max because I always went with Max, I guess.¡±
Lark hasn¡¯t said that much about Max, but Oli has a picture in his head of a kind of dark version of Lark, a shadow self with the same weird fashion sense and gaunt figure. Black hair, not blonde. A guitar instead of a piano. Anger in place of Lark¡¯s deep sadness.
¡°Did Max do something?¡± Oli asks. ¡°Something bad?¡±
Lark shakes his head. ¡°No, no. Not really. Just¡ªwe didn¡¯t get along, I guess. We were very different.¡±
¡°It¡¯s hard to break out of patterns anyway. You have to learn from them first. It¡¯s why it took me so long to leave home, I think.¡±
¡°It¡¯s not the same.¡±
The way Lark says that makes Oli feel bad for trying to make comparisons. He wants Lark not to feel alone, though, and wishes he knew how to. ¡°No, of course not, sorry,¡± he says, and Lark closes his eyes, his long pale face reflecting the moonlight, expressionless. ¡°What would have been different, if you stayed with them?¡±Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
Lark isn¡¯t sure. Sometimes he thinks not much would have changed. Maybe even all of Jules¡¯ and Quinn¡¯s kindness couldn¡¯t undo his anxiety; maybe he could never have felt secure there, certain he could never deserve that room, those friends. Sometimes, though, he imagines himself in Jules and Quinn¡¯s living room, the three of them watching movies, arguing about bands, pouring over album proofs. Talking and living on and on.
¡°I don¡¯t know. Maybe I could have been happy. For a while.¡±
The photos Max showed me didn¡¯t quite capture how depressing my new room was. Concrete walls, the corner of a half-finished basement apartment.
There were silverfish as long as my index finger, too, that sometimes emerged from the gap behind my bed. I caught them crawling up the walls whenever I woke in the middle of the night. Any brush of my sheet, any small movement, convinced me they were in the bed, crawling on me.
Once I¡¯d set up my practice keyboard and stowed the rest of my gear, there was just enough room for me to open the dresser drawers. There wasn¡¯t much space in our living room, either, and being there, on top of Max and Dana, made me weirdly anxious. The weeks we¡¯d spent apart had somehow made them strangers again, and there were new household frictions that came with being new roommates. Max left dishes in the sink and crumbs over the counter, while Dana complained about the damp and Max¡¯s mess and whose turn it was to do chores. I took out the trash and tried to leave no trace of my comings and going, but I was guilty of hoarding mugs in my room.
The two of them had already gotten jobs at the same vintage shop in Hawthorne, were settled in a way I wasn¡¯t. Max had two new songs in the works, and wanted me to sequence them, wanted to make plans.
I fell asleep programming DAWs on my laptop, woke in the early afternoon, waited for Max to come home high. He¡¯d ask to listen to what I¡¯d done; he¡¯d ask if I¡¯d found a job.
It all seemed like too much. I¡¯d drift off while Max was talking to me, unable to keep up.
Max kept asking: what¡¯s wrong with you?
And I kept saying that there was nothing wrong because, really, he was sick of hearing that I was tired. I told Quinn instead, texting him with my blanket pulled over my head to shut out everything else.
He told me to drink green tea and take my time and ignore Max and, then, to come back to his place.
During the last couple of days I was at their house, Jules had come into my room and said that he¡¯d spoken to Quinn. They¡¯d decided I was welcome to stay, to live with them even after I was well, after I got a job. Long term, Jules said. If you want.
I knew Max and Dana wouldn¡¯t be able to afford the apartment they¡¯d found without me, that my deposit was already spent. It was too late for me to accept the offer.
Jules tried to convince me to at least think about it. Said we could work out rent, that we would figure it out. When I asked about Max, they only shrugged, said: he¡¯ll find someone else to move in; he¡¯ll live.
I didn¡¯t think Max would forgive either of us, so I packed my duffle bag, tidied the room I had spent almost a month in, washed the sheets.
Jules was out when Max pulled up in my car, but Quinn followed me to the door. Max waved to him, and he didn¡¯t wave back.
I¡¯ll text you, Quinn promised.
And he did.
He said: put yourself first
He said: citrus spray and a dehumidifier will help with the silverfish
He said: Max can get fucked. Honestly.
Instant #17 - Personal Assistant
¡°No point dwelling on it,¡± Oli tells him. ¡°What¡¯s done is done, right?¡±
Lark sighs, puts his hands up over his eyes. ¡°Yeah. Done.¡± He¡¯s aware that one of the things he is worst at is knowing when to quit.
How many years had he spent practicing to get into conservatory? Three with focussed effort, and more before that. He changed over those years, he knew himself better, but he didn¡¯t factor any of that new knowledge into his vision of the future. Instead, he played etudes and ground his way forward on paths other people had helped him lay. He wore some kind of psychological blinders.
Oli sits next to him in the grass and takes out Lark¡¯s stack of Polaroids from the pocket of his sweatpants. There¡¯s sheet music in the frame. Simple. A reminder to focus, maybe.
¡°Do you still play the piano?¡± Oli asks.
¡°No,¡± Larks says. ¡°No. Not for a while.¡±
¡°But you were still playing then? Classical stuff?¡±
¡°Yes.¡± Lark wishes he could explain to Oli the pain of his desire. That all he wanted was to be recognized as a musician, then, and that all he wants now is to feel like one again. Without that feeling, his future feels like a black hole. ¡°I would have quit, maybe, but Quinn really helped me find practice space and send out applications, and Jules¡ªJules had a lot of faith in my talent. It made me feel like¡ªI don¡¯t know. Like I had a chance.¡±
¡°A chance?¡±
¡°Yeah, don¡¯t worry about it. Whatever,¡± Lark murmurs. ¡°I don¡¯t know what I¡¯m saying.¡±
He wishes he had someone, now, like Quinn, to nudge him in the right direction, to give him permission to dream. Or even just to tell him to stop: stop worrying, stop thinking of himself as something he is not, stop expecting some change to wash over him.
Sometimes, he wishes, instead, to be struck by lighting. To have his brain rewired by the electricity. To wake up someone new.
¡°What would you do if you couldn¡¯t be an astrophysicist, for some reason? If you weren¡¯t smart enough,¡± Lark asks.
Oli shrugs. ¡°I¡¯d do something else. That¡¯s all.¡±
This, Lark thinks, sounds both reasonable and impossible.This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
By the time summer was rolling to a close, the grey skies of a northwest autumn closing over the city, I had started to feel normal again. I tired quickly, at first, but the lethargy became easier and easier to ignore.
Dana asked me to drive her to the food store, and was impressed I was still able to carry groceries after an hour of shopping. I pushed her along while she stood on the back of the cart; she pulled boxes of cereal from the shelves as we glided past.
I¡¯m glad you¡¯re better, she said, knocking my shoulder with hers while we put the bags in the trunk of my car.
Took long enough, I said, only starting to appreciate the change.
I texted Quinn that I was feeling almost human, and he told me to meet him at the college where he had started the final year of a master¡¯s in cultural criticism. (I complain about films, he told me over the summer. Hundreds of thousands of words of complaining about films.) He wouldn¡¯t tell me why; just said: I¡¯ve got a surprise for you.
Quinn was waiting at the entrance in a black denim jacket and hoodie, sprawled casually in his wheelchair, wearing headphones that he pulled out when he saw me.
Push me, would you? he asked. I did, of course, but it was not something I had done before, not something Quinn even asked Jules to do. I asked if he was having a bad day, and he laughed and said no. He leaned way back in the chair to look up at me, gave me a wry look, so I knew he was up to something. Am I too heavy for you? he teased.
Quinn directed me to a reception window set a little too high for him to see over from his chair. He reached a hand up to tap it. I¡¯ve reserved a practice room, he said.
When asked, Quinn showed his student ID. He rolled his eyes when the receptionist asked for mine as well.
He¡¯s my personal assistant. He doesn¡¯t study here, Quinn said, gesturing vaguely back towards me. I shook my hair out of my face and mustered a smile in an attempt to hide my surprise at my new job title. When the receptionist gave Quinn his ID back and passed him a key, Quinn looked back at me expectantly, and I wheeled him down the hall.
Your personal assistant? I asked.
Oops, I lied. Sorry. We turned a corner, and he took control of his wheels when we were out of sight of reception.
A plastic tag on the key said MSC106 and it opened the door to a practice room with a full-size grand piano.
Tada, Quinn said, opening his hands.
I had told Quinn, sometime during the weeks I spent in his house, that I had wanted to go to conservatory, that I¡¯d failed to work it out two years in a row. He asked what my plan was for next year, and I covered my face with my hands, struck again by the weight of my failures. I didn¡¯t have a teacher or a real piano or money for either.
In the practice room, he smiled. You¡¯re trying again, right? Third time lucky.
I nodded, pushing down a swell of despair mingled with long-dead hope.
Are you going to stay and listen? I asked.
No. I¡¯m going to the library. Text me when you¡¯re done; I need to take the keys back with you.He made a face, and I understood he found the situation embarrassing, that he was doing me a painful favor sneaking me in.
Thank you. For doing this.
He waved away my gratitude. I can reserve the room once a week. You can play me your audition pieces when they¡¯re ready.
Instant #18 - Salvation Army
Oli lies down in the grass next to Lark. It¡¯s easier to talk to him without looking at him. Lark¡¯s expression is desperate; he needs a better answer, something Oli can¡¯t give him.
Above them, the stars turn impersonally, imperceptibly.
¡°I think there are lots of ways to be happy,¡± Oli says.
Lark thinks there are more ways to be unhappy, but he keeps his mouth shut on his pessimism until he can justify it. ¡°I guess, just so much of my life was oriented in one direction for so long that I find it hard that I haven¡¯t arrived at that destination. Like, maybe I¡¯ve practiced the piano for, I don¡¯t know, let¡¯s say 15,000 hours? A crazy amount of time. But I¡¯ve made more money as a sales assistant at thrift stores, probably.¡±
¡°So it¡¯s about money?¡± Oli asks. ¡°You think you have to make money doing something to, you know, be it?¡±
¡°No,¡± Lark says, quick and certain that he¡¯s not been understood. ¡°No, I think¡ªI think that you have to be recognized, though. I guess it¡¯s usually with money. But it matters. How others see you.¡±
¡°I guess it does,¡± Oli concedes. ¡°It matters how you see yourself too, though. You know yourself better than anyone else can, anyway.¡±
Lark doesn¡¯t say anything. His sense of self is slippery and unflattering at the best of times. He believed, once, that there was a life tailor-made for him¡ªa perfect expression of himself.
He doesn¡¯t believe that anymore.
Lark used to get everything he owned second-hand, combing through thrift stores for strange finds. Of course, he was always broke, so it made sense for him to thrift, but it was more than that. He liked the unique, the odd, the ironic. Things that other people didn¡¯t have, and things that had a history. Things with personality.
The idea of it now makes him sad. When he was younger, he could take a picture of oddball cast-offs and laugh. Not meanly¡ªhe just enjoyed the weirdness of other people¡¯s things, the possibilities of the lives behind them. He can¡¯t help but think about the circumstances of their donation now. Death and down-sizing. To him, the abandonment of a wardrobe or a collection or an interest seems like a loss. Something ended, or someone gave up. Pain everywhere he looked: evidence of lives that didn¡¯t quite fit, identities that had to be discarded.
Next to him, Oli laughs. He has the photos out, still. ¡°What even?¡± he asks, still laughing.
He holds the Polaroid out to Lark, who recognizes the Maine sheets he¡¯d bought for $2 from his Salvation Army. ¡°I don¡¯t know. I thought they were funny.¡±Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
Though Lark thinks he could be embarrassed about it, how ironic he was just a few years ago, but he pushes that away. He¡¯s sincere now.
The Maine sheets are still funny. He looks for some pain in the memory and can¡¯t find it.
I got a job at the Salvation Army, a fifteen-minute drive towards the suburbs.
Max had gotten me an interview at the vintage shop where he and Dana worked, but I didn¡¯t get the job. Their hip boss had apparently thought I was too shy. She told Max I was cute, but she didn¡¯t think I could push a sale.
That¡¯s fair, I said, feeling less disappointed than Max and Dana seemed to be. I started dropping my CV to bigger thrift stores the next day.
The Salvy suited me well, anyway. I folded and priced new donations, hardly speaking to anyone all day. The older women who worked there¡ªheavyset evangelical types who carried their humble joy with them¡ªmade much of me, brought me homemade cookies, and called me a sweet boy like I was back in elementary school. There was a white-shirt-and-black-slacks uniform that made me feel like someone else. Comfortably bland. If I shaved and brushed my hair, I didn¡¯t have to give any more thought to the way I looked.
It wasn¡¯t a very cool thrift store, as these things go, but it was very cheap, and I pulled a few interesting things for myself: a blue t-shirt with a belt-printed portrait of the president of Iceland, a Windows 98 sweatshirt, a neon windbreaker in Arizona iced tea teals and pinks. I could take pictures of all the ugliest ceramics and assorted knick-knacks, too, and I¡¯d share them with Max and Dana when we all crammed into the living room to eat dinner, plates of rice and beans balanced on our knees.
Max drove me to work on his days off and took my car to run errands or visit friends. He came to pick me up afterward, pressing up to the store¡¯s picture windows, sticking out his tongue. I pretended I didn¡¯t know him as I said goodbye to Lorna, cashing up at the till.
I took the keys from Max and listened to him talk about Rich, whose cabin he drove out to, and how he was curing salmons he caught in the Willamette. Real outdoorsy stuff that wasn¡¯t really Max¡¯s scene, but Rich sold him weed and had a good stereo and a cool girlfriend.
We made a brief stop at our apartment, so I could change out of my work clothes and pick up our instruments, then we drove over to the practice studio we shared with five other bands. Max listened to the sequencing and arranging I did during the week, and we shared new ideas, trying to polish and select tracks to record with Jules.
I started to find my voice then, trying to coach Max through harmony lines that didn¡¯t sit in the comfortable thirds Max could pick up. I only ever sang to share melodic ideas, which I did in fragile snatches. My voice was high and thin, but pitch-perfect from years of solfege. It got lost in electronic textures. I considered it a utility rather than an instrument.
Max had a sneering nasal singing voice. It reminded me of Britpop singers, its dryness contrasting heavily with the ringing reverb layers of my synth arrangements. A safe sound, easily understood and parsed.
It was Jules, coming in to listen in rehearsals, who suggested I start singing on our albums. Max barked a laugh at the idea. He was edgy and rude whenever Jules was in the room, whenever he felt judged.
You don¡¯t always need to sound like something that¡¯s already cool, Jules told us, perched on a bass amp, taking notes on their phone. Don¡¯t be so afraid.
Instant #19 - Production Values
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Instant #20 - Singer Songwriter
Lark is grateful for the contact, for the comfort, but his mind drifts. He thinks about the attention he has demanded from Oli during the night, the intimacies he has been allowed. Oli smiles at him kindly, and Lark¡¯s thoughts go to Reed, asleep in the upstairs bedroom. His window overlooks the lawn, where he might look out and see Lark holding hands with his boyfriend in the dark, under the stars.
It¡¯s easy, Lark knows, to misstep. His body says things his mind doesn¡¯t even allow him to think. He has pulled himself apart over these kinds of mistakes¡ªand had others help with savaging.
In Portland, he sang his harmonies for Jules and became something more than he had been before. Singer and songwriter, both. A declaration of self-sufficiency that Max heard even though Lark did not. Without knowing it, he became a rival. And Max was grasping, and Dana worrying. Everything was unraveling.
He doesn¡¯t like to think what his careless hands might have done to Jules and Quinn.
Lark traces that sinking feeling, the particular shame, to a single moment of happiness. The last half hour in the recording studio, listening with Jules resting quietly against him, an elation that left him singing in the parking lot.
He didn¡¯t know what he was doing. Thinks, maybe, now, he doesn¡¯t know what he is doing either.
Oli can hear Lark¡¯s chest working, his breath deliberate, a little shaky on the inhales. Their contact only lasts a moment. Even though Oli keeps a gentle pressure on Lark¡¯s knuckles, Lark tugs his hand away.
¡°Sorry,¡± Lark says, his hands up over his eyes. Oli isn¡¯t sure what he¡¯s apologizing for: reaching out or pulling away. Oli considers offering his hand again to reassure him, but then Lark turns his face towards him.
His pale eyes are full of moonlight, bright in shadowed sockets. He pulls in a deep breath, like he can¡¯t get enough air, like any moment he will be pulled down underwater, dragged to an airless depth.
Oli thinks to touch him again might make it worse.
Lark mutters something unclear, then goes quiet.
¡°You don¡¯t have to apologize,¡± Oli tells him. ¡°You don¡¯t have to explain.¡±This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
I
Instant #21 - Dependency Status
Lark appreciates that. The lack of pressure gives him space to think. Why he reached out for Oli, he¡¯s not sure. There¡¯s a block around the memory, a heavy curtain that draws closed when he tries to think about his feelings. The thoughts that do arise are angry and inward-looking: he should know better and act better, or at least have some explanation for the way he is. The weight of that is enough to silence any meaningful introspection.
Oli sits up next to him and smiles. Lark rubs his eyes.
¡°I didn¡¯t mean anything,¡± Lark says. ¡°I¡¯m just¡ª¡±
Oli cuts him off with a wave of the hand. ¡°I know. Don¡¯t worry.¡± Really, Oli isn¡¯t sure what Lark wants to say. Touch-starved is probably the real truth of it. Lonely. ¡°Are you seeing anyone?¡± Oli asks him.
Lark nods solemnly, and Oli understands that Lark thinks he means a therapist, not the significant other Oli had been trying to suggest, searching for a clue to Lark¡¯s sexuality.
¡°You have local friends still?¡± Oli adds in an attempt to make his meaning more apparent, and Lark turns his face away to hide an embarrassed flush.
¡°Not really,¡± he says. He picks at the grass, pulling up two blades and tying them together with a simple knot. Tying another knot on top of that. ¡°I¡¯m not seeing anyone like that. Just Reed and Cassie. ¡±
Oli knows, before that day, Lark hadn¡¯t spoken to either of them for months, but he doesn¡¯t point that out.
¡°Maybe there are more people around. I haven¡¯t felt up to calling anyone,¡± Lark admits. ¡°I deleted my Facebook, got a new phone. It¡¯s been a weird year.¡±
¡°It must be lonely,¡± Oli says.
Lark hasn¡¯t thought of it that way, perhaps because he never feels alone. He is living with his parents, and they are very present. Their expectations pervade the house. Even when he isn¡¯t with them, Lark feels the twist of their disappointment in the insurance bills on the kitchen table, the prescription pills in the bathroom cabinet, his coat on the pegs in the hall. Other, more distant voices crowd his head, too; his sense of failure dresses up in old friends¡¯ accents as part of his internal rituals of self-flagellation.
Lark knows, still, that Oli is right. Something is missing from his life. He has always been guided by others, always moved forward only hand-in-hand with people he trusted. For better or worse.
Months of floundering without real friendship have not taught him independence, but they have left him aching.
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Instant #22 - Scholarship Student
Lark resents it, too¡ªwhat he sees as his own neediness. Something he¡¯s been accused of and warned about: he is always circling back to people that hurt him. Left on his own, even his mind turns to the way others have failed him, remembering burning details that grow into painful totems.
The e-mail he got from his tutor was one of them. It went unanswered and perpetually flagged in his inbox, even years later.
Instead of moving forward, he thinks of these things and blames himself, of course. If he could forge his own way, if he could be enough on his own, he wouldn¡¯t¡ªcouldn¡¯t¡ªbe let down so keenly by others.
¡°Do you want to go back inside?¡± Oli asks.
Lark realizes he¡¯s been shredding the lawn, pulling up blades of grass one at a time. There¡¯s dirt scattered across his acid-wash jeans, grass stains on knees. ¡°Yeah,¡± he says. ¡°Probably should. What time is it?¡±
Oli shrugs, says, ¡°I left my phone upstairs. Can you help me with the telescope?¡±
Lark looks through the viewfinder one last time while Oli packs away the electronics. Without the computerized guidance system, Lark can only find distant stars and dark swathes of space.
Oli asks him to hold the barrel of the telescope while he collapses the tripod. Together, they pack everything away back into the shed. ¡°It¡¯s heavy stuff,¡± Lark says, a vacant comment as he hefts the telescope into Oli¡¯s waiting hands.
Oli makes a non-commital sound; Lark is taller than Oli, but Oli is stronger. ¡°This is very much the lightweight model. You should see the scopes at the observatory. Not that I have to lift those ones.¡±
Lark imagines Oli¡¯s observatory as a tower crammed full of lenses and mirrors. He wonders who maintains them, cleans all that glass. Who built them? What team of optical engineers and aerospace scientists came together to let Oli look up at the sky?
¡°When you look through one of those big telescopes,¡± Oli says, ¡°You¡¯re actually looking at the past. It takes so long for the light to reach us. You can see a nebula as it was six hundred years ago, or even a star just as it was a million years ago. We can only predict what¡¯s happening now. All we know for sure is what has already happened.¡±The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
This makes sense to Lark. It can take a long time to see what has happened. It takes even longer to understand it.
I sent off my applications in early October, hoping to get a decent audition slot, something in the middle of the pool at the West Coast schools I could visit in person. I wouldn¡¯t want the first auditions, I reasoned, when the judges were conservative, when they weren¡¯t sure how to balance the scales yet; early on, they always expected better might come along. I had a large and unusual repertoire I¡¯d carefully honed with a long-time teacher nearing three years ago, pieces that were once at my technical edge but now lived comfortably in my hands. Preparation and the surprising selections made comparison one of my best allies. But unless I somehow got an acceptance from the elusive and free Curtis Institute, I also needed to be seen before the scholarship money ran out.
I got two e-mails from the San Francisco conservatory that had offered me a place two years running: one with an audition slot and another from one of the piano tutors. He had been a judge at the New York auditions the school hosted the year before. I¡¯d driven down overnight without a place to stay; I remembered the cottonwool feeling of a night spent awake except for a rest stop nap. Some combination of exhaustion and nerves had given me a total out-of-body experience during the audition, a moment where I could watch my hands moving over the keys like they were someone else¡¯s.
I was very impressed with your audition last year and disappointed you couldn¡¯t join the program, the e-mail said. If there¡¯s anything you need to better navigate the admissions process, please let me know. Looking forward to seeing you again.
I started to write a response but ended up just saving it to my drafts with a single line: Thank you for your kind words.
I told Quinn and Jules about it as an offhand remark to placate Quinn, who was eager to hear how things were going while I ate dinner at their house. In my room, alone in the dark, my laptop balanced on my keyboard, I hadn¡¯t felt much about it. Where I thought I should have felt gratitude, there was just a seed of anxiety.
Jules, though, was so happy for me. They put their hand on the small of my back, turned me towards them. That¡¯s wonderful. Do you know how many people he probably sees? Lark?
I nodded, uncertain.
Across the kitchen, Quinn watched us; a smile twitched up along one side of his face. He didn¡¯t come to join us, but I felt he wanted to. It made me think that he and Jules had spoken about me when I wasn¡¯t in the room. They had made explicit to each other what kind of a friend I was. What kind of love I needed. What kind of help.
I stepped away from Jules, unsure how to feel. Thank you, I almost said. Or sorry.
Instant #23 - Low Tolerance
Back inside the house, the kitchen lights are intensely bright. Lark can see in the fluorescents that Oli is worn out; his translucent, red-haired complexion shows off his exhaustion¡ªblue crescents beneath his eyes where his veins surface. He drinks water from the sink and offers a glass to Lark.
Lark takes it but, tensed in Oli¡¯s kitchen, he wishes it was something stronger, something to put him to sleep and quiet the night. Lark¡¯s eyes throb and beat with an electric frequency. It¡¯s probably only the micro-flicker of the humming tube lights, but the barrier between himself and the world feels thin enough his pulse might be keeping time with the house¡¯s power grid.
In the kitchen window, Lark can see his reflection and the back of Oli¡¯s head with the shaped v-line of his haircut. As usual, the sight of himself takes Lark off guard. He is there and solid. Not phasing into the world at all, just taking up space in it.
¡°We should call it a night,¡± Lark says, dredging up a smile for Oli. ¡°Thanks for showing me the space station.¡±
Oli shrugs and admits that he loves any excuse to take out the telescope.
¡°Still,¡± Lark says.
¡°I¡¯m used to staying up. I have observatory shifts, so my hours can be kind of weird.¡±
¡°That¡¯s not great for insomnia,¡± Lark notes, thinking of the number of times he¡¯s been advised to keep a regular schedule. ¡°Must be hard.¡±
Oli says, ¡°I don¡¯t mind it. But I guess we should both try to get some sleep.¡±
Lark nods, waves a little as he turns to go back into the living room. ¡°See you in the morning.¡±
Oli stops him though. ¡°Wait a second. I still have your photos.¡± He takes them out in a messy pile, tidies them into a neat stack in his palm. The top picture is of Jules and Quinn¡¯s backyard, the string lights and chairs that sat outside their house unused for a whole winter¡ªthat they kept out, determined to have an outdoor party in the spring, waiting for better times.
Max and Dana went with me to the house party Jules organised for Quinn¡¯s 25th birthday. Their small house was crammed with people sitting on the floor in the living room, bands standing together in style-coordinated huddles. Jules and Quinn had decorated the backyard with string lights, put out chairs, but the weather had changed suddenly the night before. The pleasantly bracing early autumn cool that the Portland natives endured gladly became the frozen drizzle of winter, and everyone on Quinn¡¯s long list of friends was inside. In his wheelchair in the kitchen, Quinn had hardly any room to maneuver, but he looked happy, everyone coming in turns to say hello, leave him a gift, convey their love in the distant, touchless way he demanded. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.
Too much hugging makes me nervous, he told me once. Someone squeezes too tight and my arms just go black. Bruised like an overripe pear.
With Quinn and Jules busy saying hello to everyone, I stuck to Max and Dana. Max handed me a beer from a brewery so small it obviously printed its labels in-house, applied them charmingly off-kilter, by hand. ¡°Hipster shit,¡± he said, and perched on the arm of the sofa to join a nearby conversation. I stood next to him, waited to be introduced, wasn¡¯t.
Why are you outside? Too cold.
I grit out. Oh my God.
Max had opened it in front of me, so I shook my head.
Instant #24 - Chasing Ghosts
Lark takes the photos out of Oli¡¯s hand and turns them around so he can look at them. ¡°Thanks,¡± he says. ¡°I forgot.¡±
Oli waves away his thanks. ¡°It looks like we were just getting to the fun bit. A party, and everything.¡±
Lark shakes his head at this idea. ¡°Sure,¡± he says. ¡°Sure.¡±
Oli, tired, allows himself an uncharitable thought: Lark holds his misery too close. He has wrapped himself so tightly in regrets he has smothered more joyful memories.
Why did Lark take the photos, Oli wonders, if there wasn¡¯t something he wanted to remember. He was willing to concede that some milestones were bittersweet, but Lark¡¯s sad response to party lights strikes him as excessively morose.
Lark turns to the next picture, though, and closes his lips on the ghost of a smile.
¡°What?¡± Oli asks.
Lark shrugs. ¡°Just remembering. Are you, like, a spiritual person?¡±
¡°Um, no.¡± Oli, in fact, tires quickly of anything other than a scientific position. He finds himself, sometimes suddenly, unable to be polite when anyone asks him about his star sign. He has felt the pull of the stars; mystification, he thinks, cheapens the deeper mysteries of the universe.
¡°Okay, well, me neither. But Dana, who I was living with in Portland, got into some kind of crystal magic? I don¡¯t know. She started hanging rocks in our windows and giving us healing stones and stuff.¡±
Oli makes a face at that.
¡°It was sweet, really.¡± Lark remembers Dana pressing a hunk of amethyst into his hands when he was opening acceptance letters. For anxiety, she told him. He didn¡¯t think the stone helped, but having someone with him¡ªwatching and hoping with him¡ªhad soothed him.
¡°I guess,¡± Oli concedes. ¡°That kind of thing just seems a bit¡ªI don¡¯t know. Like it takes advantage of how unhappy people can be.¡±
Lark agrees with that. Dana had been brutally practical before they went to Portland. Months in that cramped apartment, trapped with Lark and Max, worried about money and her future, had her looking for hope anywhere she could find it. Lark wonders what she¡¯s like now: if she¡¯s reordered her life, applied new rules of logic, if she still reads her horoscope.
¡°What can you do with crystals, you know?¡± Oli says. ¡°It¡¯s something to focus on while your life goes on without you.¡±Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
Lark frowns at the bluntness of Oli¡¯s opinion, says only, ¡°I guess. Sometimes it¡¯s good to have the distraction.¡±
¡°Sorry,¡± Oli says. ¡°I¡¯m tired.¡±
Lark nods and drifts back to the living room, goes to sit on the sofa. The TV is still on, but The Lord of the Rings has paused. The first disc was played out: change to continue.
Instant #25 - Accompaniment
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Instant #26 - Exit Strategy
Oli has hope that, with the X-files cases neatly in line so their spines spell out the series¡¯ title, the DVDs will be in some kind of order. Lark has lower expectations. He considers telling Oli about the time Max rearranged the boxes to say ¡°sex life¡± but decides it would make them both seem childish.
Oli checks the DVDs one at a time, pulling any that are wrong or empty off the shelf until he has a small stack of boxes. ¡°Reed doesn¡¯t even watch these. I mean¡ªhow did it get this bad?¡± he says, an empty case in each hand. ¡°I cannot believe it.¡±
¡°I absolutely can. This is classic,¡± Lark says, passing the X-files DVD to Oli, who presses it into its correct case, replaces it on the shelf. Reed was always scattered and disorganized but hid it well. Tidy, but not orderly, he presented a relaxed competence, layered thick over his innate chaos. Reed had assured conversations on the phone while Googling words he¡¯d already said. He showed up to meetings in pajamas.
¡°Oh, I know. Still disappointed.¡± Oli is trying to look serious, but there¡¯s a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Lark thinks Oli must really love Reed to find this inconvenience endearing at 3 am. ¡°You guys are cute,¡± he says.
Oli laughs. ¡°I think that¡¯s the consensus. Cute space boyfriends.¡±
They sit in silence for a while, then, working through the DVD cases. Lark is more interested in getting them all in order than finding the Fellowship disc and starts checking all the cases, methodically working through the bottom shelf, near Oli¡¯s knees.
¡°What brought you back to the east coast then? If you didn¡¯t go to conservatory?¡± Oli asks him.
¡°I did go,¡± Larks says sharply. ¡°The year I was in Portland I got in. I got the scholarship to a place in San Francisco.¡±
Even though Oli remembered Reed telling him that this was true, that Lark had been to conservatory, he¡¯d begun to imagine Lark as someone else. As the person he looked like, maybe, or just the person he presented himself as: someone who failed to get what he wanted, again and again.
¡°Sorry,¡± Lark shook his head, let his hair fall into his face. ¡°That sounded more defensive than I meant it to.¡±
Oli watches Lark go through the DVDs. Lark keeps his gaze resolutely on the floor, but he holds the discs upwards, his slender fingers lightly gripping the edge, careful not to smudge their silvered data sides, flashing light into Oli¡¯s eyes.If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.
Acceptance letters started arriving from my conservatory auditions. The thick envelopes that I had gotten so excited about two years ago filled me with a cold dread now. My one rejection came early: a slim letter from Curtis¡¯ fully-funded program. I knew, then, it would be down to money again, what scraps I would be offered, and if they could be cobbled together into an approximation of a full fee.
I threw out envelopes offering anemic performance awards, a half-ride from Mannes that still left an unbelievable remainder to pay. Boston Conservatory made a generous offer, as they had the year before. It was still beyond my budget, but I held onto the letter anyway, trying to think of ways to find a few thousand dollars for an acceptance deposit and the required student housing. I considered telling Quinn to see if he had any ideas, but I was worried it would seem like a roundabout way of asking for a loan. Though a proud part of me thought I would gracefully refuse if he offered me money, I knew at best I wouldn¡¯t be graceful, and at worst I would beg for his help.
The hope slipped out of me, and the facts of my life became real, struck me with a new force.
My job at the Salvation Army, which had been an inoffensive necessity for the last few months, became draining and painful as the days of folding and tagging others¡¯ dregs under fluorescent lights stretched endlessly on in front of me.
Max came into my room to complain about the rehearsal times I had booked for Squires because he didn¡¯t like practicing on Fridays or working too late. Instead of shrugging it away, I started a screaming match that startled him into laughing and leaving.
Dana peaked into my room a little while later to ask what happened. She was tiptoeing around my rawness, like she was afraid of me. I failed to reassure her with some excuse for my anger, something that didn¡¯t get too close to the truth. I was a worse person than I had been when we got here. Another year in my basement room, with nothing but Max¡¯s lukewarm songwriting, my weighted keyboard, and a dead-end job, felt impossible.
I resolved to move in with Quinn and Jules again when the contract ran out on our rental. Max and Dana could find a new roommate or get somewhere better with another couple. I could get set up as a piano tutor or get Jules to book me in for sessions. Squires would break up after its spring tour. We would all discover our backup plans.
The letter from San Francisco conservatory, where the piano tutor had remembered me, came through later than I expected. I read through the acceptance letter perfunctorily, flipped through the rest of the pages looking for the scholarship offer.
And there it was. The top performance scholarship, an additional grant for my scores on the practical solfege and sight reading examinations. Enough money.
I didn¡¯t feel anything about it, folding the letters back into their envelope and placing them on top of a book of sonatas. I was crying, though¡ªtears of relief.
Instant #27 - Offer
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Instant #28 - Magick Circle
¡°Careful what you wish for, right?¡± Oli says.
¡°Yeah,¡± Lark agrees. ¡°But maybe I¡¯m just not the best at foresight. Near-sighted third eye.¡±
Oli smiles at this, but Lark does regret his poor predictive abilities. He didn¡¯t think of himself as an impulsive person; he was generally fearful, risk-averse. It took him, if anything, too long to make decisions. The truth, though, was that he made up his mind in bursts of decisiveness after long periods of unresolved, anxious ambivalence. He weighed up choices and made plans, but usually with too much information and no sense of what they would feel like.
Before he moved to Portland, he looked at rainfall tables and gas prices, apartments to rent, lists of the nicest parks, day trips to take, and venues he could visit. He promptly forgot these facts and statistics. Portland, for him, was a sensory smudge of gray skies, the chipboard walls of practice studios, good coffee, shivering in his damp room, the sun filling up Quinn¡¯s kitchen. Liminal. It never became his home.
If he¡¯d been honest with himself, he would have expected that, could have known he would always be trying to leave. Maybe he could have told Max, too, and they both could have made better decisions about their futures.
Lark is almost relieved that he didn¡¯t have to choose between two conservatories. He doubts he would have made the decision based on anything other than rank tables, but only after months of fretful waffling about the different styles of the piano tutors.
¡°It¡¯s hard to predict anything,¡± Oli says. ¡°We do a lot of guesswork.¡±
Lark knows this is true, but he also appreciates that his poor sense of what the important facts are only make his guesses worse.
When he extricated himself from his friends in Portland, he didn¡¯t quite realize the effect it would have on him. He still thinks of Dana becoming fretful after he announced his departure, holds the guilt and worry close. She told him that she did not want to be alone with Max, burnt sage in their living room to dispel the negative energy left behind by their arguments.
She was better off putting her faith in rituals than in Lark. He didn¡¯t know what to do to help her. Even his own hopes were obscure to him; he could not see what was best for anyone else.
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