Muddled Musings

Location: 19, Limon Lane, Little Chenning

Blog Entry dated 13.12. 2006

Blogger: Jennifer Kowler

What would you say if the guy you had a great big crush on turned out to be a total loser? No. not a loser-a jerk! A disgusting murder-capable…I don’t know. I can’t describe it. I can’t think anymore. So here’s the story.

On the edge of town…that’s where I live on the edge of town on a street called Limon Lane. It’s one of those typical suburban communities you would find in any typical stay-at-home sitcom. But that doesn’t matter now because what happened here is something you won’t believe…What am I saying?! Let’s get down to it. Here! Here! In Little Chenning the murder was committed right here! He took her and threw her on the barb wire. Just with his bare hands, he picked her up and thrashed her against the rusted coil. Once, twice, it must have been easy for her to lift her above his head like that. She was an…I don’t care about her. She was always weird. But why would he do that? What had she done? She didn’t even scream. I ran…I wouldn’t have heard anything anyway. I ran…Did he see me?

But why would he do that? He’s the most handsome guy in the world. You should see him without a shirt on…those abs! Ooo! And when he walks-no-strides down the street with those magnificently muscular legs…ah! I could just die watching him.

And they were happy. They were always canoodling in the park, sharing an icecream cone or lying in the grass staring at the stars. Yes, I had been watching them. They were the epitome of a perfect relationship. I would wish I was her-in his arms, in his bed. Or maybe I just wished I had something like that. maybe I wasn’t jealous of her-just jealous of what she had. But now she’s dead and the jealousy must die with her.

What about him? Is he going to be caught? Is he going to jail? Does he deserve to? It was her fault. I’m sure it was her fault! The conniving little bitch! She must have had an affair, broke his heart, poor darling! He was positively furious. I couldn’t make out what he was yelling, but it was loud, loud and painfilled painfilled-is that even a word?-Mrs Pais would kill me if she saw it. Oh! Right. This is supposed to be an essay for my creative writing paper. But I can’t write this. It’s too…too real. Too real to be believable. If I went downstairs and told Dad about it, he’d have a good laugh.

“Jennie, you’re always coming up with this sort of nonsense. Things like that never happen”

But I had proof! Oh, how could I forget, I have proof!

The Picture

It was a badly taken picture. The lighting was bad. The outline blurred. So much for a 1.5 mega pixel camera phone! All you could really see was the red dots of flowers, behind the wire, in their garden. A well kept garden it was too. Bees, butterflies, bottle brush-they must have paid Maude a good sum. However did they manage? She hadn’t been working for sometime now. He was a writer, a lyricist actually. Did he work for a record label? I know he wasn’t part of a regular band. Different artists recorded his songs.

 Of course I knew all of them inside out- my soul songs. They sang of things I was feeling. He could sense my darkness somehow. That’s why I felt so connected to him. It was freaky sometimes the way his songs reflected my innermost fears.

“…that’s when I knew that I could never have you. I knew that before you did yet I’m the one who’s stupid. And there’s this burning…”

Yes, they were my soul songs and I was addicted to them. I’ve played this one (Motorcycle Drive By-Third Eye Blind) 16 times already and it’s still on repeat on my media player.

The tune inspired total confidence. It was like I knew him. Without so much as half a decent conversation, I knew him.

If only I…Beauty doesn’t count, it’s personality…but I didn’t have that either! I would go up to him one day and tell him. I told myself I would. I knew the words I must say…But it’s too late now. He’s gone. He ran after I did. In the opposite direction. I didn’t look back but I knew he had to run and he wasn’t running behind me.

The streets were empty that evening. Everyone was at the town’s council meeting. They hadn’t gone. What did two lovebirds have to do with waste management anyway? And I was the youngest on the block. Can you believe it? No one younger than 16 lives on Limon Lane. All old hags playing bingo in the club on Saturdays. Dad liked his bridge nights and the divorced women had their own drunken balls.

Loneliness was as much a part of me as this computer here or my mobile phone. My virtual life had always been more active. I lived one life to feed the other.

 That reminds me-I haven’t eaten since lunch in school yesterday. I’ve been cooped up here in my room all night and half the day thinking of Bryan. This is not the first time. But it has to be the last. I have to stop loving him. He’s a murderer! A murderer! He belongs in cuffs, behind bars. No mercy. 15 years? A life sentence? Possible. What a waste though. I hope he continues to…Dad calling. It’s the cops. They’ve come for questioning. It’s time.

________________________________________________________________________

THE END

The Break up

Location: 15, Limon Lane, Little Chenning

Time: 12.8.2006, 6.30 pm

“I need to do this, Bryan, you won’t understand. I can’t go on living like this. I need to find some meaning in life”

“Am I not meaning enough? I don’t understand. How can you go from ‘You make my life beautiful. I love you’ to…to this?”

“I never said I love you”

Silence

“You did. You did and you meant it”

“Look you meant a lot to me at one time. You’ve helped me through a lot-an alcoholic dad, a superficial relationship, a divorce and all that but really Bryan, you’d make a much better friend. I...I trust you”

“Is there another man?”

“No, Bryan. You know me. Why would I do that to you?”

“Why? Why would you do this to me?”

Pain in his eyes. She bites her lip, struggling for control. They come rolling down. Breaking up is not as easy at it seems. Unearthly silence follows. She wants to scream. He wants to scream. They feel like fools for believing.

“What now?”

“Now what?

“I guess we could go back to being frie— ”

“We were never friends Em, It’s always been more than that, you know that!”

“We’d make better friends than lovers”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Forget it. We could cut off completely if you want to”

“Is it really that easy for you?”

“You have no idea how hard this is”

“No. I don’t”

“I’m sorry. You mean a lot to me, baby, just not in that way. I can’t think of you like that. I feel like a bitch for doing this to you. But I must. I’m sorry.”

“Never be sorry for being yourself. Isn’t that what you used to say?”

She didn’t know it yet. But she was not being herself. This break up was not something she would normally do. She was disregarding everything that he had given her. Only the last week played over and over in her head. She knew she had compromised when she married Bryan. He was everything she always knew she never wanted. She needed someone to pull her out of the ditch she had buried herself in and he lent a hand. ‘He should never have got his heart involved’, she thought. She should have known. She knew it would end like this. She could never love him. She knew that from the start. She was being selfish when she said yes. She wanted to get out, to start anew. He was helping her. He was good for her. But not anymore. The overwhelming feeling of ‘Someone- loves-me’ had washed away months ago.  She could see the cracks now. They had nothing in common. Different lifestyles, different hobbies, different friends. Nothing clicked. Their time together was the most boringly, endless hours she had had to endure. She tried to spruce it up. Chocolate icecream, long walks hand in hand, star gazing…

Half smile. Purse lips.

“I have to go now”

He had to let her go.

THE END

Location: Caves 2 miles from Little Chenning

Time: 16.8.2006

Mind of Bryan Coltrane

Living on rats, letting moss grow on my toes…I can’t go on like this.

It was time to get out, escape this horrid dungeon. I remembered the words of a song I had heard ages ago.

“Wake up. It’s time, it’s time to find a better place to hide.”

Razor! I hummed it softly to myself.

Footsteps in the distance—stop humming—paws? Just paws…a stray dog.

As I stepped out of the cave, the cold wind hit my unprotected face. It felt good. It was the first time in days I felt so alive, so human.

“I’ve never felt so alone and I’ve never been so alive”

Third Eye Blind.

Inside my head, a little inbuilt MP3 sang for me.

It’s like I had a song for everything I felt, each step of the way.

I was making up for the lack of new words. What was once a natural instinct is now strange to me. I would never write again. Never again! I wrote for her. Everything for her.

“To see you when I wake up is a gift I didn’t think to be real. To know that you feel the same as I do is a…”

She never felt the same.

I continued to sing.

“You do something to me that I can’t explain. So would I be out of line if I said I miss you.”

I took out something from my wallet. The next line.

“I see your picture. I smell your skin on the empty pillow next to mine”

More like the slimy stone, actually. Too late, the next line was already ringing in my ears.

“You have only been gone ten days but already I’m wasting away.”

Forgetting myself in you. How I used to be so caught up with your life. I never lived my own. Everything had to be about you. Your clothes, your work, your favorite movie! It disgusts me now.

“I wish I was special, so fucking special.  But I’m a creep. I’m a weirdo. What the hell am I doing here. I don’t belong here.”

Why am I here? Why am I running? What am I trying to save? What’s my life without hers? I should have stayed and soaked in her red. But I saw her run-that curly headed snoop from down the street. She saw me and she ran, so I ran too.

­­­­­

RED

Addicted, addicted to everything about her…her touch, her smell, her laugh, even her burnt toast.

She used to love doing things for me. Cooking, cleaning, making the bed, taking out the garbage, answering the phone. I’ve been ungrateful.

“I never said thank you for that. Now I never have a chance. May angels lead you in”

She didn’t have to go. She didn’t have to die. She didn’t love me. She didn’t need to. She could live without me. But what about me?

“I can’t live with or without you”

I couldn’t live with her, knowing she’d never love me and I couldn’t live with the person I would be without her.

“Nothing win and nothing left to lose”

I could drown in this song. How many times had we listened to it and marveled at it’s maker.

“There are better composers than me”, I used to say

She giggles, runs her fingers through my hair.

“I love you the best.”

Maybe it was just things she heard in movies. Things two people are supposed to say to each other when they’re in love. The expected. The rusted wire used by many to perforate the silence which true love deserves.   

I remember the last day we spent together. There was a most gorgeous sunset. The sky as red as her blood-no-not nearly as beautiful.

I don’t remember what she was wearing or what her last words were. But I know she suffered, the blood said so. Trickling out of ebony, into almonds, over lashes, onto porcelain. That’s the last thing I could remember-the redness of her blood.

And now I’m going to be caught, caught and punished for killing her.

I’ll plead insanity. It wasn’t me, I swear, it wasn’t me!

It was the wire that did it. The wire, the barbed wire.

THE END