Scarlett
“Stian, that was the best!” I screamed, high on adrenaline, as we walked off stage. The manager waited for us there with a bottle of champagne, which he handed to me and I popped open, spraying everyone and anyone close by. Then we poured out several glasses and clinked them with each other and the staff.
The manager expressed his thanks extensively over the still audible shouts and claps of the audience. I gave him an apologetic look and ran back onstage.
The crowd made more noise and I shuddered with pleasure, from head to toe. I smiled and slipped on my guitar. Stian came after me and picked his guitar up too, with a funny smile on his face. He was smiling at me.
I sat down on the edge of the stage and began playing The Beatles’ “Blackbird”, my favorite song of all time. This show and the others had consisted of mostly my own songs and “Flower”, of course. It felt good to play “Blackbird” again.
Some enthusiastic people up front touched my legs and bare feet (I had gotten rid of my shoes halfway through the show) and I didn’t feel like leaving. I could stay there forever.
“’You were only waiting for this moment to be free…’” I finished, my voice full of real, almost tangible emotion. People stood up and made noise.
Stian handed me what was left of the flowers and I took them and jumped down into the pulsing crowd to give them away. I hugged and was hugged, feeling so full of this warm, dizzy feeling that I thought I’d explode.
Stian came after me and took my hand, his face and his heart mirroring mine. We made our ways back on stage and off stage after we were done with the all the flowers except one (which I’d keep as a memory), and headed to the dressing room. Stian closed the door behind him and both of us closed our eyes, tasting the perfectness of that moment. We started packing, in silence, relishing every second of this.
We took a cab back to the hotel, silent all the way. That was one of the things I loved about us, Stian and I. Silence was rarely awkward and both of us enjoyed it. There was rarely that pressing necessity to break it by saying useless things, like with regular people.
We entered the room and set our things down. Stian closed the door behind him and we walked a little further into the room. Then we paused, our cheeks hurting from the incessant grinning, and stood right in front of each other. Our grins faded a little, or rather morphed into another kind of smile.
Then the world stopped for us.
Stian
The room spun around us as I looked into her eyes properly for the first time. The show had been one of the best so far and as we struggled to leave the crowd and get back onstage, after she jumped in, I followed her, staring into the back of her bouncy head thinking thoughts I had avoided before.
Why had I been unhappy all my life until the very moment I discovered her guitar, back on the deck of my father’s boat? Why had I never taken any risks until I read her diary and was swallowed whole by Scarlett’s story? And why had I been killing myself holding myself back all this time? Because I had been thinking and living with reason. All of the pivotal moments that had made me change so abruptly had been geared by emotions, not reason, I concluded at that moment.
And now the room spun rapidly and slowly at the same time for me, and all I could see was her. She had saved my life, now that I thought about it. She hadn’t allowed me to go on living under the strict rules of reason. She had shown me happiness and insanity through the intensity of her emotions.
I let it all flood me for the first time. All my emotions came in one monumental wave, all at once. I took a step forward, closer to where she stood.
She waited there for something to happen, but not impatiently. For the first time, she stood completely still, silently telling me she’d wait forever if she had to.
I reached down and took her hand, feeling the impossible softness of it bring happy tears to my eyes. I touched her cheek with my free hand, covering a good part of her face. She opened up a Scarlett-smile and laughed a little, placing her own hand over mine on her face. She looked up at me, her eyes tearful as well, hopelessly happy and blissful. She closed her eyes and I bent down a little, to get my face closer. I had to get closer.
She closed her eyes and kept her smile and I finally went for it. My lips touched hers softly at first, and then she wrapped her arms around me and made more pressure. I parted my lips hungrily and she did the same. It felt warm and wonderful as I had expected. Yet at the same time, it was nothing like I had expected.
I wanted more and more and so did she. I felt as if she was sucking away all the air in my lungs and felt so dizzy I could fall. I shuddered with absolute happiness and held her the tightest I could. I wanted her with me forever and always, bound to my body for all eternity.
We did not stop for air. It seemed unnecessary at the moment. Her warm, tiny fingers ran down my shirt until it found a breach, a passage to what laid underneath. I mimicked her movements without letting go of her, ripping away unnecessary pieces of cloth. And as the world came to a stop, we did not.
Anyways.
This week's racket is all about my redeeming autobiographical novel to get rid of bad memories I can't bring myself to regret. Fun. Flirty. Heart-breaking. Or soul-shredding, suit yourself. What is it about? you ask. Here's what I'll say: it's about wanting everything all at once; about having an excruciating thirst for life; about having the soul shredded and unconsciously fighting to mend it; basically, it's about being young and wanting to fly.
I probably won't ever finish it, as usual. I feel I haven't lived it all yet; I'm still stuck with un-lived feelings that do exist in theory but not yet in... well, the real world. Ah, it all comes back to the real world in the end of the day.
Sometimes I wish what's in my head was the real world. I wish it all the time, to tell you the truth. Why can't it be that way? Why do I live in my world/mind so much? Why is what's real so boring and why does that have to be what's real? Why can't my mind be what's real?
My god, I have so many questions! Like all the un-lived emotions, almost. I know I make excuses for everything in my mind, just like in The Beatles' Come Together: "got to be good looking 'cause he's so hard to see". Am I that hard to see?
(pause)
I'll let the question linger in midair for a while. When (and if) I finish my new novel I'll answer it. Or maybe not, maybe I'll let it go. But I'll definitely take it down from where it hangs like a hangman's corpse, still and bloated and purplish blue - haunting and totally disturbing. By then my un-lived emotions will lose its annoyingly stubborn prefix and I'll be okay again (which reminds me of a Dickinson poem - the one about hope I keep in my wallet for good luck on dates). Time will help, I think and hope. Love will too. Maybe more questions will be raised and hung and left to linger creepily. By then, with a little luck, I won't have to make excuses anymore and all "buts" will be banned and I won't ever be that hard to see.
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