Skyline

One would think you’d get used to the existential terror that permeated through every waking moment of your life, but somehow it felt acculumalative, like a snowball of shit rolling down a steep hill of even more shit. Mom said I shouldn't worry, speaking another tried and true permutation of “things will work out in the end”, as if it would be more convincing if she used bigger words. I didn’t even know what permutation meant, she said it out loud, unironically, in one of her spiels that passed as “advice”, thinking it sounded good. Dad’s advice wasn’t better, it could’ve been his signature one-two of a grunt then a fart for how much it helped. I don’t think they really understand, they married young, so young you’d’ve wondered if adults even existed to stop them. Their lives, first and foremost, was about family, and the myriad of spawns I call siblings; they didn’t need to care about their careers or getting into a university. Maybe they had the right idea, maybe I should’ve married that girl in 9th grade and spare me the dread of having to open another email or, god forbid, an envelope. 

I didn’t even say hi when I walked in, just grappled the door closed from the relentless wind, grabbed the stack of papers on the kitchen bar, and hurried to my room to avoid the goblin-incarnates that would inevitably ask to play my Playstation. I dropped the stack on my bed, followed by my bag, and then me, inadvertently fluttering the papers to the air as I face-planted on the hard surface of what I thought was my soft backpack. The stench of hard iron in my nasal tract drew me from the embarrassing, whimpering groans in the muffle of the math textbook; as if the universe decided that the stress of life wasn't enough, they throw in a nose injury for good measure. What a bargain.

I got up from my bed, half-wondering if the whole damn house would collapse to add insult to injury, or injury to injury in this case. Mr. Avail was pretty frustrated when he saw I didn’t finish my work, but I told him I would finish it at home and have it on his desk first thing in the morning. I had no intention of actually completing it, of course, but I put the textbook in my bag to assure him, briefly, that I actually cared about my grades. Maybe I’ll care just a little more now. 

After lunging my stupid backpack into the closet, and ensuring the pitifully hairless cleft above my lip wasn't bloody, I knelt and gathered the mail littered about the carpet floor, hoping the next had my name after each glance, then sorrowing toss back to the bed.

None. Out of an entire stack of letters, none were addressed to me. The weight of my shoulders dragged, like they took the full might of an avalanche. The force brought me to the carpet, sunken in an awkward position to avoid the abutting congregation of my desk, bed, and wardrobe in the tight room. I didn’t care, months of typing emails, handwriting letters that I had no clue on how to actually mail just to be met with another day of disappointment. At least the rejections for an internship were straightforward, I didn’t have to wonder for long if any company would hire some random, talentless high school graduate through email. The letters, though, were excruciating. So far, only one managed to find its way in our mailbox 3 weeks ago. You’d have thought all these emails and letters were written by the same damn person the way they all start with “Dear Mr. Whitlock, We regret to inform you…” 

I’m just tired. All my friends, almost to mock me, talk endlessly about their plans for their futures, as if they’ve had it figured out since birth. Them getting accepted to university didn't bother me that much, it was just a step along the way towards their passions and drives. But I don't have that drive, that passion, there's no end goal, even if I get a dozen acceptance letters, what the fuck is it all for? To have a shiny placard, my name in cursive, hanging from the cardboard wall of my box-home in an alley? How anyone manages to figure this out bothers me unceasingly, to make a decision at 17 and commit to it for the rest of your life? I thought Harry Potter was dumb for that reason, but little did my idiot child-mind know, it was an actual commentary on the existential crisis you would feel if you didn’t decide to become a wizard cop, or whatever the fuck Harry was. If I didn’t figure it out soon, then I –

I narrowed my eyes; through the furry carpet, a sliver of white hidden in the shadow of my bed frame. I reached for it; it was a paper, no... an envelope. How'd it get there? From the flurry of the mail, swept underneath my bed?

I got up, turning the letter to reveal the heading in the front: Bodhi Whitlock, it read. In the corner, a blue stamp of a mermaid, a trident and a book in each hand, etched in an iron-crossed shield background. Below that, West Atlantic University, written in black. 

Before I even had the time to process what I was holding, my door flew open, handle slamming into the wall with a worrying thud. After a loud reprimand from my father in the living room, Clem tiptoed in my room like an old hag, slowly shutting the door with the grace of an angel.

After a quiet click, she looked at me. “What are you doing?” It wasn’t until then I realized I was on my feet, standing strangely in the middle of my room, the envelope tucked into my hoodie pocket.

“Could you not piss my dad off and get my door taken away again,” I sighed, making for my desk chair. 

“Does your house not have the wiggly-spring things?” She asked, helping herself to a seat on my bed. “Tell your dad to invest in those if he likes his walls so much.” 

“What do you want?” I asked, annoyed with her jovial demeanor. “I said we would hang out tomorro-”

“Doesn’t mean we can’t hang out today,” she retorted, shuffling through the letters that were now in her hands. “No word yet?” She asked, dropping them back down on the bed.

I hesitated, fingers clenched on the letter that was concealed in my thick hoodie, wondering why I was reluctant to tell her the truth. 

“I’ll take that as a no,” she surmised, noticing the glint of anxiety on my face. “Doesn’t matter, we’re going out.” 

“To where,” I scowled. “I have other shit to do.”

“Don’t care, we’re going somewhere,” she said, with a disregard that would make any sensible man red with frustration. “What else are you gonna do on a Friday night, mope in your room?” 

My face furled, annoyed that she manages to be accurate about the most innocuous shit. “Fine,” I sputtered, “Where are we going?” 

* * * * * *

“You brought your pliers, right?” She asked.

I glared at her. “Why would I keep pliers on me?”

“Oh shit,” she said, removing her backpack and searching within it, pulling out a set of bolt cutters, “I forgot I brought mine, my bad.” 

“Those are bolt cutters, not pliers, you dumbass.” 

“Same thing, dude. Here,” she held the bolt cutters limply in her extended hand. “You’re stronger than me.” 

She’s wrestled me to the ground far too many times to know that wasn’t true, but I took them anyway. 

If we really wanted to, we could have just jumped the fence, nothing was really stopping us other than Clem’s incestuous need to get in the most trouble possible. But, I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t at least a little exhilarating. 

I gripped the handles of the cutters, clenching the padlock’s jutting iron in its maw, and snapped the lock in two with a satisfying clip. Clem kicked the fence wide open, smirking at me, grateful that maybe she’d have a bunkmate when we got arrested. 

Before us, the skeletal mass of a high-rise in the making, construction supplies and heavy equipment sprawled on the perilous foundation, iron columns and concrete walls barreling from the base into a labyrinth of intersecting rebar, beams, and girders above us. The howls of wind hurled whirlwinds of dust and grime and other construction-matter up the deluge of its hulking mast, coalescing at the ground in a thick girdle of smog that made my throat hoarse, and the ground floor cloudy. Downtown was usually a lively place, but the desertion of such an immense superstructure made my hair’s stand on end. We shouldn’t be seeing this, I mean we shouldn’t be here at all, legally speaking, but it felt like we were intruding on the foundation of a society in making, like we were interrupting God’s design, something we were never meant to see. Annoyingly, Clem didn’t seem unnerved by this at all as her skips echoed from the murk of the leviathan of metal.

“You gonna tell me why we’re here now,” I called to Clem, inhaling enough pollutants to shred 5 years off my life.

“Not till we reached the top,” she yelped back, her figure dilated in the tan thicket. 

I followed the figure past endless rows of rusted columns, careful not to succumb to any hazard hidden in the midst, and caught her in front of some metal box colored a deep yellow, fidgeting at a control panel. It wasn’t until I saw a thick cable interlaced with steel cords fastened to the top that I realized it was a construction elevator. 

“There’s no power,” I told her, wondering why she thought pressing the same 5 buttons a 13th time would make it work. “Looks like we’re taking the stairs."

With a groan only a lazy cretin could belch, she dragged her feet behind me as we made for the neighboring staircase.

Through nasally breaths from the first few floors, she asked, “Did you hear Daniel got accepted to TYU? He called me earlier today, screaming like a damn girl."

My heart skipped a beat, and the journey up the steps felt even more harrowing. “He called you?”

“Yeah, before I got to your house.” Her breathing ushered for a moment, and her gulp was strikingly audible. “I mean, I’m sure he would’ve called you too, he’s just like super busy, and excited right now.”

“Yeah…” I answered, softly. Plainly.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t–” 

“It’s fine, let’s just reach the top.” I stated.

The silence between us was deafening, irritating. I know she didn’t mean it that way, and now I’m just pissed that my feelings getting hurt soured a night that was supposed to be fun, exciting. It’s just hard to repress the looming fear that I’m gonna be forgotten by all the people I care about when they go off to college, or some job. And now, before they even left the city, they’re already forgetting to tell me some of the most important news of their life…

The following floors were more grueling to trek, but the silence at least allowed me to focus on breathing it out. Each floor was almost a portal to the first: the same rusted pillars, in the same rows, burrowed in the same concrete. At least the tornado of dust wasn’t kicking this high up; the air became a nice, chill breeze in my throat floor after floor.

After the eternal climb from hell, we finally reached the top, the night sky foreboding above, the gusts of wind bringing with it a cold that could shatter bones. Clem, hunched over, panting like a sweltering dog, wheezed, “I fucking hate stairs, dude.” 

“Well, we still got a few more,” I said, gesturing at another, although significantly smaller, set of steps that led to a higher vantage, escaping the enclosure of yellow tarps that wrapped around the perimeter of the entrance, blocking any view besides the view of the stars. 

With a howling grunt, Clem followed me up the steps. What awaited us knocked the little breath she had clean out of her lungs. 

The lumines skyline of the city; ablaze and incandescent with the colors of an erupting supernova saturating the jungle of towering behemoths of rock and glass, refracting the neon radiance to the night above in an iridescent glow. Even though maybe half a mile away, the wondrous sight still pierced through my retinas, instructing me to never dare glance from its immense beauty, and never relinquish the sight to any other but the friend I’m sharing it with. Immediately, all the pain in the world felt trivial. 

“It’s so….beautiful.” I hadn’t known who spoke the words; it didn’t matter, we both were thinking it. 

As if waking up from a long, vivid dream, I shook my head and looked at Clem, her eyes beaming, reflecting God’s creation back to me. 

“Is this why you brought me here?” I asked, brushing my moistened eyes. 

“No,” she said plainly, “but I’m glad we got to see this.” 

“Then why are we here?” I questioned, aghast, as if she in some way insulted the magnificence before us. 

She sprung from the trance as well, and smiled at me, gesturing at a ledge that faced the brilliant skyline. 

“I wanted to talk to you,” she said, as we stood at the ledge, the skyline exposed and radiant. “I’m kind of sentimental so... I chose a spot that was more fitting, I guess.”

“Talk about what?” I asked, frowning, beads of sweat forming on my forehead.

“Chill bro, I’m not gonna ask you out, gross,” she scoffed, my face more enamored with anxiety than I thought. She breathed, then continued. “I know you’ve been in a bad place recently, with the whole ‘existential terror for my future’ thing. I’m gonna be honest, I don’t really get it, it’s kind of really dumb actually, but… I’ve seen how upset it makes you and…” She sighed. “I brought you here because I think its a little instructive. A high-rise, still in construction, capable of being many different things: an office, an apartment complex, a museum, anything. We don’t know yet, the construction is a part of the process, and it's just as important, if not more than how it ends up. Build it on shaky ground, use bad materials, hire some random dipshits, and it’ll tumble and fall and hurt a lot people. But, build it slowly, gradually, with purpose, and..." She looked to the radiating summit of erected dreams. "It’ll be another wonder in a beautiful skyline.” 

I stared at the space of gravel between us, finding it hard to look into her eyes, wondering if I should interject with a clarification that buildings actually need permits and are funded by conglomerates that have a very specific purpose for the building, completely thwarting the point she was trying to make. But…. I didn’t, inaccuracies aside, her words penetrated the insurmountable nihilism that had claimed my life for months. Something I didn't know I needed as much as I did...

 “Build your life with purpose, Bhod.” She continued. “You have a whole life ahead of you, do what you want when you need, building it on some meaningless condition of getting into university or getting that hard job is just gonna bite you in the ass in the future if you aren’t actually passionate about it. It’s all about passion, and dreams. If you don’t have them yet, you have a lot of time to find them. It takes time to build a skyscraper, you know.”

I managed to look up at her, a dumb toothless grin grimacing at me. But it was a grin I couldn’t help but lunge at, arms wrapped around her as I buried my head in her shoulder, eyes damp, trying hard not to cry on her hoodie. 

She embraced me, hand rubbing my back. Clem knew the exact words to say to pierce right through me, usually to piss me off, but sometimes, to give me the direction no one else could. No matter who left, who stayed, who still kept in contact, I knew Clem would be there, as she always was, with that same dumb, toothless grin.

I pulled back from her, wiping the tears from my eyes, and with the conviction I’ve never uttered when speaking the words, I said, simply, “Thank you.” 

She knew the weight of it, and my smile back to her was more than enough to appease her selfless heart. 

The frigid air struck us harder, and I instinctively put my hands in my hoodie pocket and —

The feeling of paper, crumpled.

Wait, is that - Holy shit, I completely forgot about the letter from WAU! How did I forget, I knew I didn’t have time to process it before but now —

But now, it didn’t matter that much. It didn’t matter at all, really. Months of stress and…. its withered. Hollow; nothing. No weight on my shoulders, no cavalcade of dread, nothing. 

I pulled it out, the mermaid misshapen in the crumpled mess, and looked at Clem. I smiled. 

I unfurled my fingers, and let the wind take it, out into the night sky, to the skyline of future dreams, to a person that desired it more than I ever could. I hope, whoever found it, found the purpose they needed to trudge through life, and that, maybe, it led them to the admission's office of WAU. But not I.

Not I.