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I am a hurricane in human form.
The thought occurred to him as most existential observations did – in the darkest hour between three and four in the morning, when most lights across the city had finally been extinguished and the pearly glow of dawn had yet to grace the sky. Insomnia and a whirlwind of thoughts kept him from the merciful arms of sleep and so he had ended up here. Here, of course, being the roof of his dorm, bundled up in a thick, thermal hoodie with a winter-weight coat over the top, only he’d forgotten to wear gloves and so now his hands physically ached with the chill of late October.
The night sky was almost entirely obscured by light pollution. There were no stars in the city other than the false diamonds of skyscraper windows. It was a clear night, yet all he could glimpse was a whisper of the moon. The sky was stained that sluggish yellow hue of polluted light. He remained flat on his back anyway, seeking the darkness for any familiarity despite knowing that it was out of reach and struck from view. It was freezing. Puddles in the streets had frozen over. Chilled concrete seemed icy even through his coat and hoodie. He cupped his hands and blew hot air over his fingers, stained a raw red by cold.
So. His hurricane theory. Hurricanes were formed of uncontrollable winds, wreaking pure chaos as they overwhelmed everything in their path. At their centre lay the eye – a brief sense of calm in which nothing was okay or safe but at least you could catch your breath before battening down the hatches for the next torrent of fear. Only, replace winds with emotions – sudden surges of feeling in every negative variation, broken by a brief respite in the form of numbness, then yet more pain until the storm passed on. Then he could count down the days until the next hurricane. It probably wasn’t healthy. It definitely wasn’t healthy. Then again, lying on a freezing roof in October slowly catching hypothermia also wasn’t healthy.
Time for a change of scenery.
What? It wasn’t as if sleep was on the cards anytime soon. Returning to his room meant being trapped with his thoughts in a confined space which was the closest he ever came to feeling claustrophobic. At least outside he could distract himself and cast out his feelings to the night. Each crunch of frozen leaves and tarmac underfoot was the snap of another stretched-thin emotion.
His laces were still damp from earlier’s rain. They were starting to freeze too and bit his fingertips with sharp ice when he pulled them taut. Seriously, when was he going to remember to bring gloves with him? He should stick a note on his door or something so he could see it whenever he left his room. Except, of course, when he was leaving his room to go places which didn’t involve heating – like his lectures did – it was normally because he was attempting to flee his own thoughts and therefore wasn’t in the headspace to pay attention to things such as logical notes and gloves.
The staircase was abandoned, save for two rats feasting on the remains of a takeout pizza someone had discarded on the fifth floor. Their beady eyes glittered in the low-level lighting. Creepy, he thought absently, vaguely conscious that his mind had shifted into the eye of the hurricane. He welcomed the numbness to an extent – imagined he was probably grateful for the respite from the poisonous mix of anxiety and loneliness and the crippling terror of disappointing everyone, not to mention the constant aching sadness which had taken root between his ribs at some point during high-school and had never left – but loathed it at the same time.
The streets were empty at this time of night. He plunged his hands into his coat pockets. Even the rowdiest of clubs had closed their doors. A few neon-lit shopfronts cast their glow over the sidewalk to glisten in icy gutters. On another night, he might have found it beautiful, may have considered sending a photo to Virgil as painting inspiration or noted it for descriptive use in the fantasy story he planned to write for Alan at some point.
He headed for the river without ever consciously making that decision. On nights like these, it was best to let his feet carry him. His head was too loud to have any worthwhile input. The air was so cold that it sometimes stung to breathe, even beneath the hoodie and the coat – although the latter was damp with ice from the roof. None of it looked as cold as the river. He curled his hands around the railings of the bridge and examined the dark depths. It rivalled the sky he knew lurked beyond that pollution – seemingly endless and impossibly inky. There were even stars – manmade, reflected windows and lampposts. He inhaled until it hurt and breathed out again.
A hurricane in human form – it was the only explanation for the turmoil of emotions trying to fit within his soul but spilling at the seams to drag the rest of his life into chaos too. Feeling lost and experiencing loss – the two staples of his life. Well, that and the stars. A trio of reliability.
Okay, so maybe there were a few other reliable factors too. Such as the fact he doubted he would ever be able to impress his father. Even gaining approval seemed doubtful.
See, the problem with being exemplary was that after a while everyone began to expect it. Top grades were no longer something to be proud of, but simply the standard. He had to be the best because anything less was a disappointment. But when you’re at the top, there’s nowhere left to go. There’s no way to improve. And if you can’t exceed expectations, how can you ever impress anyone?
So, Scott could outfly everyone, Virgil could turn out intricate artwork and engineering masterpieces, Gordon could claw back his GPA and steadily swim his way towards the Olympics and Alan just had to exist to be a wonder. But John? John had exceeded the limits a very long time ago, and so all that was left to him was maintaining expectations. And sometimes that got exhausting.
The numbness was fleeting. Gale-force emotions were slowly picking up again. He sort of wanted to scream, only taking up that much noise and space had never been his forte. Sometimes he found Scott’s overwhelming sense of presence irritating, but most of the time he was grateful because it was safer to hide in his brother’s shadow than to strike out on his own and risk disappointment or rejection.
He set about dethawing his hands under the hot pipes in the bathroom an unknown time later. Dawn was beginning to daub pale peach across the horizon. He was shivering again, not quite teeth-chattering but something close. His coat was slung over the door, dripping onto clean tiles as the ice melted and he hated the muddy droplets. The mirror was filled with steam from hot water in the basin and his reflection was unclear, a faceless blur, which he felt suited him quite nicely.
“Okay, I get words aren’t your speciality, but this is getting ridiculous.”
John recalled pages upon pages of hidden stories on his laptop and winced. “Words are one of my specialities, actually.”
“Fine,” Scott amended, voice made tinny by the poor phone connection. “Talking, then.” He paused, seeking the right phrasing. “C’mon, Johnny,” he coaxed, as if John were some skittish stray. “You called me, remember?”
“By accident,” John lied.
“Then why haven’t you hung up yet?”
“Why haven’t you?”
“Because you sound off and…” Scott hesitated. “And I’m worried about you.”
John froze, suddenly very conscious of his own senses; of the pain as his hands thawed, the chill spreading down his spine from his damp hair, his accelerated heartrate at being the sole focus of someone’s attention and that nauseating sense of guilt he always experienced when worrying the people he loved.
He curled his hands into fists, ignoring the ache in his knuckles. “I’m fine.”
Scott didn’t sound convinced, but let the matter drop for now. It wasn’t as if there was a lot he could do given he was stationed on another continent at current.
“Hey, how did that assignment go? You had an essay, right? On… ah, shoot, don’t tell me, I do remember, I just need a second… uh… spaceflight contributing to social inequities, something along those lines, right?”
John studied the ghostly outline of his reflection in the foggy mirror.
“Right,” he confirmed quietly, taken aback by the fact that Scott had not only remembered there had been an assignment to begin with, but that he could recall the theme too. “I got the results yesterday.”
“And?”
“Ninety-six percent.” John steeled himself instinctively, anticipating the questions of that’s great but why not full marks and I’m a little disappointed, but only because I know what you’re capable of achieving and don’t let your grades drop now, not after all your hard work.
“Johnny,” Scott exclaimed, sounding delighted. “That’s frickin’ awesome!”
“It’s not one-hundred.”
“So what? It’s still ridiculously high.”
“But I dropped a couple of marks.”
“Who cares? It’s a fantastic grade! I am so proud of you right now.”
John took a moment to recover his voice. “You’re what?”
“Oh, don’t sound so surprised. You know I’m proud of you.”
“Thank you?” John floundered for words.
Scott was clearly trying to repress laughter. “Why are you acting as if no one’s told you that before? You’re a literal genius, Jay. Dad must tell you how proud he is all the time.”
The last time John could recall his father saying I’m proud of you was in Sixth Grade. There might have been fleeting hints since then, but never the actual words. He was shocked by the sudden stinging heat behind his eyes. His voice sounded faintly strangled.
“Sure, something like that.”
“Ah, shit, sorry John, I’ve gotta go. Hey, we’ll catch up properly at some point, yeah? Maybe Thursday evening your time. Awesome, love you, bye.”
Scott had a thing about never saying goodbye without also saying love you. And yet he always hung up before people got the chance to say it back. On another day, John would have considered those implications in greater depth, but today he simply slid down to sit against the pipes and nursed his aching hands and aching soul as if they were brittle and liable to shatter if handled incorrectly.
He was a hurricane in human form, but such a simple phrase had the power to quieten those turbulent winds, the ability to soothe the numbness into something warmer and more human.
I’m proud of you.
He held onto the words like a promise.