Chapter Text
It was a Thursday, much like any other in mid-February. Darkness, rain, and misery were everywhere. The day felt miserable, like trying to fall asleep with a blocked nose. But most of all, it felt empty. The nightmare was never ending. Andrew drove carelessly down a deserted country lane. It would have seemed suspicious at this time to be so empty to anyone else, but he knew the people of Kent usually wouldn’t be out at this time, not while it was as dark as closing his eyes. Rain splashed loudly against his windscreen, but he didn’t care. The lack of sunlight, the wet, the immense sadness that was almost impossible to avoid, the grey sky—none of it affected him, or at least he wouldn’t admit it. Deep down, though, the weather affected everyone; there had to be a reason why the English talked about it so much—it was fucking depressing.
And now he was on his way down to scouts to help a bunch of 12-year-olds light a fire while all they picked up was damp twigs. He could swear that he was not as incompetent as them when he was younger. But he quickly changed his mind about that when he remembered all the shit he used to get up to when he was their age, it would definitely not be seen as clever in any way, shape or form to anyone with even a single brain cell, the stuff he did; but then again that is what he did lack at that age. And still he drove on.
Before he had left his humble apartment, he had managed to remember the cd that still gave him a reason to get up in the morning. Gifted to him in 1989; he could still smell the packaging 36 years later. Even when his memory fails him, he would remember that smell. It was the kind that made your day feel that much better just by pressing that shiny transparent plastic up to your nostrils and breathing in a month’s supply of oxygen. And that was only the beginning of the journey to heaven and back. The songs themselves were a gift straight from God himself: the infectious vocals made of pure gold, the addictively deep bass lines and the guitars – the guitars were on a level of their own. The whole album was like drinking liquid nostalgia straight from the bottle, bliss in its purest form. If Def Leppard or any other band ever made an album like hysteria again, he believed that sex, drugs and pleasure would no longer exist anymore - only the ability to not feel a thing. But that wasn’t even the main reason he still listened to the thing; it was the memories that came with it. It didn’t matter how shockingly terrible some of them were, they were always outdone tenfold by the ones that were the reason he still lived on despite the dullness of the world. That’s why he still listened, for the joy that came from still screaming the same lyrics that resonated so closely to him all those years ago, the longing for the past was almost comforting to him. He listened to not just remind himself of the past but to relive it, to be a part of it once more.
He indicated left as he turned into the rocky car park outside the scout hut, as the gravel slid from underneath him the final song ended; completing hysteria for the 500th time was an impressive achievement, but Andrew had no clue how many times he had listened to it, all of it was a blur. Not just tonight but his whole life, one long, torturous dream that would never end. He took a deep breath and stepped out of the car. As his hiking boot felt the earth beneath him, he calmed and felt the wet wind blowing against his face. He closed his lids and felt the rain drop onto him: his clothes, what was remaining of his hair, his feet and his hands. The way the cool drops fell past his eyes was magical, like God had restored peace once more on earth after all that had existed was horror and pain.
He finally fell out of his trance when he heard someone calling his name. “Andy!” He whipped around after locking his car manually and saw his three favourite teenagers (besides his own son) standing there; all drenched in so much rain it looked like they had just jumped into a large swimming pool. Abigail was in the centre of the group, as always, wearing dark baggy jeans that were wetter than her red hair that was always pulled back in a ponytail. She was also wearing her dirty grey hoodie and that too was soaking wet and had turned three shades darker. On the left was Mattie. She was always at Abigails right hand and the two of them were inseparable, like gum on the bottom of your shoe. She too was wearing dark jeans soaked by the rain but unlike her wetter counterpart she had decided to wear a black waterproof. Even though you could not see her lips you could tell by her wide eyes that she was glad to be there despite the buckets of water being dropped on her head. She took her hand out of her pocket and waved at Andrew in a cutely joyful way before quickly putting back. On the right was Millie, also looking like she was freezing her non-existent balls off but this time she didn’t really have an excuse as she was wearing what looked like an infinite number of layers. She too, despite how cold she seemed, had a bright smile plastered onto her face, which with all of them grinning somehow brightened up the night sky a little.
He strolled casually over to the three of them; huddled under the flood light as it was raining cats and dogs. “What are you three doing out here while it’s chucking it down?” Andrew asked as he chuckled to himself.
“I don’t like inside, it’s boring.” Abigail blurted out bluntly, almost as if it were a threat to make her be under the fluorescent lights of the hall. “I like it out here, you can look at the stars, they are quite pretty tonight.”
“I don’t know what stars your looking at but I can’t see jack-shit!” Mattie smirked; the cold and wet obviously didn’t disintegrate her sense of humour which made everyone glad, it was one thing that Andrew could appreciate even on a bad day.
“There is literally one right there.” Abigail said in a matter-of-fact tone as she pointed towards a patch of sky that was miraculously cloud-free; and directly where she pointed there were three glistening stars, shining brightly as ever.
“And your point is what exactly? Anyway, can we go inside now it’s really cold and Alex said they had put the heating on inside.” Millie asked, she looked almost like a posh drowned rat under the glow of the flood light.
“No, we can’t! I just explained that the stars are out tonight and inside I always get a weird feeling of disassociation, so no, I am staying outside till flag break starts,” Abigail ordered, “I mean you can go in if you want but I’m staying right here.” She added as she crossed her arms in a way that was her telling everyone that she was not going to be told what to do by anyone.
“Ok then maybe I will,” Millie replied in a cheeky tone that made everyone giggle in the pits of their bellies.
“Why can’t we all just stay together, we will have to go inside in a minute anyway so why don’t we just stay here?”
“Shut up Mattie, just because you have a crush on me doesn’t mean you have to agree with me.
“I don’t have a crush on you, because I’M NOT GAY!”
“Yeah, you are don’t lie,”
“I’m not lying, you’re the one lying about only eating five big macs today”
Andrew stood there as he listened to them all argue to each other like a married couple, and it was becoming more irritating than amusing at that point. Finally, he couldn’t be doing with it anymore.
“Will you all just shut up and go inside, its 7:30 and it is pouring it down out here.” He said in a bored tone, like he had been listening to the fighting for fifteen hours rather than only five minutes. “Now. Before I have to drag you in by your ears.”
“Yeah, sure, sorry about that.” Abigail answered sincerely, as if she believed he was entirely serious. She closed her eyes delicately, breathed in deeply through her nose and took one last look at the night sky before turning and wandering carelessly toward the blue door made of think iron. Mattie and Millie followed closely after her, both shivering like Soviet prisoners in winter. The door was shut behind them with a loud BANG! But no one except Andrew was around to flinch at the noise.
As he stood there in the sopping wet, he suddenly had a great feeling of a vast hole in his chest; as if someone had ripped his heart out but had left him alive to live with the missing necessity. The feeling was longing as he had felt it before but this time, he felt more alone than ever before. The night itself was strangely beautiful; yet he still felt as if something was missing. He knew that since the end of the 89’ there would always be something missing, someone more specifically, but this felt painfully different. There was a gaping whole inside him that had to be filled urgently. It wasn’t a hole in a t-shirt that could be closed by sewing it up or a tear in a piece of paper that could be fixed with just a single piece of cello tape – instead it was more like a missile wound in a soldier’s head, a huge empty space of nothingness. The moments that passed by caused the wound to open a little more, the night air was a pivot of agony for his soul. Every minute, every second he stood there felt like an eternity of torment, an eternity of pure suffering. He could feel the rising and falling of his chest, the steady beat of his overworked heart, even the blood in his brain moving around. Everything was amplified, his inner thoughts at the heart of it all. He could hear a distant call from behind him as he was slowly sinking into a pit but just in time, he fell out of the trance he was kept captured in and turned towards the eager call of his name. “Andy!”
“Yes abigail.”
“I’ve been calling you for the last thirty seconds do you not listen at all to anything!”
“Sorry, I was just thinking, I’m coming now,”
“Good. Flag break is about to start.”
Abigail was stood at the door with her hood up for once, but it didn’t really do much as it was made of thin cloth. Behind her was mattie (as always) wearing a confused look on her usually neutral face. Inside a little more was Millie, barely peeking around the corner she looked like a timid mouse. They all together looked rather impatiently at Andrew to hurry up and get inside. As he was striding towards them, he thought about all the past: all the memories he held about everything and anything decided to flash before his eyes. Tonight, it was sharper than ever before, it was like he was being repeatedly stabbed in the eye. And they were alive; he was suffocated in the intensity of it all.
He trekked over towards the heavy blue door and climbed inside the comforting insides of the scout hut. Making sure to carefully close the door behind him, he strolled through the corridor all the way until he reached the cold inside of the hall. He turned and he could already see the three girls standing there eagerly waiting to talk to him; he breathed out a soft sigh and went over to them. “How are you three doing?”
“Er…good I guess.” mattie replied in a way that implied that she wasn’t even sure herself if she was.
“Ok.” Abigail said in a way that was much more confident.
“Not too bad,” Millie answered finally, “how are you, Andy?”
“Not too bad either. Now, what have you lot been up to except for bickering lately?”
“Nothing really to be honest, but I like doing nothing.” Abigail responded. She was always the type of person to like not doing anything, Andrew didn’t blame her; sitting at home relaxing was one of his favourite past times.
“Anyway, Andy we have a question for you. Is that ok?” Mattie asked in a somewhat nervous way. It took Andrew back; they had a question… for him? The fact that they wanted to ask him a question was concerning in a strangely amusing way to him. His brain thought of what the question could even possibly be. How old he is, no that would be too boring. Maybe what his favourite football team is, never mind he had already told them that it was arsenal. He searched and searched through his brain, but he could not find a single question that they would want to ask him. His curiosity took over and he finally answered, “Sure, what’s your question?”
“Ok this might seem a bit random and very weird so just bear that in mind,” Abigail stated, she looked almost nervous as the next words were waiting to leave her lips. She finally broke the brief silence and asked the question that definitely lived up to the title random, but one that made memories flood back like a disease – ones full of guilt-free joy but others painfully sharp, but all of them were tangled together so you couldn’t tell the difference.
“Do you know someone called Ian?”