Elephants Roam North

Something happened. One night, as I came out of my local supermarket, something amazing happened.

“Hey, kiddo, got a light?” said a low voice said behind me. The voice lightly put his hand on my shoulder and turned me around to face him and his friends. Both sat on a bench, and a space between them where he had presumably been sat.

The voice had an almost evocatively immaculate being accompanying it. His hair was dark brown—shaven sides with a messy quiff. Look, I’ll get this out of the way: he was hot. His face was amazing. High cheekbones, eyebrows, an even nose, and his lips were so fucking kissable, a sad, unlit cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. Not to mention his eyes. A slight mix of light grey and brown; they were ethereal—stars on the face on someone I would soon discover to be acceptably mad, in all the right ways. So many thoughts, and yet not enough words to point out every beautiful thing I knew about him in that moment and that moment alone.

Next to him were two people, one male and one female. The girl was very pretty, her long blond hair flowing casually over her shoulder, and her carefree blue eyes adding a sense of depth to her beauty. Her face was pale, with a jawline to kill for, and lips like broken rose petals protruding ever so slightly from the snow in her cheeks. She was tall and slim, and was wearing a sweater with the characters from The Breakfast Club on the front. On her, the sweater was loose, the kind one might wear on a winter’s eve when drinking coffee and watching an 80s movie by a fire. All this made her impossible not to notice, and immediately I was connected to her when she looked up from her shoes and smiled straight through my skin, burning a hole into my heart, which would only be painful months later.

The Boy looked similar to The Voice and The Girl, in that he was hot enough to catch my attention. His sandy hair was shaggy and flicked to the side, and he was wearing a beanie to cover it. His face was thin, tanned. His jawline was angular and rigid, and his mouth was effortlessly turned to the sky on either side. He, too, was slim, though he was small, not tall. He had brown eyes, not inspiring like The Girl’s or The Voice’s, but subtly brilliant.

The reason I speak so much of their eyes is because I firmly believe that the eyes are a window into the soul, telling more of a person than their words ever could. The eyes are a key component in knowing a person themselves—only when a person can fully know the lining of their lover's eyes can they love the person that sees with them.

“Um.”

Words had never been my strong point.

“A light?”

He took the cigarette out of his mouth. “A lighter. A light is a flame.”

“Don’t scare the girl, Jackson. She clearly doesn’t have a lighter,” said the beautiful face stood beside The Voice. She had a warm smile.

Jackson. So The Voice had a name.

I had no desire to fuck up the chance of this new beginning, so I took an approach that was new to me: the confident dream-girl.

“She’s right, I don’t have a lighter. I’ve never even smoked a cigarette. But if I’m honest, I am curious.” Twenty words. Twenty four when you counted the contractions. Eighty letters. I’m not the best with numbers, but when I want to make a good impression, I do the math.

“Want to try?” The Voice said quietly.

“I mean, um, I guess so.”

So much for confident.

“We need a lighter first. Fuck it. Want to come on an adventure with us, Beautiful Stranger?”

I blushed. A lot. Not only had no one ever called me beautiful, no one had ever meant it, either. Except my mum, anyway.

“I’m not beauti-”

“I refute that, at the hand. You are and that’s all there is to be said. Want to come on an adventure?”

“Depends. What time is it?”

“Quarter to eleven. You in?”

“I’m in.”

Not that my aforementioned mother knew I was in. But she would’ve already been on her fifth glass, and her second film, and would probably be asleep before too long, so as far as she could see, there were no worries.

Jackson walked across the car park, me trailing at his heels like an excitable puppy, The Boy and The Girl both to my right. He stopped just in front of a lean black car. Grungy, vintage. The Boy and The Girl both hopped in the back of the open-top Cadillac, while Jackson and I climbed into the two front seats.

“Cadillac, ey? Not too shabby,” I said.

“Yeah – it’s a...family heirloom, I guess. Passed down from the 30s,” he said.

“The 30s may as well not have existed. They were just the 20s, except by then, Fitzgerald had lost his talent.” said The Girl.

“Don’t mind her,” Jackson chuckled, “She’s in the business of saying pretentious shit to gain respect.”

“Go fuck yourself!” The Girl said through laughter, smiling.

Jackson started the car up. After the heart of its engine roared into existence once more, he backed out the parking space and drove out of the car park.

After that, I decided to stay quiet, so as to not do anything to ruin the possibility of things to come. I just listened. I wasn’t paying attention to what they were saying as such, I was just trying as hard as I could to preserve the essence of infinity that hailed from their voices. I watched my hand as it made waves through the wind and I watched my fingers as they curved in a way that couldn’t be replicated in any other moment - my fingers were being commanded by the sea of wind crashing over them, and I let them curl with ease. I stared at the headlights above, bright lights, never blinding and thought about how sometimes, people make bad choices because they think they’re good ones, and how sometimes, people make bad choices because they’re easier to make than the ones that make them happy. I thought about how, no matter how much a person desires a happy or full life, they will choose an easy life over a happy one every single time. And I thought the most about how I didn’t want to be that person. So this was me, choosing a full life.

When, inevitably, we reached the newsagents on the other side of town, Voice stopped the car with a thunk, then Boy and Girl both jumped out the back seats and Voice and I climbed out the front two. Boy, Girl and I sat on the hood of the Cadillac, and Jackson walked into the newsagents, with his seemingly constant bounce on the balls of his feet.

“How old is he?” I asked Girl.

“17,” she replied. “No, it isn't technically legal, yes, he’s doing it anyway,” she continued, biting her lip, answering all the questions I’d yet to ask.

“It’s only a shitty lighter, kid—he’ll be fine,” Boy interjected, “I’m Cal, by the way.”

“Hey.”

“Emily,” Girl said with a warm smile.

“Hey, also.”

New information. It didn’t really matter yet.

What I’ve noticed in my time on this oblivious, ever-revolving earth is that everybody in it is trapped. Not like, literally but still, trapped. Trapped in their own heads, I guess. Everyone’s so caught up in their own shit that they fail to recognize that everyone else has got shit too, and that, in the grand scheme of things, i. it doesn’t matter and ii. it will not be remembered. When someone does something that takes courage, like a gay person coming out to their best friend, or someone giving up smoking, what they so often notice is that no one really cares. They appreciate the courage, sure, but they don’t really care, in the nicest way imaginable. They’re so caught up in their own shit that new information doesn’t matter. It’s just a new fact about their new friend, sitting on a new car, next to a new place (to them at least), contemplating a new path in life. And that is, truly, all it is.

Waiting for Jackson to emerge from the shop was tense. Probably three minutes, maybe, at most. But still, it was weird waiting for my friend to finish something very illegal. Every time a police car drove past, my heart jumped a little, just as my stomach sank. It was strange, but kind of exciting. When he did finally come out, his eyes were aflame. They were on fire. They didn’t glow, or shine, and they weren’t red. They were just nice. They were calming after stress, like a fire. They would be nice to look at after a long day of doing things.

“Got it,” Jackson said, his smile flicked to one side. With that, he held up a black, round lighter. “Black Clipper, fucking great.”

“Nice one, lad,” Cal said, happily, “so, new girl. Wanta smoke?"

The thing about peer pressure is that it never really feels like peer pressure. It feels like you’re making a conscious decision, independently of what everyone else is saying. However, I am still trying to discover whether this is the case, or whether peer pressure does, even, exist at all.

“Go on, then.”

Jackson took a packet of Amber Leaf out the pocket of his ripped black skinnies, quickly rolled a fag, then handed it to me. I put it in between my lips, numb and pale from the cold of the night, and Jackson lit it with the Clipper.

I inhaled.

Kick.

I coughed, like a lot. For a second, it was scary. Eventually the coughing stopped, though, and I just felt kind of light headed.

“You a’ight?” Jackson asked, hiding a smirk, his northern accent cracking through slightly.

“No, I’m fucking not,” I replied, casting him a glance with my long brown hair covering the majority of my face, like autumn leaves, covering some twisted tree.

“It’s just the shock of taking the smoke back. Once you get past that, it feels a'right. Take another drag, but don’t breathe in yet.”

He said that last bit in a really cute way, but at the same time it was incredibly commanding. It was kind of hot. I did as he asked, trapping the smoke in between my lips and my throat.

“Now breathe in, and breathe in again, so it hits your chest. Then breathe out.”

I did just that. As the sensation hit my chest, my eyes widened slightly, though not noticeably. I blew the smoke out and waited for the sensation to pass.

“It’s kinda bittersweet, ya know? Like burnt marshmallow when it hits the tongue.” I said, almost inquisitively.

“I know. Don’t worry, the lightheadedness passes after a couple fags. Who thought making life-ruining choices couldn’t be even the tiniest bit fulfilling?” he questioned.

He wasn’t ever afraid to question. He questioned everything, but not, like, critically. He questioned everything with a curiosity usually lost in the clouding thoughts of adolescence. He was a puppy with facial hair, essentially.

“I think it was Voltaire.” Humour has never been my strong suit.

“You’re fair funny, kid,” Jackson said with a fleeting, though ever present smile. He was flirting, partly with me, and partly with the possibility that there was more to life than one may at first believe.

“Hey,” Emily said, throwing her hand out as a gesture to pass the cigarette.

I did just that. As soon as she took the cigarette, she pressed the filter to the inside of her lips and inhaled, blowing out the excess smoke almost immediately.

Everything about her was graceful and beautiful. She was absolutely perfect in her actions; something rare in most. I had already realised that I was, indeed, the object of Jackson’s affection, which made me wonder why 1. I was the object, not Emily and 2. whether this connection was emotional, or for him, a ploy to feel me up.

They passed around the cigarette, each taking a drag and passing it to the next person, when it came around to me, I tried each time to look like less of a dud when inhaling. It probably didn’t work. Again, I mainly just watched. I eventually zoned out and began to wonder how these people were so incredibly content with the things around them, and whether they saw the same content within me. If they did, they were horribly mislead. My life did not amount to much more than blink-182 CD’s and binge-watching Friends. That was pretty much it.

Jackson took a final drag of the cigarette, then flicked it on to the pavement. “Raight,” he began, “I need to get back home. Anyone need a lift?”

This question sparked a debate in the deepest recesses of my brain, though eventually, the answer “yes,” won.

“Sure.”

“Well, that’s everyone in the car except Cal. See you around, lad,” Jackson said, patting Cal on the back then hopping over the driver’s side door into the front seat of the Cadi. Emily and I clambered into the back seats. We sat down, Emily lightly tapped my knee. I looked to her. When our eyes met, hers widened and flicked to the front passenger’s seat. I mouthed the words “thank you” back to her then climbed into the front. And we drove.

Eventually, we arrived at Emily’s house, but before hopping out the car, she leaned in so close to my ear that I could smell her breath, and whispered “Honey, kiss the twat. He’s a puppy, despite the muscles.” I looked at her and raised an eyebrow when she said this. she just winked. “What I’m trying to say is that opportunities like him don’t come about every day, so you’d best take it.” I guess that did make sense.

Her breath smelt like lemon and iced tea from the night before.

When we reached my house (after giving him extensive directions through the lines of shitty, rented terraced-houses), I did just that.

“This is me,” I stated as we pulled up to my house.

We sat awkwardly for a while. Eventually I broke it.

“So,” I decided to start simple.

“So,” he replied, smiling, his teeth glinting through a thin crack in his lips.

“How old are you anyway?” I asked.

“17, why?” he said, inquisitively.

“Just checking it was okay,” I said, teasing.

“What was okay?”

And I hesitated.

I looked at him, for perhaps a second longer than I should have, and a second too long is usually only a second in itself. In that second, I studied him, but not in the way one studies for a test, cramming everything in quickly and yet, still taking the entire night to procrastinate doing so. No, I studied him in quite the opposite way: in the shortest amount of time, I took in as much of him as I could, knowing it to be the last time I could simply look at him without knowing I'd marked him at one time. I studied him from the blue tip of his messy quiff to the bottom of his chin, and slowly realised he might be the excitement I'd been looking for. I studied his deeply fascinating eyes and his awkwardly crooked nose, the indentation of chicken pox in his jaw and the shallow dimple in his chin. I realise then that he isn't perfect when I really look, but I realise, too, that it doesn't much matter, because he just might be mine. So I look at him for a second too long. Or perhaps, for not enough seconds at all, and I lean in close and look into his eyes and by extension, behind them. And we both lightly part our lips, although neither of us close our eyes. We look at each other, and we listen out for something that might ruin the most perfect of all moments, but it doesn't come. The moment stays quiet and perfect for what seems like an impossible infinity. And I almost kiss him. And in the almostness of that moment, I felt a great many of things. I was uncompromisingly and completely unironically ecstatic about the thought of our lips against one another. I was also terrified at the thought of rejection. And for a single moment, a single moment encapsulated and buried under all the other moments on either side of it, I liked myself. I liked the prospect of dancing in my underwear alone when my mother was out. I liked that my boobs were not of equal sizes, and I liked the stretch marks on the backs of my gapless thighs. For a second, I was proud. And then my life thus far came to its first great plot twist: a real life kiss from a real life Attractive Boy.

And we were kissing, then, and it felt as if all of time that had been, and was yet to be, collided in my mouth and then melted down my throat until time itself dissipated and cocooned in my stomach, before turning into beautiful, breathless butterflies.

And when our lips said their sweet, melancholic goodbyes and parted ways, the butterflies turned back into time, and all of time escaped me in the form of a single outward breath. And then the moment itself turned into blood, and rushed to my head and made me dizzy.

“What…” he regained his composure, flustered. “Why did you do that?”

“I did that,” I began, matter-of-factly, “because life’s too short to sit around and play games, waiting for the other person to make the first move. If you wanna kiss me, kiss me. Don’t act like a puppy about it. I mean, if we as people don’t take control of what we want to happen, like kissing someone or shagging them, nothing we ever want to happen would fucking happen. So if you wanna get with me, just do it. Don’t be such a pussy,” I finished, biting my lip till it was almost raw.

He looked shocked, almost. Almost. But there was a hint of him that looked like he knew I was capable of telling someone to man up. I might be anxious, but if someone needs to be kicked into gear, I won’t hesitate to do it.

“So, what do you wanna do?” I asked him.

He kisses me. I grab his hair and kiss him back. It’s like we’re fighting for some sort of dominance for the kiss. Eventually, tongues get involved. Firm, but tender. It’s nice.

When he finally pulls away, I catch myself staring at him as he looks down to roll a fag.

“I need to go, Jackson, night,” I say.

“Okay, um,” he thinks for a moment, “what’s your name again?”

I pulled out a piece of paper and scribbled my number, one x underneath. I whispered in his ear, “Ava. That’s a secret,” pulled him towards me, kissed him, then got out the car and went into my house.

As soon as I entered my house, my phone beeped. Of course, it was Jackson.

come out? I’m bored. X

So I did.

We were driving, just driving. Nowhere in particular, but I guess it was fun. I’d never even met the guy, I mean, he could be, like, a serial killer for all I knew. But he had cheekbones and a smile that felt familiar, like meeting an old friend for coffee and having it be the same as it always was. Our fingers were intertwined, branches overlapping, my rings the leaves. I figured I liked him, but I didn’t reckon anything would happen.

Everything is slightly more beautiful at night. The stars look like planets and the planets look like stars. And at night, there were no neighbourhoods, or groups, or even dramas. Everything just simply was. If you were awake at 2 AM, you were part of a family that was unspoken of. It was like fight club. Night-owls never talked to each other in the real world, but nodded when they walked past each other. We were interconnected by thoughts, always knowing what everyone else was thinking. The trees seemed to grow personalities at night, as well. The twists in their branches and knots in their trunks were complicated, more so than even a human. It was like they were thinking about love, loss and life, simultaneously and separately. They were anything but beautiful. They were almost lonely, but maybe that’s why I paid so much attention to them.

“Where are we driving to, anyway?” I asked.

“You’ll see. It’s my favourite place in the world. It’s mine, you know?”

“I know. So why share it with me?”

“Some things,” he said pausing to take a breath, “are too special to pass by.”

“What’s that meant to mean?” I asked, curious.

“It means that you’re not yet worth losing. It means I might drunk text you at 3 AM if and when I fall in love with you.”

I tried to suppress a smile. “Flirt.”

He smirked, quickly repressing it. “What can I say, you got me. And got with me, now that I think about it.” He winked.

“Don’t push it, you,” I said, nudging his arm.

That entire night was fun. It was only later that night, when I climbed into bed drunk and stoned, that I realised it was possible to be homesick for people too.

"I am tired.

not for a lack of rest --

no, i slept quite well last night,

and ive had my coffee.

its something deeper, something

inherently present, in the

fibers of my skin,

in my tendons, in my eyes

I am exhausted,

fatigued by life,

by the noise and silence,

the people, and

the empty rooms

the light and dark;

by hope and

despair.

so worn down by the world

that nothing in it can

refresh my mind from the

constant buzzing.

I am tired, and there are not

enough hours in the night

for the type of rest I need." - exhaustion, ao - oa