Post by Gil Alexander on Apr 7, 2007 10:19:40 GMT -5
The title is taken from a song by Mogwai called R U Still in 2 it?
Here are the lyrics.
Are you still into it? 'cause I'm still into it.
We haven't had sore bits for about a fortnight.
Am I your only one? 'Cause you're still my only one.
But if you need more, I'll just do it in some, right.
We should go into town and spend some money.
We could go to the pictures and see something funny.
We'd share a popcorn and we can go to the pub at night.
We can get right tanked up and go home and have a fight.
Will you still miss me, when I'm gone?
Is there love there, even when I'm wrong?
Will you still kiss me, if you find out?
I will now leave here but don't follow me.
We could go into town and spend some money.
We could go to the pictures, go and see something funny.
Share a popcorn and when it's finished we could go to the pub at
night.
And get really pissed and go home and have a fight.
Will you miss me, when I'm gone?
Is there love there, even when I'm wrong?
Will you still kiss me, if you find out?
I will leave you and I will miss you.
And my story:
Adulthood: Pal Stevens pulled on his yellow rubber gloves as if they were a surgeon’s, plucking at his thumbs professionally and squeezing out the soap and water from the mop. He lifted it over the basin and to the floor like a tentative hand moving towards an open wound, flushing it out. It dripped cleanliness to the floor like blood as he took out a vital organ.
The drops of liquid on the dusty hallway were barely visible at all. The glow of the ebbing sunlight shone through the three glorious picture windows and barely distinguished the drops from the black and tan speckled tile. He looked up from the labor of his mop and saw the eight long lunch tables, reduced from a sacred congregation spot for the howling high schoolers to an eerie, ghastly scene, limelighted with the scarcely surviving day. All the kids were home now, out, drinking, watching the football game …
He stopped and rested his chin on the rounded point of the mop, staring at the dim tables but not really seeing them. In this moment, the sunlight flickered behind a tree branch outside and the shadows caught his face. The freckly wrinkles on his cheek were pasty, his graying moustache hiding a somber frown. Something made him sick, now. It’s this school, he thought. It’s making me simmer.
Teenage: Maybe it was thirty, forty years ago that he had gone to high school. It was hard to remember those times because they seemed to be a part of a completely different life; there was a certain fog around them. High school was a hot mist that returned to him now like the fog machine that had been used in the spring musicals, and half-obscured memories reached out at him, disembodied arms.
But he pushed them away. Leaning the mop against one of the long tables, he hesitated. Did he have anywhere else to be? He possessed the keys; he could sleep in the school overnight, if he wanted too. He didn’t know why he was thinking about this.
Sniffing the empty air he thought, I can be here as long as I want. This lone thought tugged at the old cork, and it burst out in a cloud of dust, and with it came memories of ago. The first that came was that spring musical during his junior year – and his prank which had completely upset opening night of Beauty and the Beast in an indescribable style while his textbooks lay in his bookbag, on the floor of his room, forgotten.
That one thought. I can be here as long as I want. He might as well have thought it while he attended the school as a student.
Without even thinking, he began walking, out of the Rec Hall and into the hallway. It was a little light; for windows were scattered along the outside wall, showing off a magnificent view of the vacuous asphalt in the parking lot. The glaring red exit sign shaded anything and everything it saw with its familiar, eerie taint. Soon he came to the Science hallway … to the left, Biology, to the right, AP Physics – further up, Mrs. Oates’s chemistry class. He held the ring of infinite keys with a jangle and the chemistry room opened and with it came a strange smell: mixtures of chemicals? On the wall above the sinks was an enormous, wale-sized poster of the Periodic Table.
Another memory grasped at his throat. He didn’t shy away from it … perhaps it was better to submit. When their chemistry teacher was out of the room, Pal and his friend Bill had unscrewed the teacher’s water thermos, put in five drops of purple food coloring and a few drops of orange juice. When the teacher came back to a quiet, bored classroom, he prepared for a lecture. He had a habit of starting all of his lectures with a sip of water from his thermos, and this time, he froze as he finished a small drink. A purpleish liquid oozed from the corner of his mouth. Unscrewing the top, the teacher saw that has spring water had turned black. Without a word, Mr. Kittserman ran from the room, making short, high-pitched panicky noises in the back of his throat. Pal could finally let his howls of laughter go.
But that seemed strangely serious now; as if something as somber as deciding one’s eternal fate had rested upon that moment. But this feeling was gone with a cool chill that ran down his spine and into the tile.
He smiled uneasily, and sat down in one of the desks near the door, his slim body easily fitting into the chair. He imagined Mr. Kittserman, with his old hairdo and his flustered cheeks teaching the class … as if Mrs. Oates hadn’t even been born yet.
For a long time, he just sat there, thinking. He didn’t look at his watch or the clock so despairingly high on the wall. He might have been sitting there for five minutes; a half hour. He might’ve fallen asleep.
But he knew, in the back of his mind, that sometime he would have to get up and get back to work. Sooner or later, the deadline for finishing the heart transplant runs out, he thought. How long could one survive with their chest opened up, their intestines lying out so pristine in the fluorescent lights?
How long?
Childhood: He felt something happen in his chest, in his brain – he felt a vital yearning, a powerful need growing in him. It was like a feeling that had wrestled with itself for far too long in his heart; that needed not necessarily to be heard, but to be simply expressed.
This feeling burst inside of him, but instead of filling him with adult-like depression or teenage angst, he felt adrenaline rush through him like the roller coasters that always looked way to scary to even look at – and he ran. He didn’t know why he ran, it just seemed like the perfect thing to do. He slid out of the classroom on the mopped floors, squeaking like a measure from an atonal quintet, the quick rustle of the keys on his belt speaking eternities of the absence of love and containment in his exposed heart. Down the hallway, not paying attention to the doors like he had on his way down – his face turned up in the lemon-scented air with a lost, child-like wonder. Now, into the Rec Hall. Stop, he yelled at his body. Stop running! But his legs didn’t stop. They were running – running to the peak of some nonexistent mountain.
Then the world turned upside down as he tripped over the soapy water basin, and went sailing through the air, watching the floor and the ceiling at the same time, as they switched places and then became one and the same. His legs were still running, searching for traction in the air, but the stopped suddenly as his body fell, head against the chair, impacting with another jangle of keys – and then was silent.
Ascension to the Womb: The next day was Saturday, and it was the day Pal Stevens’ body was found by the overachieving secretary. It was moved and the chairs were cleaned; the incident mapped out by the police. My Monday, there was no evidence of Pal Stevens ever being in that school. No student missed him. None knew him. No teacher noticed his absence.
Two drops of bloods remained on the black and tan speckled tile; they had escaped the janitors’ eyes. The blood went unnoticed; instead it went on the bottom of the shoes of those high schoolers on Monday at the collapse of Weekend.
The woman who said the morning announcements over the PA system accidentally dropped the paper to the floor which talked about Pal Stevens and his tragic end. That night, another janitor picked it up, and without giving it a glance, threw it away.
Here are the lyrics.
Are you still into it? 'cause I'm still into it.
We haven't had sore bits for about a fortnight.
Am I your only one? 'Cause you're still my only one.
But if you need more, I'll just do it in some, right.
We should go into town and spend some money.
We could go to the pictures and see something funny.
We'd share a popcorn and we can go to the pub at night.
We can get right tanked up and go home and have a fight.
Will you still miss me, when I'm gone?
Is there love there, even when I'm wrong?
Will you still kiss me, if you find out?
I will now leave here but don't follow me.
We could go into town and spend some money.
We could go to the pictures, go and see something funny.
Share a popcorn and when it's finished we could go to the pub at
night.
And get really pissed and go home and have a fight.
Will you miss me, when I'm gone?
Is there love there, even when I'm wrong?
Will you still kiss me, if you find out?
I will leave you and I will miss you.
And my story:
Adulthood: Pal Stevens pulled on his yellow rubber gloves as if they were a surgeon’s, plucking at his thumbs professionally and squeezing out the soap and water from the mop. He lifted it over the basin and to the floor like a tentative hand moving towards an open wound, flushing it out. It dripped cleanliness to the floor like blood as he took out a vital organ.
The drops of liquid on the dusty hallway were barely visible at all. The glow of the ebbing sunlight shone through the three glorious picture windows and barely distinguished the drops from the black and tan speckled tile. He looked up from the labor of his mop and saw the eight long lunch tables, reduced from a sacred congregation spot for the howling high schoolers to an eerie, ghastly scene, limelighted with the scarcely surviving day. All the kids were home now, out, drinking, watching the football game …
He stopped and rested his chin on the rounded point of the mop, staring at the dim tables but not really seeing them. In this moment, the sunlight flickered behind a tree branch outside and the shadows caught his face. The freckly wrinkles on his cheek were pasty, his graying moustache hiding a somber frown. Something made him sick, now. It’s this school, he thought. It’s making me simmer.
Teenage: Maybe it was thirty, forty years ago that he had gone to high school. It was hard to remember those times because they seemed to be a part of a completely different life; there was a certain fog around them. High school was a hot mist that returned to him now like the fog machine that had been used in the spring musicals, and half-obscured memories reached out at him, disembodied arms.
But he pushed them away. Leaning the mop against one of the long tables, he hesitated. Did he have anywhere else to be? He possessed the keys; he could sleep in the school overnight, if he wanted too. He didn’t know why he was thinking about this.
Sniffing the empty air he thought, I can be here as long as I want. This lone thought tugged at the old cork, and it burst out in a cloud of dust, and with it came memories of ago. The first that came was that spring musical during his junior year – and his prank which had completely upset opening night of Beauty and the Beast in an indescribable style while his textbooks lay in his bookbag, on the floor of his room, forgotten.
That one thought. I can be here as long as I want. He might as well have thought it while he attended the school as a student.
Without even thinking, he began walking, out of the Rec Hall and into the hallway. It was a little light; for windows were scattered along the outside wall, showing off a magnificent view of the vacuous asphalt in the parking lot. The glaring red exit sign shaded anything and everything it saw with its familiar, eerie taint. Soon he came to the Science hallway … to the left, Biology, to the right, AP Physics – further up, Mrs. Oates’s chemistry class. He held the ring of infinite keys with a jangle and the chemistry room opened and with it came a strange smell: mixtures of chemicals? On the wall above the sinks was an enormous, wale-sized poster of the Periodic Table.
Another memory grasped at his throat. He didn’t shy away from it … perhaps it was better to submit. When their chemistry teacher was out of the room, Pal and his friend Bill had unscrewed the teacher’s water thermos, put in five drops of purple food coloring and a few drops of orange juice. When the teacher came back to a quiet, bored classroom, he prepared for a lecture. He had a habit of starting all of his lectures with a sip of water from his thermos, and this time, he froze as he finished a small drink. A purpleish liquid oozed from the corner of his mouth. Unscrewing the top, the teacher saw that has spring water had turned black. Without a word, Mr. Kittserman ran from the room, making short, high-pitched panicky noises in the back of his throat. Pal could finally let his howls of laughter go.
But that seemed strangely serious now; as if something as somber as deciding one’s eternal fate had rested upon that moment. But this feeling was gone with a cool chill that ran down his spine and into the tile.
He smiled uneasily, and sat down in one of the desks near the door, his slim body easily fitting into the chair. He imagined Mr. Kittserman, with his old hairdo and his flustered cheeks teaching the class … as if Mrs. Oates hadn’t even been born yet.
For a long time, he just sat there, thinking. He didn’t look at his watch or the clock so despairingly high on the wall. He might have been sitting there for five minutes; a half hour. He might’ve fallen asleep.
But he knew, in the back of his mind, that sometime he would have to get up and get back to work. Sooner or later, the deadline for finishing the heart transplant runs out, he thought. How long could one survive with their chest opened up, their intestines lying out so pristine in the fluorescent lights?
How long?
Childhood: He felt something happen in his chest, in his brain – he felt a vital yearning, a powerful need growing in him. It was like a feeling that had wrestled with itself for far too long in his heart; that needed not necessarily to be heard, but to be simply expressed.
This feeling burst inside of him, but instead of filling him with adult-like depression or teenage angst, he felt adrenaline rush through him like the roller coasters that always looked way to scary to even look at – and he ran. He didn’t know why he ran, it just seemed like the perfect thing to do. He slid out of the classroom on the mopped floors, squeaking like a measure from an atonal quintet, the quick rustle of the keys on his belt speaking eternities of the absence of love and containment in his exposed heart. Down the hallway, not paying attention to the doors like he had on his way down – his face turned up in the lemon-scented air with a lost, child-like wonder. Now, into the Rec Hall. Stop, he yelled at his body. Stop running! But his legs didn’t stop. They were running – running to the peak of some nonexistent mountain.
Then the world turned upside down as he tripped over the soapy water basin, and went sailing through the air, watching the floor and the ceiling at the same time, as they switched places and then became one and the same. His legs were still running, searching for traction in the air, but the stopped suddenly as his body fell, head against the chair, impacting with another jangle of keys – and then was silent.
Ascension to the Womb: The next day was Saturday, and it was the day Pal Stevens’ body was found by the overachieving secretary. It was moved and the chairs were cleaned; the incident mapped out by the police. My Monday, there was no evidence of Pal Stevens ever being in that school. No student missed him. None knew him. No teacher noticed his absence.
Two drops of bloods remained on the black and tan speckled tile; they had escaped the janitors’ eyes. The blood went unnoticed; instead it went on the bottom of the shoes of those high schoolers on Monday at the collapse of Weekend.
The woman who said the morning announcements over the PA system accidentally dropped the paper to the floor which talked about Pal Stevens and his tragic end. That night, another janitor picked it up, and without giving it a glance, threw it away.
