A Life in Words

The Boy With The Headphones (short story)

~ ChanAtkins ~ Leave a comment

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The Boy With The Headphones

For the first few days, I didn’t even know his name. The boy with the headphones. He wore them all the time. Over his ears, or in class, around his neck. I can still remember the very first time I saw him, because I am certain that my heart stopped. Or if it didn’t, then time did. Everything slowed down. I think there was suddenly music in my head too, the way there always was in his. It was like we were in a film, not ordinary, muddy real life. It was just me and him. The rest of the school corridor blurred out, sounded out. He slowed down, and so did I.

The boy with the headphones. Eyes down, moving fast. Moving through the crowd as if he did not even see them. His hair was long, and I saw this first. Perhaps it was the first thing that drew my eye. Because all of the other boys back then looked like boy band material. Curtains and short back and sides. Not the boy with the headphones, who marched through them like they were nothing to him. His hair was a dirty shade of blonde and my heart skipped a thousand beats. His hair was touching his shoulders, curled and tousled around his ears. It flopped over his face, shielding one eye, until he flicked it back, and that was when our eyes met across the corridor.

That was the first time. When I did not know his name. When he was just the boy with the headphones. The new boy. Ear to the ground, I listened for gossip, soaking it up when it came my way, tucking my hair behind my ear to listen in. I was quiet back then, but popular. Of course, all the kids like me were popular. We had it easy, and I never really understood this until I met the boy with the headphones.

‘From the estate,’ they said. ‘New in town.’

‘In trouble already,’ they said, as the days passed by. ‘Fighting in the boys toilets!’

The rumour mill went into overdrive that week. The new boy was a troublemaker. He came from the estate, just like the boy he fought in the toilet. His mother was a single parent, and looked like a model. He had long hair and angry blue eyes and he always had his headphones on.

By the end of the week I knew his name, and the boy with the headphones had made friends with the boys from the toilet. Eyebrows raised and people smirked. I was an outsider then, thirsty for more information. All I could see when I closed my eyes at night was his face, and his dark blue eyes staring back at me accusingly. He always looked angry, like he was about to punch someone. I could stare at him all day, when he wasn’t looking. Those beautiful blue eyes with the thick black lashes. His face was hard angles and defiance. His lower lip was fuller than his top. I thought he looked like he belonged in a film, not here in my life, not in this place where everybody looked the same.

I didn’t want to know about him, or think about him, but I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop looking at him. I kept him in the corner of my eye during class. I could feel him behind me sometimes. I could feel his eyes burning into my back. I wanted to turn around and smile at him, say hello, I’m Lucy. But I didn’t, because I couldn’t. I couldn’t open my mouth when he was near me.

Looking back, those first few weeks were the easiest. Although at the time they felt like utter torture. Every night I pulled out my diary, lay on my bed in my house that overlooked the sea, and wrote about him. He brushed past me after Maths. His elbow bumped me as he walked past my desk. I was hot cheeked and mortified about a hundred times a day. I tried to avoid him, because that seemed safer. How could I be around a boy like that? A boy who made my heart skip and my mouth dry? Our eyes met in Science today. So embarrassing. I looked up, so did he. I looked down, then up and it happened again. But he has no idea who I am.

            The boy with the headphones was lost in music and life on the gritty side of town. He didn’t have time to make friends with people like me. We were from different walks of life. All I could do was watch him from afar and hear the things that were said.

‘Arrested at school! Broke someone’s nose!’

‘His mum goes out with that guy from the garage?’

‘Him and those other boys are always in trouble.’

‘Yeah, dirty skanks.’

He wasn’t a dirty skank to me. He was a mystery that I wanted to unravel. But looking back, I needn’t have worried. In truth, we were always going to cross paths, again and again, until something happened. We were always going to dance this way and that, coming together and then breaking apart.

The first few times we spoke, it was stuttering and shy. He gave me the first tiny glimpse that maybe, just maybe, he had been watching me too, waiting for me to speak to him. He called my name one day as I passed his house on the way to meet Zoe. Oh Zoe. So much of it was down to her!

My best friend Zoe. The prettiest girl in school. She came from the other estate near school. Long blonde hair that looked dyed but wasn’t. Her lips pouted when she spoke. Her hips jutted to one side and then the other. Her backside swung when she walked tall in her white slingbacks with the cork wedges. The men who whistled didn’t care that she was thirteen, or fourteen years old. All they could see was who she would become. She was like something from a movie. And she was madly in love with Michael, and Michael was best friends with the boy with the headphones.

We chatted briefly that day in front of his house. He wore his shirt around his waist and his small hard body glared back at me as I blinked in the sunshine. His was a dirtied tan, and his hands were oily. His ribs were bruised from his latest scuffle. He was cleaning cars to make things up to his mother’s boyfriend.

That was the first time I had hope. Me and the boy with the headphones. Maybe one day I would get to hear the music too.

What came next was our awkward, teenage dance. One step forward, then two steps back. I will never forget the day he took me on a proper date. My dad grilled him on the doorstep. It was mortifying. I could have killed him. But after that he took my hand, and we walked in silence.

That was the thing about us. Our comfortable silence. He didn’t always want to speak, and neither did I. But one night at a party, I hugged him and told him I would marry him one day, and I meant it. I can still hear the music from that night. He was alive when the music played. He was the music. Nirvana on the makeshift dance floor. Four teenage boys going crazy. Flinging their hair about, headbanging and yelling the words that meant so much to them. After that, I watched his face when the music played, and saw the way his lips moved with the words. He always knew all of the words.

Those were good times, but good times never last. Summer turns to winter, and everything changes. I tried to be his girlfriend, but it never seemed to happen. I couldn’t get close. I couldn’t break through. His mum had a new boyfriend and he hated this one more than ever. That was all I really knew, and it wasn’t enough. The rumours followed us back to school, and I saw the way that everyone looked at him, even the teachers. Especially the teachers. With pity and concern and suspicion.

That term he changed so much. The boy with the headphones became a ghost. A fading figure we barely saw. I looked out for him every day. I would grab the window seat and train my eyes on the school gates. But he rarely came, and when he did, he was just as absent. His eyes guarded, his head even lower, but still with the headphones, still with the music that none of us could hear.

Our story seemed to be over before it had even begun, until the day I saw him walking on the beach. I was sat there revising, my text books spread out on the sand. I saw him walking, and I called out to him and then wished I hadn’t. For a moment he just stared back at me, his hands in his pockets, and for the longest time I thought he was going to ignore me and walk on. He was wearing a suit, which looked so odd on him with his messy tangled hair.

In the end he came and sat with me. He didn’t have his headphones that day, which made him seem sadder than ever. I leant into him, and wondered if that was too much, too soon. But he let me stay. And we watched the sea, and talked about where we wanted to go, what we wanted to see.

Our story faltered, but it winded on in a ragged, haphazard fashion. I went to the beach the next week, and he did too. And the next week, and the next. We didn’t talk much, because he didn’t have much to say. Sometimes he let me listen to the music with him. Sometimes his headphones were broken and his neck was covered in bruises.

Side by side on the beach, or lying on his bed in his room, I watched his face and listened to him breathe. He talked to me about music and songs. He was into everything. He listened to it all. He wrote the lyrics down if they meant something to him. We wrote love letters and I still have them all now. We used to write lyrics and circle them, circle the bits that meant the most.

Ten Storey Love Song…I built this thing for you…

When the boy with headphones went away, the music died down. It all went quiet and none of us could listen to it in the same way again. I remember I went out that day and got his name tattooed on my hip, so that he would always be with me, always be part of me, whether he knew about it or not. Whenever I heard a certain song, out of the blue, on the radio, or in a pub, or a shop, I would stop and so would my heart, just for a moment, like that day in the corridor, like the first time our eyes met. I would have to fight hard to take a breath and carry on, with the music fading out behind me. Every song, every guitar riff, every drum beat brought him back to me with a crash. There was no escaping it, because the music was everywhere. It followed us about like a haunting. Although he was gone, he was with us every single time we heard a song. It was a punch in the gut, a knife to the heart, but it was also beautiful and wonderful. Every time we heard the right song, one of his, the boy with the headphones was with us again.

This short story is written from the point of view of Lucy, one of the characters in my novel The Boy With The Thorn In His Side – if you are interested to find out more about Lucy and the boy with the headphones, you can download the novel here;

Do You Remember? (Teenager of the 90’s)

~ ChanAtkins ~ Leave a comment

Times change. And so does the music. But more than that, it breaks your heart- like The Bluetones singing where did you go? Or Garbage singing stupid girl, or Whale singing happy in you. I got old. And so did you. But we didn’t really. It’s only on the outside. If we didn’t look in mirrors, we wouldn’t remember that we got older. The music though…it likes to take us back. It grins and teases. Takes us by the elbow whispering; do you remember?

Do you remember fish and chips in the car? The car-park at the beach. We never got out because we didn’t want to be around other people. Let them have the beach. We had the music. It was always us and the music. We still do it now; leave the windows rolled down in pride. Yes, this is good.

I am older, and so are you. Jaded. More cynical. You didn’t used to worry about anything, and you still don’t, but you don’t care either. The world proved you right. I got older, but I fight hard not to get old. I insist the child in me remains loose. Vigilant at all times. In charge of my soul. No mortgage or nine to five for me. No hamster wheel or human treadmill. Music makes everything better.

Do you remember mix tapes? Personalised for the one you loved. But it wasn’t just about love or loving them, it was about telling them what music you loved, letting them in on a secret, telling them what music they should love too. I wish I’d kept them all, but times moved on. I can still see your neat handwriting, black biro, letters perfectly formed. I can picture you in my head; lying on your bed where you kept the hi-fi just above your pillow, so that when I slept over, the music was right there. I can see you writing out the songs one by one. Telling me who I should love. You gave me The Stone Roses and I will love you forever for that.

Do you remember love letters? Passed back and forth. Lyrics and hearts in smudged biro dotted around the edge of A4 lined paper. Ten Storey Love Song – I built this thing for you.

Do you remember The Beach Boys? First music we played in our first home. I remember a younger us in a teenage bedroom; wouldn’t it be nice if we were older, then we wouldn’t have to wait so long? But we didn’t have to wait long at all to get older. That happened in between songs.

Music is our connection. It links me to you and to everything that I see in my head when I look back. To every song I hear there is a scene, a memory, a feeling. Gomez singing get myself arrested after you did get yourself arrested. A thousand songs in a thousand moments in cars, bedrooms, clubs and festivals. Me and you. Cider and Hooch and Two Dogs. Empties lined up on the bedroom window sill, curtains blowing in the wind. Select magazine on the bed. TFI Friday on the telly. Ocean Colour Scene and Kula Shaker and Cast and Supergrass and Portishead and Massive Attack and Tricky, and I always preferred a slow sad song, and you always preferred fast and happy. Then you’d write me a little note before you left.

You can be yourself when you find the right music. Remember that? Remember that it was our time. And its so funny now when we find it again; when we find ourselves in the record shop, not drawn to the vinyl that was before our time, but to the cds in the flimsy plastic cases, to remembering how cool they seemed compared to tapes, until they scratched and jumped and jittered. The artwork, the song list, the lyric sheet. In an instant, we are excited again, worries forgotten, age meaning nothing. It’s just you and me and the music, set free, eyes wide, let loose, fingers flicking amidst exclamations of ‘we had that one on tape’, ‘we had that one but it got scratched’, ‘I’ve still got that one but it doesn’t work’, ‘do you remember this one?’ For a few moments its perfect joy.

Then in the car on the way home. Everything is made better by music, whether its new or old. Smiling without knowing that we are. We’ll be high on it for days. Classic finds. Cheap and cheerful. Would rather spend money on music than anything else. And I look at you and I think do you remember that you’re the same as me? That we see things they’ll never see?

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Once We Are Gone

~ ChanAtkins ~ 3 Comments

 

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Away from the roaring road, is a green tunnel that leads down to the river. I crawl down it most days, on foot or by car. The lane is narrow and lined by mighty oaks and monstrous rhododendrons. They are lurching forward, always stretching and growing and trying to claim back what is rightfully theirs. Their thick arms reach out over the lane, linking up to create a canopy that shuts out the sun. Lower down, the nettles and brambles do the same, creeping out across the ground, and the tunnel grows tighter. Twisting around the oaks like old friends, filling every available space, the rhododendrons are a wall of lilac filled with bumblebees. Squirrels dart from tree to tree, playing a game of chase up the trunks of the oaks. The further you wander from the road, the deeper she embraces you. Mother Nature. She makes you hers again, just for a time.

No human noise now. No human mess. Someone will come along soon enough. Someone will come along with the hedge-cutter whirring, with the strimmer slicing and chopping, to tame her wild ways. They will hack at her arms and shave back the unwanted feasts of nettles, campion, cow parsley and garlic mustard. No one knows what they are. No one cares anymore. Trimmed and contained, she will return to her patience.

For one day, no one will come. Because no one will be left. No vans or trucks will rumble down from the road. No chainsaws will come to mutilate her. Mother Nature will be free at last. She will reach and claw greedily and hungrily across the lane, grasping hands with the other side and pulling tight. She will awaken for good. She will take it all back. Down the lane and over the bridge, but no human feet will fall here again. The railings of the bridge will rust and drop into the water. The concrete will be forced apart by fingers of creeping green. Past Twisty Corners, no cars will take the corner too fast, no small hands will stand on the curve and reach for blackberries. Dandilions will push up through the tarmac. Again and again until they dismantle it all and throw it away. The fence posts will fall and rot. The barbed wire will be buried under the ground. The hedgerows will grow thicker and fatter and taller until the lane is gone. Until it is swallowed up.

The houses will crumble to dust. The things that we have built and lived in and filled with things we worked a lifetime to own, will fall asleep and die just like us. The seeds will be sown undisturbed and taken by the breeze into the buildings, where they will distribute over and over again until plants and trees thrust through the rooftops and out of the chimneys. The windows will be smashed. It will all be broken apart.

Once we are gone. When we have fought our last war. When we have drilled the last drop of oil out of the earth. When we have starved the land of the very nutrients we needed to survive on it. Once we are all gone, Mother Nature will still be here and she will sigh her hefty relief that our brief time here is over and done with. She will laugh out loud at the foolish belief we had they we would destroy her. She was just biding her time. Just waiting us out. Like a patient mother waiting for a spoiled and ungrateful child to finish their tantrum.

Once we are gone, the world will recover quickly. Mother Nature will wrap her arms around this ball of mud and water and she will heal it.

We could have been glorious.

But like a great man once said; we let the demons run amok.

We were born to be sheep and follow the herd. We were told who to hate and what to fear, and we were conditioned to work and consume and fill our homes and lives with things to throw away. And the saddest thing; it was always just a handful. Just a handful of greedy soulless devils with blood on their hands and money in their pockets. Just a handful of demons who ran amok, putting pound signs on everything, taking every last thing from the earth, unable to listen, unable to care, unable to change.

She won’t miss us. She will forget us, once we are gone.

The Fears and The Panic

~ ChanAtkins ~ 4 Comments

Coming to the end of a book causes a special kind of anxiety in me. It’s like the rest of the time I am fine, smiling, getting on, doing my thing, rolling with the punches and above all else; looking on the bright side! Of course. You have to, don’t you? Only one life, and all that. Make the most of it, do your thing and be happy. I do this and I get this. But whenever I have a book finished, something weird happens to me. It’s like all the anxieties and all the panic that I manage to hold back the rest of the time, are suddenly let loose and permitted to run amok.

I’ll tell you what it feels like. Its a heavy sick feeling in my belly, right down in the pit, right down low. Its tight and knotted and it makes it hard to breathe. A breath is not just a breath anymore, something I don’t even notice. It;s something I have to think about. In, and out.

Finishing a book should be cause for relief and excitement, pride even. But even when I’ve drafted and re-written and edited a thousand times, that last bit, that last haul to the finish line, leaves me trembling with unspoken fears.

It’s this indie writers life. You might know what I mean. It’s ups and downs. Like real life, in fact. A rollercoaster of positives and negatives, of feeling on top of the world one minute and wondering why the hell you bother the next. If you let them, the fears come thick and fast. They knock you down and roll right over you. If you’re doing the whole indie thing, you might recognise some of them. The same ones rear up again and again, and never so violently as when there is a new book ready to go…

Financial fears…nightmares even. If your’re rich then you don’t need to worry about this one. You can throw as much money as you like at your books. You can hire a professional cover designer, you can hire a proofreader and an editor. You can pay out for promotional campaigns. You can buy likes and follows and boost posts and buy sponsored ads on facebook. The list is endless, I guess. But if you’re not, then the financial side can keep you awake at night. It does me. How much more money can I throw in? What is worth it? What’s a waste? What’s an investment? When will I see a return? Ever? I know for a fact I have spent more money on my books than I have made back in the two years I have been published. Sometimes I am okay with this, and sometimes this horrifies me. How can I justify it when I have a family to provide for? I’m reminded of my father’s words growing up. Don’t be a writer, he said. There’s no money in it. He wasn’t wrong.

Time. There’s not enough of it. Not in a day, not in a week. Not in a life. Life is too short for me to read all the books I want to read, to listen to all the music I want to listen to, and to write all of the books I have inside of me. Sometimes this is okay, and other times, like now, this pisses me off and panics me. I want to write faster. I need more time, but I don’t have it, not without letting something else slip. I feel like I am walking a tightrope all of the time. There are choices to be made when time shrinks so readily. I never feel like I am getting it right. I always feel like something or someone is not getting enough of me. And still the words pile up inside my head, drowning the real world out. These people, these voice, they all want to be heard, they all call out to have their turn, but I won’t ever be able to satisfy them all and keep my house and family on track too.

Promo panics. Ugh. I used to hate promo stuff, and then I got resigned to it, and then I got a bit smarter and then I quite liked it. The problem now is also time. I’ll skim through social media on my phone, (probably when I should be paying attention to something else) and I’ll see all these great posts from pages I have liked for the very reason that they post great things, helpful things, inspirational things. But then you need the time for these great things. Time to watch the video, time to read the article, time to find it again, or remember what it was. It shouldn’t panic me, but it does. What if I miss something really important? What if I forget to read something that could have really helped me? There just isn’t time to pay attention to everything. The same applies to finding an audience and building connections. I take this seriously, and have definitely made progress, but again, with everything else, time runs out. I know, take a deep breath you say, pick your battles, let some of them go. I know, I know. Just sometimes, it panics me.

Self-doubt. Well this must be the classic fear for us all. Not just writers either, but most of us as human beings. The first draft is always a horrible thing; messy, back to front, clunky drivel at times, but it’s also exciting. It’s a relief. Finally letting those voice speak, finally at last just getting it out, getting it down. Then there is the second draft and the third, and so on, and yes, it gets better. Everything is going well until the end. And then I start to question it. I start to realise how shit it is. I start to wonder who the hell would read this? I start to think forget it, just leave it, stuff it back where it belongs. My self doubt would never stop me writing, but there are times it makes me want to stop publishing my writing!

Ups and downs. It’s so weird, the way it goes. My books will sit there not selling anything, then out of the blue I will get a really lovely message on my page about an article I wrote, or a blog post. Little things can bring me down very easily, but usually something nice will happen very soon afterwards. Something strange and unexpected. I’m never down for long. An excited text message from a friend reading one of my books who is nearing the end with her stomach all in knots! A message from another friend who is reading the first draft of a new book and already wants to know what happens next, so can she please have some more chapters? An amazing review. High praise from people I really like and respect. All these things happen every week, and I always seem to get a good kick up the arse when something else has made me feel small. I don’t know why it works like this but it does. I like to think it is the Universe making sure I don’t give up. And I won’t. Well, not while these nice things keep happening anyway.

Dilemmas. Indie life is full of them. On a day to day basis I ask myself what I am doing. I often grumble and wonder why I bother. I often feel frustrated at the lack of sales.I wonder whether I should carry on as I am with each new book, or whether I should try the traditional route again, try to find an agent? Would it be worth another stab? Would it make much difference? Do I really want to put myself through that again? What does success mean anyway? Genuine fans and positive feedback? A certain amount of sales? Proving yourself somehow? Or is it something much more personal than that? Accepting your talents, as well as your flaws? Knowing that you have both, and that both need working on.

I know I will be all right once the book is out. Once it is released, I will let the panic go. I will already have my teeth into the next thing and the whole process will start again.