Soundtrack

"Wake up! Wake up! Wake UUUP!!!"
"Damn alarm!" I was starting to regret my alarm tone choice.
After hitting the snooze button for what felt like the hundredth time I crawled out of bed. I felt tired. Very tired. I'd gotten in late, and stayed up most of the night with an English assignment. I didn't dislike it. I enjoyed writing, just not on a schedule.
A quick shower and shave later I was examining myself in the mirror. I always had had a small bit of narcicism in me. I liked looking good, but it never took priority over who I was. Still, looking back, things could have gone differently. Then again, that is probably true for everyone.
My once athletic body had become fatter with some small love handles as well. Several tatoos decorated my upper back, arms and legs. Also I had a small one behind my left ear of a screaming demon. "To remind me of the demons screaming at the back of my head," I had told a rather beautiful tatoo artist. Now I actualy felt like I knew what it felt to have doubt hounding my every step. My shaved head was still alien to me. It was my way to show mourning. I ran a quick hand over my head and tore myself away from the mirror. That was a memory I didn't want to go through at that moment, even if it had defined my present. Also, I didn't have the time.
I rushed into the kitchen, threw some coffee on the stove and hurried into my bedroom. Quickly I found all my necesaries (I had made it a habit to keep them in specific places after I got to school late for weeks on end). I pulled on a pair of baggy black jeans and a white t-shirt that had that logo of a club (where I incidentaly worked).
Five minutes later I was in front of my building with a faded green hoody pulled over the t-shirt and my bag slung over my left shoulder. Coffee in hand (I had poured it in a bottle), a ciggarette lodged between my lips and headphones blaring I started towards the subway station.
"City of Angels" by Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Not a bad way to start the day.
The subway mouth opened up in a sidewalk between concrete giants. Buildings that reminded of an earlier regime. I had lived in a different country for ten months when I was 15, where I realized that I loved that grimy sight. I stubbed the smoke and went in. Ten minutes later I was on the train, and I had gotten a seat. It wasn't a great acomplishment, but I'd learned to appreciate the small gifts. Sometimes (mostly) that's all one gets.
"Duck Down!" by The Roots. Not a particularly fitting track, but loud enough to cover the din made by the train rushing through the tunnel. In the train car all kind of different people. Young, old, middle-aged, men, women. Different and yet the same. Tired, exhausted realy. Thankless jobs with no opportunity. I admired their strength and wondered if I could ever be capable of anything like it. I was only 18 and already felt as if my knees were collapsing. And it had nothing to do with the injury that had kept me from playing basketball for the last two years.
"Back 2 the Way it Was" by Xzibit. I ran my hand over my head and, as they had for the last year, the memories came back. This track did fit. I realy wanted things to go back the the way they once were... I'd met her four months after my injury. I was checking in for a physical and she was there as a trainee. She was in her first year in medical school, and had applied to become a nurse for experience. After she did an MRI and some physical exercises (under the doctor's supervision) she came and delivered the report. It was old news. I could walk, but I could not play basketball untill after surgery, and even that wasn't certain. She was very beautiful and when I had come in the next month I asked her out. She was stable, with a clear plan while I was a dreamer grabbing at straws. In retrospective, I think we liked in the other what we couldn't find in us. After we had been dating for several months I met her parents when I was dropping her of at her home. They didn't seem to think much of me, but I wasn't concerned. Nobody realy did, apart from her. Three weeks later the mother called and told me that she had died in a car accident. They asked me not to attend the funeral. I guessed that they blamed me in some manner. I accepted. There was no need to cause more pain by arguing. So the hair went.
My train pulled into the right station. I was starting to feel the pull of addiction so I lit a ciggarette when I got up to street level.
"REIGN" by Unkle. Great song. I didn't know what it was about that song that made it so good, but I loved it. It was not a happy song, by far, but the lyrics felt good leaving my lips.
Through alleys that led away from Roman Square (one of the most popular areas in the city) I walked slowly. By then I had learned that that time was the best of the day. Smoke curling from my nostrils, music in my ears, the morning chill biting at my hands. All my addictions were satisfied. In school, there was no music, no smokes and the chill wasn't the natural breeze of morning. The cold of social status reigned.
At the gates, waiting for me, my only true friend, Michael was waiting. He blew out a puff of smoke and extended his right hand.
"Morning," he grumbled.
"Morning." We didn't stand on ceremony. After knowing each other long enough and being at each other's sides, we didn't need to. "Morning" and a handshake was our way of telling each other a lot in very little.
We stubbed our ciggarettes and walked silently into the courtyard and up the stairs. Once inside the corridors we exchanged small talk and friendly banter. We were something of a fenomenon in the school. Best friends from different backgrounds, that looked and dressed differently.
We split up at a stairwell. I turned upwards while he headed downwards.
"Take care uppie!" he said as we parted.
I chuckled. We were both in our last year, but in different classes. Some rooms were on the higher floors and some were in the basement. "Uppie" was a term for those who studied on the higher floors. It had the same connotations as "richboy" in school. But both of us were pretty much in the same monetary situation, getting by. And it realy made no difference. People were just as clueless, no matter where they studied.
In the classroom I slung my bag on the last desk and considered plugging in my headphones. I decided against it as I was trying to save up, and buying new ones or bribing the guy who guarded confiscated items would have put a dent in those ideas. Even if my addiction to music was rather powerful, I managed. When I did have music in my ears, it freed my mind. But without that, or something stimulating such as good conversation my mind would get bogged.
"Hey Skin!" I had picked up that nickname when I shaved my head, even though I was not in the slightest a racist. It was Diana, a classmate of mine.
"Hi Di," I replied as we kissed each other on the cheek.
"Still in the same old hoody?" she asked with the traces of a smile.
I shot her an annoyed glance. She knew it got on my nerves when people asked about my hoody or my bag. True, they were old, but in good shape. And for me they carried memories.
When she saw my face she chuckled. She was very pretty in general, but especialy so when she smiled. Also there was something different about her that day. I couldn't put my finger on it though.
"How are you?"
"Oh, ok..." she replied. I had always thought that people always had more going on in their minds, they just never talked about it because they couldn't understand it. I had been doing the same thing for a year. The "I'm ok" answer had become a reflex. "Oh damn, here comes the warden," Diana said with a small smile and rushed to her desk.
"Every Day is Exactly the Same" by Nine Inch Nails. It wasn't playing but it should have been the entire day. "I believe I can see the future, because every day is the same." Very fitting for the way school went. Different teachers, faces, haircuts, clothes. Same routine. Half on hour writing on the board, another half-hour of criticism. It did not matter that not one kid in our class understood anything. All that matered was that it was our fault. That we were ungrateful of the teachers. Perhaps, but we still had no idea what was on the board.
"This is exam year. You don't care. You waste time. If you want to go to X you don't take the buss to Y."
In my mind I was completely lost a long time before the buss came into the discussion. It seemed that my confusion was shared by the rest of my class.
"Maybe Tomorrow" by Stereophonics. I liked the track. Maybe I heard a bit of myself in the lyrics. I did hope that the next day I could find a way be happier. But I needed to concentrate on my set that night. It paid the rent.
The club whose logo I had on my t-shirt was close to the school. So after school I went with Michael for a bite and then headed on foot. Michael never came to my sets. I understood that, he didn't like the atmosphere of clubs. I couldn't hold it against him. It felt good to have a friend that I was willing to make room for. It felt as if I belonged somewhere.
When I got to the club, ten minutes after I left Michael I went to the bar, got a drink, a pack of smokes and an ashtray. I DJ'd there, and I always smoked when I spinned. Everything went good for most of my set, which lasted an hour and a half untill I cued in the last track. It carried some pain, but it was a great track. It had also been the nurse's favorite song. I unhooked my monitor from the turntables and turned to leave when, in the crowd I caught a glimpse of her face. I turned, and there she was. Right by the stage, her eyes locked onto mine.
I ran. Smoke in hand, monitors still around my neck, the cord trailing behind. I crashed through the back area and back through the waiter's door onto the dance floor. I couldn't see her.
"Goodnight" by Mos Def. The lyrics were tantalizing me. "No goodbyes to you." I made my way through to the stage as fast as possible, cursing myself for getting the crowd so energized (the next DJ hadn't changed my song yet). She wasn't there. "So close, but yet so far. So close, but no cigar." I started towards the hallway. When I got there it was empty. I looked around desperately, but I couldn't see anyone.
"Anthony?"
It couldn't be. I knew that voice. It had played in my head every night for the last year. Could I dare? Slowly, I turned without blinking.
White. I was staring at the wall in my living room. I had fallen asleep over my English assignment. I put my face in my hands and I cried. For the first time in ages I cried. I then dragged myself to the couch and slept, defeated.
In the morning I woke up, and the routine started. But something felt different. I didn't feel happy. I did feel almost at peace though, content. The pain was still there, but not as a weight as much as a lesson.
I was never very religious, but I decided to to stop by the church that morning. I felt out of place. I hadn't been to church in ages, and the few people there stared at me continuosly. I bought one candle. I lit it and placed it for the dead. I didn't pray, but it did feel good to have more than a shaved head to give my respects.
As I left the churchyard I enjoyed the feeling of contentment. So, ciggarette in mouth, coffee in hand and headphones in ears I made for the subway stop.
"Everything will be alright" by Faithless.