Eva - Chapter 1

Chapter 1
Music to her ears




All of these stories begin by describing the type of day, for example "it was a dark day, dreary, grey, the moods of the entire down darkened by the days completion" or it could be "A bright day, the sun shines and the sounds of merriment can be heard from the young children, who have many years before the troubles of the world are set on them." so instead of that, this story begins with a Clock. There is nothing special about this clock, it is just a clock. No one pays attention to it unless of course they are checking the time, it's currently thirty eight minutes past 10 by the way. So, why do we begin with a clock? Some thing ordinary and boring, well, because the only person who noticed how ordinary it was, was someone who hated the ordinary, was someone who had trained herself always to see the exceptional in everyone and in everything, was someone named Eva, sorry, eva, small 'e.' And it's not short for anything, it's just eva. eva hates ordinary things, as we have said, she also hates order, and quiet. Unless silence is required, then by all means let the air be filled with it. It is one of her rules, everything has it's time and place.
At this point on this day, the darkness or brightness of which I will not specify, was host to several loud noises which cracked the stillness which had been present just moments before, as a short girl, with short brown hair and a scruffy top on stepped out of her room and held up her phone, from it was blasted a stream of trash metal, and the world feel to it's knees, at least, that’s how she felt. Just her and the music, nothing to worry or disturb her, the sound cracked the air and shut out the silence as eva displayed no desire to utilize her elf control as she leapt about the room like a mad woman, knowing the lyrics perfectly, even if her voice was terrible. Another student came in, they were in a common room you see, at her school, the boy was very annoying, but he knew the words just as well as she did. She still wanted to hit him over the head with something for interrupting her moment, but didn’t feel like getting into trouble, so instead she changed tracks to something different, something he wouldn’t know. The boy was stunned at the change and slunk quietly out of the room. Meanwhile eva was on the table, strumming an air guitar and singing "All I want for Christmas is me two front teeth! me two front teeth! me two front teeth-"
"-well I hope you haven't lost them."
eva looked in the direction of the voice, in the doorway, leaning on the farm, was a tight lipped man with beady eyes, looking relatively old, not grey hair but greying. He had a strict look to him, his eyes were narrowed as he stared down at her, even with her on the table he towered over her. She stared him in the eyes while the music blared in the background.
"Because I have a bet going with old Carl that you'll only loose them in the next two years and I don't want to pay him those fifty talons."
Her uncle offered her a grin, showing that he himself lacked his two front teeth, she hurled herself at him, affection was not her thing but this was a special case.
"Uncle Keith"
The man did not stumble, nor did he loose his balance. If he did then eva would have noticed this, he was a rock in her eyes, immovable and unbreakable. He grinned at her again and patted her on the head.
"It's good to see you again eva, still a small e?"
She laughed and looked up at him.
"When is it not?"
Keith shared her laughter.
eva had failed, however, to realize that the music was still on, and it was on quite loud, and as a result, a piercing voice cracked through the music.
"Eva!"
It was a fat man with a jolly face, he glared at her through large blue eyes.
"Turn the rubbish off!"
He turned up his nose and stomped off, leaving eva and Keith alone in the music filled room. eva picked up the phone and stuck her earphones in it, and then in her ears, Keith knew that now would no longer be a good time to talk, so he wrote her a message on a piece of paper, hugged her and left.














* * * * *




"Perhaps now would be a good time to remind you that eva is obsessive compulsive, there has to be noise around her, music mostly, and if she wants to talk to someone then she puts it on loudly, without a headset so she can have a conversation and still hear other people"
"And this is relevant, how?"
Keith was in a room with the fat man, he had been called into a meeting and had been looking forward to it all day, he absolutely loved having conversations with the fat man. They made Keith feel so much more intelligent. He looked around at the room he was in, all pictures of the fat man on holiday, in the mountains, having on skiing, or rather, it looked as though he had sat in his cabin the whole time watching other people ski. there was another one where he was watching people swim at the beach, and another one where he was watching a young child being arrested at Seaform castle. This made Keith wonder if the fat man took this approach to the school he was head of. He wondered if the fat man watched what happened without actually getting involved. And while he was making these observations, he couldn't help but notice that the fat man was becoming anxious, he was tapping his feet, drumming his fingers on the table, clearly impatient, wanting a response from Keith, who was taking his time, looking around the room at his leisure. The fat man coughed, and Keith chose to ignore it. The fat man's face was slowly getting red, Keith began to tap his own finger, the index, on the table, a slow steady beat, in time with the fat man's own drumming fingers. They remained like this for ten seconds, eleven, twelve, when finally he stopped and faced the fat man directly in the eye.
“So when you asked her to turn the music off she was forced to put her earphones in, and it is rather difficult to have a conversation with someone in those instances.”
The fat man nearly fell backwards with this response, Keith wouldn't have been surprised if he had wet himself, this timid fat man. Such a jolly face, and yet below that face you could see the stupidity in his eyes, the forced ignorance of what goes on in his school. And yet, there was still some resistance in this stupid man's big green eyes.
“So just ask her to take them out, I am sure you niece can survive a few minutes of conversation without the awful noise in her ears, especially if it's to talk to her beloved uncle.”
The fat man's face twisted in the a self satisfied smirk, although from Keith's perspective it looked more like a smear of skin and fat mashed together in the perfect display of human mulch. Keith was trying to be reasonable with the fat man, who was however, getting on his nerves.
“I am sure you understand that-”
“- I understand many things Keith”
Keith met his gaze with spurning hatred.
“This is a formal meeting, it would be more appropriate if you called me Mr. Whithers”
There was a moment of silence, Keith allowed this to sink in before continuing on.
“you have seen her doctors letter?”
“yes yes, I have examined everything in detail”
Skimmed over it more likely, were the words running through Kieth's mind.
“oh really? Then tell me what happens when my niece is exposed to silence”
“She experiences normality?”
Keith was almost ready to punch this man in the fat twisted face.
“Actually her brain shuts down, she can't think or focus. Her senses dull and her mind is rendered inactive, clearly not good for her”
“I know all this, I have seen the papers, but I personally don't believe a word of it.”
“Oh really”
“Don't play stupid with me Mr Whithers”
“Then don't take this as a joke”
Kieth's eyes were iron. The fat man continued on, gaining confidence as the words splurged from his mouth.
“The girl sits for hours on end with silence around her, and you tell me that it's bad for her? I can't believe that you are telling me the truth when she is presenting me with evidence to the contrary”
Kieth's face went dark, a rare emotion dropped into his eyes, anger, rage, fury. Fuelled by concern, and yet anger all the same.
“She should not be doing that”
“I concur Mr. Whithers, and so you should put a stop to it, because if you don't, all these concessions that you have applied for will be rejected”
Keith did not bed, nor did he plead, but the desperation in his voice was evident, and becoming more so with every passing word.
“You don't get to decide that, the board makes that decision”
Now the fat man sat up, his already twisted face curled up again, as he had his moment of victory.
“And who is chairman of that board Mr. Whithers? Now, fix this... problem, and you and I won't have a problem. Now, I believe this meeting is concluded”


The fat man sat down and leant back on his chair, sinking into it, his eyes fell down to rest on his papers and Keith ceased to exist in his mind. Keith rose from his seat, hearing the venom in the fat man's words, opened the door and left, leaving it open and stepping out into the hallways of students and teachers.




* * * * *




Silence filled the room, eva was completely alone, her brownish red hair was misbehaving and her jersey was itching, she could feel the dullness, the sound that was absent, her mental faculties lacking the, spark, that gave her thought. These were all the descriptions that she would have been capable to make, if there was noise, some sort of music, but it was absent, and so was her mind. Whenever she did this, all her troubles went away, all her thoughts, everything. The first time she tried this, she couldn't get out on her own, her uncle had to put on some music so she could restart her mind. He then proceeded to scold her for half an hour before finally taking a breath, and then he continued for another ten minutes She had been convinced that he would have gone on until the zombie apocalypse but the postman arrived with her report card, which was fantastic. They had a nice cup of tea after that. After this incident she had to be more careful. She would wait until he was out of the house, then she would set the alarm clock on her phone to play music, soft music, something that built up to a crescendo, an abrupt awakening hurt her head, gave her a terrible headache, ten minutes was all she needed. After that she turned everything off.
That is what she was doing now, silent, calm and tranquil, thought and feeling evade her, bliss, perfect and beautiful bliss. This was interrupted of course by her uncle, arriving home from his meeting with the fat man, he stuck his head into the room, expecting to see her with her head phones on, instead, she was just sitting there, he growled and grabbed her phone, turning the music on, it was heavy, it was loud and it woke her up, all her though crashed down on her in waves. She tried to get up, but fell, loosing her balance quickly as the room spun around and around, and every time it spun in her uncles direction, all she was a look of discontent and anger, disappointment and horror. She tried to speak, to blurt out an apology, an explanation. But her senses were still in overload, as they fell over each other, trying to find a place to settle, and eva could barely think, she finally was able to stand straight, she stared into her uncles eyes, and he glared back at her. He couldn't speak until she had calmed down and they both knew it, so now all there was, was an awkward silence, Keith kept his gaze directly on her, she tried to meet it, but her vision swayed and dipped as suddenly her thoughts began to swirl and rage again, her balance was getting steadily worse. The abrupt waking she had received had hurt her more than ever before, she slipped, and falling backwards, as her sight darkened, the ground went skywards and the roof fell upwards in a wave of colour as the walls crashed and cascaded around her.