"Without covering your eyes
Look at the warped world
Beaten down by rubble
Rotting day by day
Reaches your soul and is recorded
lalalalalalalala...
Chained, buried, it's your stained soul
YOUR STAINED SOUL"
_________________________________________________________
That Saturday morning had been one that he was forced to face far earlier than he had anticipated, when his much-needed rest was cut short, and his eyes opened themselves up to the face of his analog clock, the hands both large and small saluting him, touching the seven o' clock position upon its face. The second time in a week.
Of course, Florian stubbornly attempted to return to his slumber shortly after, but every downward slip of his eyelids soon turned into nothing more than a slow motion blink, much to his chagrin. Defeated, he allowed himself to roll upon his back, so he could stare at the blank ceiling, cold fingers forming a knot in front of his stomach as it rose and fell with every empty breath. He could not stand that hollow feeling, of slothfully sitting for sitting's sake, simply existing after every passing minute, until they mounted into hours. So he pulled himself slowly from his bed, and instead, he existed standing up as he loitered about his extremely empty, extremely lifeless apartment. But he could not stand that for long.
Two stacks of work took their place on his living room's coffee table, flagged with their rightful class codes by painfully fluorescent post-it notes - their content nothing more than timed essays from his last two classes on Friday afternoon. On any other day he would have immediately sat down on his sofa with a cup of tea, and worked through every last wafer-thin lined leaf until not a single one had been proof read and marked. But he couldn't do it, unable to muster the drive to do more than pick them up and shuffle them into perfect forms on his table, occasionally letting his eyes flick through the work in the hopes that spotting a grammatical malfunction or a typographical error would kindle enough motivation in him to let his hand grasp that half-empty red ballpoint pen and draw just one circle around a misplaced apostrophe, or correct a single word - but it was not meant to be. He could barely sit down for more than a few minutes before he pulled himself out of his seat and absently paced his floor, an elegant animal who double-locked himself inside his own decorated cage. He couldn't focus, nothing could linger in his mind for long, not until it was bulldozed aside by all that...all that chaos that he could have done without.
He retreated to the kitchen to concoct his third cup of tea, the time now drifting closer to eight in the morn. He nursed the completed brew in there, leaning against the sturdy wall to peer out through the window, for there was little reason to return to the living room - he knew the work wouldn't get touched no matter what he did. He couldn't do it. The window that supplied the room with natural overcast light also provided him with a welcome change of scenery, arctic blue eyes, a spark of lively green coiled around slack pupils, examined the view of the city from the safety of their spot behind the window, everything awash in that lifeless shade of grey, the smog from hundreds of exhausts that cursed the city streets, some of which were attached to the handful of cars he could see sliding down the roads he stood above. Activity was already pulsing in the capital, people trundling through streets, others boasting a spring in their step as they continued a morning jog. He wasn't part of that energy, he was observing it from behind a half-empty mug of tea that stung his red raw palms. But what he would have given to have a hand in it.
He couldn't stand watching all that motion, that glimmer of green in his eyes empathic as it mirrored his inner sense of envy, and they blinked it all away, rejected the network of streets for the simplicity of the air, the alice blue sky painted with ash grey for as far as he could see, the omnipotent slab of clouds played a roof of snow that loomed overhead, waiting for one sharp noise to send it avalanching down into the streets until they were lively no more. Another sip of his tea came and went, slid down his throat and into an empty stomach, the beverage lacking the bitter edge as he was used to thanks to the introduction of sugar - three to be exact. It was probably the only variety he'd have in his whole day.
The heat that had been projected through the ceramic white mug became unbearable to sensitive palms, fingertips riddled with a burning bite just a few degrees short of feeling white hot, it seemed. He could not clutch it for longer, and chancing a quick glance about the layout of the room, thinking that he would not be able to keep a hold of it long enough to reach the table, or even the counter, he settled for crouching upon the floor and gently discarding the cup by his knees. The relief from the heat was instantaneous, the pain leaking from his skin and into the air as he squeezed his fingers into his palms, open and shut with both scalded hands.
When a single vein of water dribbled down the window and into the corner of his eye.
Florian blinked the floor out of his vision, a twist of his head bringing his attention to the once unblemished pane. A phantom reflection lingered in the glass, but it was paid no mind - it was not the mirror image he had grown to know, far from the cause of his intrigue.
Another drop tumbled down to meet him, followed by another two, then another five, and before he could truly gauge the drizzle it had flourished into a full-fledged downpour. Before long, the light tap of the occasional drop had become a constant babble as sheets of rain enveloped the pane whole, ran down in thick waves, much like the time he had been sitting in his classroom before Orion came knocking. He should not have been surprised – not truly, not after the number of rainy spells that had swept across the city in the past month, but after restlessly hoping to piece together something that resembled enthusiasm for the past hour or two, it was hardly a negative sign.
Excess heat still lingered between the layers of skin that covered his palms, and so in an act driven by curiosity, sensitive fingertips gently pressed upon the sturdy yet fragile surface as it seemed to distort and warp – an illusion conjured up by the playful rain. The freezing sensation that radiated from the window seemed to force the heat from out of his flesh, chilled his blood in such a drastic contrast to the previous feeling he sensed that it made the refreshing chill all the more potent. It was such a relief, to feel something so extreme, that even the clear pane seemed to shudder beneath the relentless hammering of every heavy wave. His fingertips were joined by the palm they were attached to, and that too was joined by his second hand, until he grew so tired of keeping those bright icy eyes open to marvel at the world that lurked beyond the screen of water that he relented, slid them shut, and sidling up upon his knees until he was almost flush against the pane, relished in the chorus of the rain until his forehead gently tipped forward, laid against the glass.
A soft audible shudder issued from his lips smothered the glass with its translucent haze for a few fleeting seconds. Hands roamed over the smooth, level body.
Relished it.
A smirk tugged up his lips, only this time at both corners, one after the other - and in just a few minutes, the agitation that had stirred him had just slipped away. He wanted to be out in that rain, wanted to feel it for himself, let it cleanse the strife from his skin as he walked alone - like he had wanted to simply sit down and function instead of just sitting down to exist.
And sitting there, he found that he could. His first spark.
