Short Love By any 3rd Person

This is pretty long. If anyone's up for reading it and giving me honest feedback then that would be cool.
Thanks



Johnny had the most peculiar dreams. Ever since he was a kid he had them. Dreams that woke him like an alarm as sweat crawled down the contours of his back staining his sheets. Of course these dreams were soon lost in the realms of his unreal, but they had left a lasting impression on him. He knew they existed, even if he couldn?t remember what form they had taken. Guilt would run through his body hollowing out his insides as he looked to the ceiling where the white paint seemed to have diluted over the years, making him question if it had in-fact ever been painted. Cracks zigzagged like country roads over the surface like someone had caused them by dancing above him as he slept. He would fight evaporating memories for answers as his conscious felt as heavy as a heart. In his room with tired eyes and surrounded by safety this was the only place he?d allow himself to fight for what he needed.

He?d dream of friends, family and everything in-between. These twisted dreams he was adamant no one else experienced. Occasionally as a kid they would blur into his reality as he would sit and cry for no apparent reason. Shapes and distorted figures could never be explained to a parent, or attempted to be, it would cause too much distress. Maybe one day if he understood them, if they were there to be understood. Every so often strangers would enter his world from somewhere hidden. They looked so familiar yet they couldn?t possibly be. They would just appear like he had known and touched them before as he predicted every move they made, no matter how minuet. He would learn her face then learn it again as he?d watch the dimple in her cheeks and her chestnut eyes as she smiled. These faces were the most beautiful things he?d ever seen, and he longed for such dreams every night. How he woke from them surrounded by warmth which he knew would radiate. Usually a pessimist it surprised him that he was sure that somewhere they existed in this world. How could these new faces be formed in his mind. He wanted to know where they came from and how to find them again.

The bad dreams would come and go as Johnny grew physically. With age he felt they became less frequent. In-fact he had learnt to filter such things, covering the scars before they could become infectious. Every so often looking up to his now pebbledash crème ceiling he would remember fragments of his youth. The quiet sobs under his covers as his room slowly became penetrable. The spontaneous muted kicking out of legs, in fits of anger, hopelessness, he wasn?t sure anymore and didn?t want to try and find out. With his parents sleeping next door separated only by plasterboard he knew this was the safest form of release. Looking back on his childhood spent in the quaint desolate countryside Johnny can only remember bad memories. Memories where he was ridiculed, bullied, isolated, and anything else he needs to feel at the time. Deep down he knows such memories ran across happier ones. The key is being able to find these, the need to search them out.

Johnny 22, with dark short hair which used to be long, and facial hair which is neither designer stubble or long enough to warrant the tag of a beard, has reached this point. Lying on his bed his thoughts breed in the night until he?s unable to control them. They whirl and whiz, he feels he could fit back into any part of his life in the last ten years. They dance and twist as they lead him down another one of his mind?s paths. Johnny wishes he was back in his old bed following a different road on the ceiling with his sleepy eyes. The chance to change his life before it became part of him. So he wouldn?t be where he is having to think about the things he thinks about.

His skin has got thicker over the years while his clothes have faded away. He?s built himself a disguise which has successfully hid his self from getting out. A self which he knows exists somewhere inside of him. A lacks of guts and fear to push this child out. To be reborn is something he needs, yet he needs to take things with him, and he doesn?t know if it?ll work if he does that. Everything?s been pushed further away from the heart, lost in limitless darkness. It?s going to be the hardest thing he?s ever done, and he knows it?s the last chance he has to do it. To become the person he?s always wanted to be. To have the conversations with people he plays out in his head five minutes after they leave. To live life and be like those people who never have to think about how hard it is. For words to rise from his body like ash on a fire and flow out to the world. To see flames in his eyes as he looks in the mirror and feels passion for life run through his veins, like a drug on a constant high to enjoy and experience every f---ing thing God has put on this earth.

Johnny?s watched and envied every person he?s met like this. The effortlessness in which they seem to successfully live their lives. How their happiness oozes from them. It?s not hidden or kept inside and never will be. He?s searched for signs, answers for their constant delirium, but always left with admiration for how easy they make it look and how far he?ll have to come. Maybe they were born that way. To validate his social inadequacy he would play out his comforting tune. They were beneath him, uncreative people who were content with whatever type of life they were dealt. Be it working in a shop or on a building site, their face would always stay the same. They would acquire their families and live in arms reach of every friend they?ve ever known. And finally they would disappear from their sheltered world without a trace. They wouldn?t care about touching the world and because of that they had it simple, because they were worthless. No news reporter would announce their death on living room screens. They wouldn?t change anything in the slightest, and Johnny felt he could. He had always known this was bulls---, it was just the smell had got greater over the years until he couldn?t ignore it anymore.

How could he confirm his superiority when he hadn?t even achieved an ounce of success in his life. The majority of these people, whoever they were, had achieved more than he had, and their faces showed no signs of suffering from it. This hurt him as much as thinking about the long list of failures he?d acquired and how everyone could see it when they looked at him for longer than a second. How his body became rigid as he shuffled back slightly. How his arms crossed his chest like the closing of a drawer bridge. His eyes darted back and forth in an attempt to stop people looking and seeing nothing, which was everything he had. Placing himself above such people on a level which would change each week; looks, mystique, talent, was the only way Johnny could live. Fantasizing he was better than them gave him just enough confidence in real life to feel like their equals.

He communicated like a child stumbling his first steps. He would always try to quickly yet politely finish the conversation and move away, as he knew his one tone unenthusiastic voice would soon bore people. He would notice their eyes turn like his and their senses cut out as he spoke to them about nothing in particular. Although he would never say anything, it would kill him a little bit more each time. He could live with the fact that he was saying something important but they weren?t interested, but the majority of the time the words that left him were one?s he himself wouldn?t have been at all interested in digesting. They gave nothing. What made it worse was that Johnny knew these words lived inside of him. Words that could entertain and make him use every one of his muscles as he expressed them to happy faces. He could feel them dance around inside of him without knowing their names. Maybe he needed someone who could help pull them out. A girl who would give him the time he needed to work at it and to believe that they could be realised. Then one day the button on the jack in the box would be pressed as she?d watch smiling, pleasantly surprised with what she?d found.

In the company of women Johnny feels these words burn off his insides churning his stomach as they go. It hurts but it?s a sign that there?s something still there. He?s still alive, he can feel it. He later relishes these feelings as he reminisces, lying quiet in thought. He thinks of the time when they heated a closed tin with a naked flame in Science. As the atoms heated and sped up smashing against the metal tin the lid would fly off letting everything finally escape to the world, never again to be trapped. He would dream of this, that one day it will happen, and he?ll see her face and smile because he?ll know she knows it?s all been worth it. Lying in his bed he lets a small smile escape for an accomplishment he hasn?t achieved, yet. An award for coming up with an analogy which seems so simple. Like one night it will just come. He will find his voice and laughter will spring from him and everything will be OK. He will change and it will happen just as easily as clicking his fingers. People will want to be around him, with him, and he?ll never have to feel awkward because he knows their comfortable in his surroundings. Apathy will never be able to vitiate him again. The image of entering a room and being noticed and greeted like he?s one of their own swirls round Johnny?s head for a second giving him a sharp jab of euphoria. Yet the adrenaline like it always does dies away. His blood is as cold as ever, colder at this realisation that life isn?t that easy.

You see he?s getting older. I mean in the grander scheme of things he?s not. If everything goes well it?ll be along time before death draws near, not that he?s ever worried about it. (The time he chooses to smoke his cigarettes tells that much) But for a kid of 22 still trying to figure out who he is, or who he doesn?t want to be, he?s getting on. Most tackle such issues when their in their teens, when their expected to act like a------s and be depressed and their parents just let them get on with it. Johnny was someone who repressed such feelings. Afraid to tackle them, how hard it would be. If they were buried deep down sure he would occasionally feel their load, but it would be easier than just dealing with it. Numbness was a permanent side effect. With few friends this was an illness he could endure. As he passed through his life safe from the world in his transparent cocoon he would watch the world and it?s people move on leaving him behind. Although at the time he didn?t want to notice it. He could see out, but without letting others in looking out became pointless. Something which hurt him more, until finally he stopped looking at all. Walking his eyes followed the cracks in the pavement as his mind followed dreams that would always stay that way.

Looking back Johnny has reached a point where he has allowed himself to see this now. And although he still feels the same he?s given himself a reason to change. He?s beginning to feel. He knows he must follow this wherever it goes. To work at it and make it grow and beat stronger until it glows inside of him turning his rotted dark inners inside out, exposing them to the light of the world. To let go of his burdens and let everyone see this person in transfiguration. Like exiting from a mountainside through a tunnel opening that?s all but been sealed off by stone. A tiny shaft of light leading the way to a small hole which is just big enough to escape, if you could climb up to it. What?s unclear is if Johnny can achieve this, and what?s clearer than anything else in his life is that this is his last chance to do it. To free himself from his self torture. If time past the light would never shine again, it would be blocked forever. He knows he?s nearly reached that point.

He sees himself identifying with the tramps on the streets as their dead eyes just sit and wait for the day to pass. They are the walking ghosts of former men. Men who once wore suits and held their wives at night as the windows protected them from the harshness of nature which is now scarred onto their faces. The only thing they have left is the night and their dreams. This new distorted world is of course better than reality, for every man is equal to become anyone in their dreams. As Johnny passes such people he knows what their thinking, and it frightens him because it?s a sign he?s close to becoming them.

What else is clear to Johnny is that it will all be over if he doesn?t complete his transformation. If he can?t change he will continue to pass through life alone and bitter towards the world as he sits at night thinking about this epiphany which came to him in bed long ago, when he still seemed young. What could his life have been like? What could?ve he become? Who could?ve been sitting next to him if he only had the balls to go and do it? These words would haunt him for the rest of his life. He would feel sick every time someone used ?Could?ve? in a sentence. You see Johnny always saw this life for himself. Old, alone, questioning himself every minute he wasn?t sleeping or watching TV. Now he doesn?t see that anymore because he has a reason not to. He?s felt Love, and he needs more of it to survive. It came and went before Johnny could realize that this is what he?d been looking for his whole life. She passed through before he knew he needed to change to keep her. That he couldn?t carry on like before because there was someone there with him now, and she wouldn?t stay if he stayed the same. This was what happened and it was only when she left that it became clear to Johnny why. Like such thoughts had been paused, trapped from getting through. But now they streamed through him on an never-ending conveyor belt until it was all he was capable of thinking of. He was too weak too fight it off, and it made him physically sick that he never thought of this when she was still with him. Lying beside him in bed running her hands across his stomach as he smelt her hair and looked through the ceiling to the glorious blue sky above, as they listened to the music they both loved. Yet deep down he knows it wouldn?t of worked. They were always going to be too different. Although he would?ve been happy to carry on the façade for weeks, maybe months. You see Johnny?s been alone for so long that he?d spend time with practically anyone to break that. To feel that he?s participating in life in someway. To feel worth. That there?s someone who wants to be with him for whatever period of time. To be touched. A hand on his arm may seem like nothing to some people, but it means everything to Johnny. How soft and delicate it is, nothing like his. It made him feel alive, like he had just discovered a new sense which he instantly knew he couldn?t live without.

She was an amazing girl, but she wasn?t right. Johnny drew some comfort from the fact that they were never going to be compatible. A man can only change so much and it needs to be his own path. He knew he would never be truly happy if he changed to the person he thought she wanted him to be. Plus he would never be able to keep it up. As time had passed Johnny had increasingly been convinced that she was there to hurt him. To ignite a small fraction of what he had left and then blow it out in an attempt for him to feel that there?s still something of worth inside. And to believe in his life again like he once did. To be convinced that there?s things out there he needs and that he must now give everything he has left to find them, or he?ll soon be dead. It still hurts him, and it probably will for along time. Abandonment and Failure are experienced by all and if they can get through it, he knows he must too. Even if her actions cause him to act or not he knows he will never forget this girl. She has given him new dreams, dreams which he feels are obtainable.

She gave him everything, he can see that now. If he didn?t love her, well he can?t wait to experience it and feel loved back. It?s like he?s starting to see things with new brighter eyes. He?s still not sure of much in this world but he?s certain that love is what this life is all about. It?s maybe the only important thing. Without it people are dead, or on their way to it if they see it or not. And sooner or later they will, like he has done. He only hopes this occurs when their still young, and if not, well he hopes their stronger than him.

Love cannot be forced or constructed as if that spark isn?t there, then there?s nothing to build upon. Johnny read that somewhere. It worries him because he doesn?t know where he?ll find this new thing he needs. He can?t wait another number of years for it to come, yet he knows he can?t manipulate this intangible desire however tempting it is to try. He?ll search, he knows it won?t just come to him, that?s why he must now live in order to search. Maybe she?s looking for him too, he likes to think she is. It makes him feel happy. Like those pretty faces in his dreams, she?s out there. He might?ve passed her on a crowded street before, but he?ll be able to see her now. His head won?t be looking at the concrete where nothing can grow.

On a usually busy street which is now empty because of heavy falling rain he?ll see her. Her dark hair dripping in front of her eyes as he and she walk towards each other. Drawn by a magnetic pull which is equally mysterious as it is beautiful. They?ll be comfortable as they meet as they are not strangers. They have known each others eyes for an eternity and are experts at reading them. They?re both f---ed up but they?re OK with that. They can help each other understand and love this world which they?ve been thrown into prematurely. Standing opposite one another they know they can make it work and it gives them all the confidence in the world.

Wiping the water from her cheeks you look deep into your new life as she does hers, and it makes you smile, for it is no longer a dream.
One day you?ll think and remember that it?s all down to that girl along time ago. But that doesn?t seem to matter anymore.