The Paper Cell

Mike could hear the soft playing of a guitar around him. It was coming from everywhere, it seemed, like the room was singing to him. He didn't dare open his eyes for fear of finding this was another of those dreams, but somehow, he still saw the paper cell around him, walls covered in posters and lyrics, everything from Elvis Prestley to Black Sabbath showing itself and seeming to reflect the diverse personality of the prisoner here.
"Mike, you're not listening," said the other boy with a frown, those full lips pouting just a little more than Nature had intended. "I wrote it for you, you know."
"I'm listening," he promised, still refusing to look. He could feel a cat's fur beneath his fingers which produced a loud purring noise as they stroked the creature absent-mindedly.
"But you're sleeping." The boy still looked sad, and somehow, Mike knew. He could see the pouting lips and wide eyes even with his own closed.
"No. Just resting my eyes. I'm listening, I swear."
"Look at me." Finally, Mike opened his eyes. He saw his friend sitting there on the mattress, light blue guitar in his hands, with that heart breakingly sad expression, the walls of the paper cell behind him, and then it was gone. There was only Mike's ceiling, sloped and spotty.
He tried to keep the memories of the dream, but they slipped away from him as always, like sand in an hourglass. Slowly, he forgot about the paper on the walls and the sound of the guitar. He forgot about the cat purring beneath his fingertips. But he remembered the boy on the mattress, sitting across the room. He remembered the bright green eyes and full lips and the nose that moved ever so slightly when he talked. He remembered the feel of the boy's calloused hands, though he didn't recall ever touching them. And the soft brown hair with the smell that was like home, though Mike had no idea how he knew. Every memory he retained of the boy, he was always across the room. As far as Mike could recall, they'd never touched.
For some reason, that was agony.
As Mike struggled to remember the vision-like dream, there was a sound of laughing at the door, which promptly opened to reveal his friends, Holly and Anna. They were practically his sisters, the daughters of the tenant from whom he rented this garage-top room, Ollie. He'd first met the girls - as well as their other siblings - only a few months ago, after accepting an invitation from their mother and his coworker to dinner. He liked to joke that he's been living in this house ever since then, though in reality, he hadn't moved in until a month afterwards.
"Rise and shine, Mikey!" Anna giggled.
Mike groaned. "It's Sunday."
"It's past noon, and you sleep too much."
"You don't sleep enough," he grumbled.
The girls were sitting on his bed now, determined to make him move. "Come on," they coaxed, tickling his side through the sheets. Mike couldn't help but burst into laughter at this, trying to bat their hands away.
"Stop, stop, stop!" he giggled, soon falling out of the bed and onto the wood floor below. "Ow!" He frowned as the girls laughed and exited the room, getting up from the floor and rubbing his bumped elbow.
"Looks like you're fitting in well," he heard and smapped his head around to look, half expecting to see those emerald eyes again, the ones from his dream, but there was no one there.
Over the next few weeks, Mike continued to dream vividly, going to bed each night to find the boy of his dreams waiting just beyond his closed eyelids, sitting in that paper cell with his guitar and his music, smiling and talking to him. Mike got the feeling that the boy was sad and very lonely without his company, but that was absurd. This was only a dream, after all. He came to the conclusion that maybe he was the lonely one, after that life of foster homes and moving around he'd had. Maybe he just wanted someone to need him for once. Someone to love him.
Whatever the meaning of the dream, Mike decided he'd be better off trying to forget about it and began his vain attempt to obliterate the memory of the alluring dream boy. He often jerked himself out of daydreams in class to find he'd been thinking about touching the boy, feeling his hands and his hair and his face carefully, like he'd hurt him if he pressed too hard. He thought of what it could be like to meet him for real, instead of only in his dreams - but no. The boy wasn't real.
Still, it seemed the boy was sadder every night they met.
"You don't beleive in me."
Mike was in the paper room again. He smiled to the boy, not really understanding. "What are you talking about?" he asked from his spot in the old folding chair.
"You think I'm a hallucination or something." Silence. "I'm not just a dream, Mikey."
Mike looked up. The boy was leaning down next to him now, only inches from his face. It occured to him that he couldn't feel his friend's breath, even at this close range. He noticed as well the lack of opacity in the boy, how his image was ever so slightly transparent to him, showing the other side of the paper cell, the words and posters, almost blending. The boy was fading. "I know," he said, and the boy stood taller.
"No, you don't." There were tears glistening in his eyes, which shone with their own unnatural light. Mike stood to meet them. No, don't cry! "You don't! You've been trying to forget me, Mike!"
"I-"
"Don't lie! I know you have. Can't you tell I'm fading? You're trying to forget me, to let me go, you're leaving me behind!"
"Please, let me-"
"What, explain?" The boy seemed hardly able to speak now from tears. "I'm scared, Mike..." Mike was silent for a moment as his friend cried. He didn't know what to do. "I'm scared! I'm fading away, and all you do is try to forget me!"
"Please..."
"Say my name!"
"What?"
"Say my name, Michael!"
He opened his mouth to speak, to say something, but he didn't know what to say. He didn't understand what the boy wanted. His name? What name? He didn't want the boy to cry though. He reached out. He wanted to touch. He wanted...
"Mike!" someone yelled, and he jerked up a bit. The boy was gone again! There was laughter around him, his friends. "You fell asleep man," Tre said in that high pitched voice of his, then noticed the tears in Mike's eyes. "You okay?"
"Yeah." He wiped the tears away, trying to recover from the vision. Why had he fallen asleep, anyway? And what had just happened? He tried again to remember it all, but all he could see was the boy crying. He'd said Mike didn't beleive, right? And cried. It positively hurt Mike to think of that. He hated to think of the boy crying. "Just a bit tired," he lied, getting up from the sofa. "I think I'm going to go home."
"Okay, man," Tre shrugged. "See you later."
"And get some sleep," piped up Aaron. "You look exhausted."
Mike nodded and said goodbye to his friends, hurrying to the door. He had to get home. Go to sleep. Find the boy again.
"Mike." He turned around to look. "Are you sure you're okay?" Tre asked quietly. "You were crying."
"Yeah," Mike nodded. "It was... just a dream." It felt like betrayal to say it, suddenly. The boy was fading, and it wasn't a dream! At least, he hoped not. He needed to see him. "Bye."
Mike hurried home, ignoring Ollie's questions about where he'd been and going straight up to his room. For hours, he stayed up trying to bring himself back to sleep, back to see the mysterious boy with the glistening eyes, but by the time his eyes opened in the morning, all he'd seen was blackness.
The boy hadn't come.
It stayed that way for nearly a week. Mike secretly cried each morning he was left to his own thoughts in his bed. He tried again to tell himself the boy wasn't real, it was a dream - but he knew. He knew he'd been the one left behind. He wasn't coming back.
"Mike? Are you okay, sweetie?" Ollie. Mike pulled the covers over his head, moaning a little. He felt the woman's weight lowering softly onto his bed and her hand on his arm. "Anna said you weren't feeling well."
"I don't want to go to school today," he mumbled without emerging from under his sheets.
"Are you sick?" she asked, pulling them back some to reveal his tangled brown hair and frosty blue eyes.
"Yeah, kind of," he answered, closing his eyes. Sleep, sleep, the boy will be waiting.
"What's wrong? Do you feel nauseous?" She felt his forehead with the back of her hand. "Headache? Should I stay home from work?" Any other time, Mike might have laughed. It was like she was his mother. Like they were his siblings. Only sixteen and he worked to stay here, but they were almost his family. He suddenly realized that the woman hadn't even asked him for rent this month, no matter how she struggled. It was almost like he'd been adopted. Adopted for real.
No, Mike didn't laugh. He shook his head a little, answering, "No, it's not like that. I'm not sick, really."
"Then what's the problem?"
"It's nothing. I just... need a break." He looked away, attempting to avoid the question. Ollie wouldn't drop it though. She never did.
"Michael." The boy had called him that, hadn't he? Michael. It seemed almost like "Michael" meant "Talk to me."
He sighed, looking away from her at the opposite wall. "I... think I've been dumped," he admitted.
"Dumped? I didn't know you were seeing anyone."
"I wasn't. It's just, this guy..."
"Oh, it's a boy," she said with an understanding smile.
"Yeah... but I think he's mad at me. He hasn't talked to me in a week."
"Why don't you try talking to him?"
"I don't know where to find him. And I don't know what I'd say even if I could." He sat up, leaning against the wall behind him. "I don't know what to do." He looked to her. Give him advice. He needed that. Someone like a mom, or a friend, or something. He didn't even have his dreams anymore. But at least there was Ollie.
"Oh, honey, it's okay. There will be other guys. Or girls. All you can do is move on and find someone new."
Mike shook his head. "He's different." He played with the tips of his hair distractedly. "I don't know. It's like, if I don't find him now and apologize, I'll never get the chance. And I don't know if I can forgive myself for that."
"What happened?" she asked, concerned. Ollie didn't beleive Mike could do anything so bad that it was that unforgiveable. In all her years, he was one of the sweetest boys she'd ever met.
"I didn't beleive in him."
Silence.
Soon enough, Ollie offered to make Mike breakfast, and the two talked. It was a talk about everything and nothing, just a talk. Mike was grateful for it, this attempt distract him for a moment from his problems, but he couldn't seem to forget what had happened. Or not happened. What he'd dreamed or envisioned, or whatever it was. The boy was firmly engraved into his mind.
Mike didn't do a lot for most of the day. He tried to sleep a little more, but as always, nothing - or no one - came from it. After, he tried television, but nothing was on. He listened to music. He attempted writing a song, but failed as usual. He'd never thought himself good at that. Like the boy was.
Finally, he's resigned himself to walking idly around the house. What else was he to do? He didn't want to speak with his friends yet. So where would he go? Besides, he hadn't even been into all the rooms in this house yet.
He wandered into Ollie's first but left soon after, concluding it was just another boring old woman's room. He passed Anna's, having already visited it enough, and went on into the ones owned respectively by Marcy and Holly. He rummaged through their closets in boredom, deciding at last that, disregarding a particularly embarrassing page in Marcy's diary, there was really nothing of interest there.
But there was one more door.
Mike realized he'd never actually known what was through this one. Probably an office or storage or something like that, he guessed. But something said to him he was wrong. He reached for the doorknob...
Paper walls.
He couldn't move for a moment. Paper covering every inch of wall space! Posters, lyrics, pictures, all there just like he'd dreamed! He hurried in, closing the door and looking around in shock. Yes, everything here was exactly the same! Maybe it was a bit darker. Mike went to the window, opening the curtains wide to let the light in before looking around more closely. Folding chair by a cluttered table, mattress on the floor, music, guitar... that guitar, it was the boy's! He went over to it, kneeling down to examine it. Well, it certainly looked real. He reached his hand out to touch it...
"You came."
Mike jumped up, spinning around quickly to see... his dream boy. He was there! Really there, but... was he? Mike could barely see him, he was so transparent now. The light from the window fell in front of him, making his form look even darker and less definite.
"You really came. I didn't think you would. I thought you'd forget me and let me fade." Mike took a step closer and saw a few invisible, glistening tears in the boy's eyes. "I can't beleive it. You came back for me."
Mike stepped closer, staring at him, and the boy seemed to solidify a little more. "My god... you're here." He was in shock, afraid to look away for fear of the boy disappearing. He couldn't close his eyes. The boy was real! Mike hadn't been imagining him. Whatever he was, he was here.
"Did you think I left you, Mikey?" The boy stepped forward into the light, and Mike's heart nearly stopped from the sight of him. The light seemed to go through him and fill him completely, making the boy glow with some sort of preternatural light, his jade eyes bright as ever with those thankful tears, a small smile playing on his lips.
"You- you stopped coming," he managed to say. "I've been waiting for you, and you haven't come. Why not?"
"I thought you wanted to forget me." It seemed that every bit of this shining boy was glowing with feeling. Mike couldn't tell what it was, happiness, or longing, or love. In a way, it didn't matter. Mike felt himself overwhelmed with this and stepped closer to him.
"No! No, it wasn't like that." The boy looked at him questioningly. "I was scared. You only came in my dreams and... I dunno, it was wierd. I didn't know what I should think." His light blue eyes met the boy's green ones, and they were silent for a moment. Finally, Mike spoke again. "Billie Joe."
The boy's face positively lit up, and it seemed he suddenly lost all of his transparency. "You remember!" he said, his eyes still glowing. He stepped out of the light again, now not even a foot from Mike. Suddenly, he seemed human, perfectly opaque and real. Solid. Mike couldn't help but reach up to touch his face and was a bit surprised at the feeling of it. Finally, he could touch him! His soft skin, too smooth to be real, but with no sort of temperature in it. He wasn't warm or cold. He was just there. But Mike didn't care. Finally, he was there.
"I've missed you," Mike whispered, then smiled. "I don't even know who you are, but I missed you a lot, Billie. I thought I lost you."
The boy reached up to touch Mike's hand on his cheek, and Mike felt the callouses, just as he remembered. "I missed you too, Mikey." He closed his shining eyes and wrapped his small arms around Mike in a delicate, heatless hug, which the taller boy returned. Mike could tell he was telling the truth. He wondered for a moment if the boy even could lie. He was so pure, it seemed. With the light from his eyes and the emotion that radiated from him every second, flowing through the both of them, through the paper cell, until it seemed that emotion was all there was in the world.
"You're Ollie's son, aren't you?" Billie looked up, and their eyes met. "The one she's talked about. You're a ghost."
Slowly, the boy nodded. "A year and a half." He smiled softly. "We should be the same age now."
"And the cat..."
"He'll come around eventually. He always goes where he wants."
Mike nodded, recalling what Ollie had told him. Billie had run to catch his cat, Zero, and the car didn't stop. They were here together now, the cat and the boy. Ghosts together.
"Why did you come to me?" Mike asked, and Billie rested his head on Mike's chest again, listening to his heartbeat.
"I needed someone to think about me. I was fading from my family's minds. They didn't think about me as much anymore, and I was scared." He was silent for a moment. "I don't want them to greive for me forever."
"So you picked me to remember you." Billie nodded against him, not letting go. "But why me?"
"Because you came," he said simply and looked up to Mike. "And I liked you."
"I like you too." Mike was being honest too. He couldn't think of a thing he didn't like about the boy. Everything was perfect, the curly brown hair, the crooked smile, the shining green eyes...
"I think it feels like more than just like now, Mikey."
They both stopped for a moment, held in each others' arms, looking into each others' eyes, before Billie began to lean up closer. Mike closed his eyes, moving his head back only slightly.
"But we can't, Billie."
The boy looked at him. "What do you mean, we can't? We're here, aren't we?" His eyes had become sad again. "You feel me, I'm solid. Why can't we?"
Mike opened his eyes again, looking sadly into his. "Because you're dead." A few tears came to Billie's eyes, and Mike reached up to clear them away. "I'm alive. And sixteen." He paused a moment to let it sink in. "We can never grow together. How can something like that work?"
"Because I love you," he answered sadly, on the verge of fully crying again.
Finally, Mike leaned down and kissed him, pulling the boy closer as they melted into each other. It felt strange, the lack of heat in him, the feeling that he wasn't real but just there. This solid ghost of a boy. But somehow, it was right. Because it was Billie. It was, for some unexplainable reason, right.
"I love you too."