Song Without A Name
by Lady Yate-xel
He’d been in horrible situations before. He’d even begun to think it was just the atrocious luck of the area he lived in that all the explosions, alien abductions, mutating elementary school students and random homicides went completely unnoticed. He’d been involved in some of those unnoticed incidents; he, himself, had been completely unnoticed. He’d been shredded in one lifetime, and nearly so in the next when he was noticed. Then, he had befriended the person almost responsible for the almost shredding. He’d seen Heaven, and he’d seen Hell. He’d done it all.
So who had chosen to force him through high school again?
6:15.
The alarm again. It had rung at that time everyday for almost three lifetimes now. Why did he still bother to set it? Habit, he assumed. Everything now was the same as always and always was always the same.
He had been reborn without a family a second time now. When he had been selected the first time around for Heaven’s beta testing of “Operation Reincarnation” (“We’re trying to cut back on soul density. And we’re running out of chairs.”), he had thought the basics would have already been covered. A family and parents seemed like logical needs for someone being reborn.
He wasn’t bothered by it so much as confused; after all, he’d sort of always been alone. Plus, he had volunteered for “Operation Reincarnation 2” (“We’ve made a patch for the bugs! Let’s download one for your soul and send it through again!”), and he wasn’t about to jeopardize his participation in this mess by complaining.
High School again, of all things. Through the grace (and technical ineptitude) of Heaven’s Operation Reincarnation, he remembered and retained nearly all of the information he’d learned and memories he’d made, and thus, after showing great intelligence so early, was shuffled into a corner for ‘gifted’ students and never given another thought. After all, the faculty had so much other brainwashing to do to the other students. Who could waste time on him?
So, in his spare time, which was pretty much all of his time, he’d taken up piano. He had become especially fond of the keyboard in the band room, and would often fiddle with the synthetic key tones to see what parts of the band’s practice material he could mimic. He was fairly invisible there, with the band students. No one thought twice about some guy messing with a keyboard in the band room; everyone just assumed he was a straggler from the prior class, and made no mention of him.
He’d also taken some interest in the choir room next door, but wasn’t able to camouflage so well in there. It was only when asked to run a trivial errand or make a delivery in a rare moment of visibility that he could sneak in to listen. Nearly every time he slipped inside, there was the sound of someone singing loudly in the back room. He never saw them leave, and never saw them enter, and would have assumed the voice to be a recording if it didn’t sometimes stop, cough, curse, and pick up where it left off.
These sorts of things helped him pass the time while stuck in this life day after day. He had been promised by the workers in the reincarnation project that he’d find a certain someone so long as he stayed on their “Proven Path to Second Life Success.” (Name Pending.) This apparently equated to “Stay In School.”
Upon his most recent death, he had discovered the discarded form of the one he'd been told was indirectly responsible for said death lying on the non-existent ground in front of the Pearly Gates which at the time were replaced with tin foil replicas. (The real deal was due for ‘renovations.’) He had offered then to participate in the project again if the discarded soul, who had become oddly dear to him, could be reborn and found again as well. So far, no luck.
7:15.
Right, should probably attempt to get to school at some point…
The school was only a few blocks away, and he usually enjoyed the walk, or at least found it beneficial. It gave him time to think about entirely too much. He enjoyed the few minutes of exercise and contemplation, although the thinking often made him a little gloomy afterwards.
He was, as always, on time, and entered the building, passing a small tribe of leather clad individuals with cigarettes who were presumably too cool by their own definitions to be in the building by the first bell. Of all people in the school, it would have been most logical, and definitely easiest, for him, the most invisible student to have ever lived, to be late, and in most cases absent. Yet, despite all that, he came everyday, perfectly punctual.
He reported to his homeroom. They didn’t call his name again, as usual, and he had stopped expecting them to. The bell rang, and he made his routine unnoticed way to the band room. The singing had started next door already. He had been able to identify the voice as male, he thought, and wondered vaguely who it was that was just as invisible as he that they were able to spend the entire day, everyday, singing in the choir room.
He entered the band room, and began to set down his things. The room was usually empty at this time of day, but today he noticed an acne-faced guy was loudly discussing guitars with the band director. He watched Acne-Face leave after falling victim to an uninterested band teacher. Such an odd feeling of familiarity struck him when Acne-Face looked at him. He shrugged it off, attributed it to his layers upon layers of memories of faces, and resigned himself, once again, to the keyboard.
The room remained as usual after that. He was beginning to question the nature of his almost invisibility, and had a hard time focusing on the music because of it. Why did most people seem to walk right by him, bump into him, talk through him as though he didn’t exist, while others, like Acne-Face, made a point to stare at him? He wondered, for a moment, if the person he was looking for would see him there, or if he himself had missed that person because they too were just as invisible. The thought depressed him greatly, and seemed to make the day crawl. As every class filed in, he inspected every face, just to be positive, once again, that the one he was looking for wasn’t there. As always, no luck.
Several hours later, he made the decision to actually eat lunch, despite his total lack of appetite lately. As he made his way to the cafeteria, he realized it was chicken nugget day, evidenced by the massively long lines. He decided against the nuggets and thought he’d just grab a small bag of chips from the little snack hut in the corner. The hut itself was a little beyond the rarely visited salad bar, which he sidestepped around to avoid bumping into.
He bought the tiny overpriced bag of chips, and hoped to make his way back to the band room before someone noticed that he had been invisible all these years. Staring at the floor in an effort to hide himself further, he slid along the side of the salad bar and smashed into a pale girl actually getting a salad. Horrified, he looked up her. Would she scream and draw all sorts of unwanted attention? He tried to mumble an apology, but the words wouldn’t come.
She only gave him a strange eyebrow raise, then turned and merged into the crowd of people in the cafeteria, purple pigtails bobbing in and out of view.
So she could see him, too. Or was it only because he had crashed into her? That usually wasn’t enough to do it in the hallways. People had run into him before, and usually mentioned something about untied shoes, or just being uncoordinated. Never once had anyone mentioned running into a person, let alone attempted apology. No one had ever looked directly into his eyes, even the people he had made a point to speak to.
He found himself back at the keyboard. When had he started walking back? He figured it didn’t really matter all that much, and sat down to eat his now crumbled chips. There was a painfully small amount of them in that little bag; it was a good two-thirds air, after all, so he finished them quickly. He sat in the room, which was now completely silent, and stared at the keys. He tried to will the keys to play something, but nothing came. At the moment he was about to plant his face into the keys in frustration, he heard the voice from the choir room again. It was louder than usual, and this time, the lyrics were almost audible through the wall.
“…Take me how I am
'cause you know I'll never change
I was born to stare
At who stares back at me
If I make it up
To that big show in the sky
All I really want
Is my TV and you…”
In his interest to listen, he failed to notice, again, that he had gotten up and moved. He found himself in the choir room, no longer afraid to be noticed, ear pressed against the little office door. The song trailed off after that, and he strained to hear more, trying to press his ear closer. He could think of no reason to be so drawn to this person, or this song, because he didn’t know either, but something in him made him want to claw through the thick wood of the locked door to get to whoever was behind it. That person who was just as invisible as he, who sung songs that felt so real to his situation, who-
“Hey.”
He jumped, any and all bravery quickly evaporated.
“Let’s try not to cause more than one accident a day, OK?”
The girl from the cafeteria stood over him, holding the salad tray in one hand, a key in the other. He looked up at her, stunned, and shuffled across the floor, out of the way of the door. She looked at him quizzically, and unlocked the door. Stepping inside, she announced that she had brought lunch to whoever was inside. The singer responded by turning up the stereo. He heard the voice from before, and what he now assumed was the voice of that girl singing bits of the song together.
The door was still ajar beside him, but he was too petrified to move to get a look. The song, the girl’s voice, especially the fact that she had had spoken directly to him, and the fear of smashing the image he had in his head of the person who had intrigued him all this time, all kept him frozen. He sat there on the floor until the last measures of the song faded away, and eased their grip on him.
“When I close my eyes
I am at the Center of the Sun
And I cannot be hurt
By anything this wicked world has done…
Cause I hear violins...
I hear violins…”
He shook his head and looked around. Where was he? On the floor… of the choir room. He whirled around, and hit his head on the door frame. Rubbing his head, he stared upward at the door. It was locked again. Had he fallen asleep? If so, for how long? Had the girl left? What about his elusive singer? Had they just left him there on the floor? What time was it?
3:15.
His watch told him school hours had long since been over.
He rose shakily to his feet, and brushed some dirt from his jeans. Everything was so quiet after hours. Out in the hall, he heard some scraping, which he assumed to be the janitor. He made his way back to the band room, gathered the few things he had brought with him, and headed towards the building’s exit.
His head throbbing from the bump earlier, he reached up and rubbed it slightly. He was concerned that the events in the room frightened him so much. What was it about some girl with a salad, and a mystery person singing in the back corners of the choir room that managed to make him pass out? He kept replaying the scenario over and over in his head, each time thinking the girl looked oddly more and more familiar. He eventually told himself he was trying to make her look that way, and abandoned any thoughts that he could possibly know her.
He left the school, pausing only once in front of it to sigh in frustration over the entire mess, and began his trip home. The walk that was usually so nice and refreshing now only contributed to his confusion and worry. The girl, the voice, the songs, the invisibility; nothing would leave his mind alone for very long. Why had it all affected him the way it had? Was there something yet in this reincarnation project that he had yet to understand? He found himself wishing that he could talk to the people in charge of it, but that would require dying, something he wasn’t quite ready to do again if he could help it.
*****
He didn’t sleep that night, predictably. What sleeping he did do was littered with dreams and nightmares, almost always smatterings of thoughts and experiences from his past attempts at being alive. The moment when he died in his first life, shredded by some insane contraption in a basement. The same moment in his second life when he had been saved by television and a short attention span. Some stranger, more abstract forms floated in and out of his mental turmoil, waking him up more than once. The girl from the cafeteria, and a strange disembodied version of that voice from the choir room trying to consume him, while the people in charge of giving him these multiple chances at life laughed at him, and showered him in empty potato chip bags.
He woke one last time, after being haunted by one too many images of the one he was searching for floating through walls, expanding to fill an entire room, and suffocating him. He sat on the edge of his bed, and rubbed his head. The glowing green numbers on his clock told him he needed to be up in an hour and a half anyway, so he struggled with his exhausted body, and managed to get dressed.
The walk back to the school filled him with odd feelings. His body wanted to sleep, and some deep part of him was even more exhausted, but his curiosity pulled him towards the school. He absolutely had to find the girl and see the person singing now. He had to. He needed to know why he had passed out, why he had been left there, and what had happened beyond that door.
He didn’t bother reporting to his homeroom, they hadn’t called for him to be there yet, and he had no reason to believe today would be any different. Instead, he slipped into the band room, put his bag down by the keyboard, and quietly approached the choir room. Since he was a little early today, there was a possibility he would catch that person, that singer. He tried to appear casual, assured and at ease, as though anyone would care that he was standing there in the choir room doorway in the first place.
Several minutes passed. There was no movement. What if his mystery singer had gotten there before him? He gingerly crept into the room, and rested his cheek against the door that he had heard the music coming from behind the day before. The music that had seemingly possessed him.
Silence.
So he had gotten here first. There was no way he could miss the singer’s arrival now. He rubbed his head, and looked around the room, relaxed now that he felt assured that he would meet his goal. There were large posters of various singers and actors decorating the walls. Original posters for Broadway musicals lined the bulletin boards and part of the blackboard. The blackboard itself had had a slowly chipping and fading musical scale painted on it what appeared to be several years ago. There were two pianos in here, both covered with dusty velvety cloths.
The pianos intrigued him, and he drew closer to them after staring for some time. He thought, if he played one while he waited, it would help pass the time, and ease the anticipation. He wasn’t sure if he was nervous and afraid, or euphoric and anxious. He wasn’t even entirely sure what was so appealing about this singer other than the fact that he had never laid eyes on the owner of that voice. The voice wasn't the most amazing thing he'd ever heard, though it was fascinating and he was sure it wasn't truly suited to singing the song that had wiped him out the day before. It twisted through his thoughts and he thought surely the person producing it would do something similarly amazing.
At the moment he reached out to take the cover off of the piano, a bell rang, startling him. He looked immediately towards the door. Had the singer come in yet? Would he be here soon? What about the girl? He walked to the doorway again, and looked down a hallway lined with lockers.
The hall was crowded and loud. People shuffled back and forth, others attempted to open lockers. He stopped the in the face of all these bodies rushing at him at once, and flinched as several apparent choir students surged towards him. By the time he opened his eyes again, they had passed, not a single one had hit him, and he was left alone in the doorway. At the end of the hallway he could hear the squeak of a sneaker as some student zipped around a corner in an effort to get to class a little less late.
He slouched over, and slid against the door frame. He had missed the singer for sure that time. Rather disappointed, and now quite frustrated, he trudged again into the band room. The first period class was there and warming up already. He didn’t expect them to notice him, and of course, they didn’t.
He resolved that he would go to lunch today as well, that way he had a chance to talk to that girl again. She had a key, and she could let him in to see this other invisible person. If he could convince her he wasn’t a geeky accident waiting to happen, he might yet be allowed to see the person whose voice had been interesting him so. He had a brief thought that she was doing something with the owner of that voice that she wouldn’t want other people seeing, and tried to think of a subtle way to indicate that he wasn’t some sort of pervert, that he just wanted to talk and that he didn’t-
“Oh, you are alive. Good job.”
His thoughts were interrupted by someone speaking to him. It was Acne-Face from the other day. Acne-Face was most definitely talking to him, too; standing directly in front of the keyboard, fingers tracing the row of buttons along the top, although looking down at him. He gasped, looked up at Acne-Face, stuttered and attempted conversation, but Acne-Face didn’t look inclined to listen to him.
“They said you were in a pile on the floor. Thought I should see if the janitors took you out with the trash like the last kid. You weren’t in the other room. Looks like you made it. I’d advise staying away from now on, though. He might send me after you.”
Acne-Face suddenly got a far-off dreamy look on his face, mixed with blind determination and a twisted smile. “YES!" he shrieked gleefully to the ceiling. "He’ll send ‘Darkness’ after you! And when I come back with your severed head, it will be me he favors at last! Me! The Darkness!”
Acne-Face (Or “Darkness”), suddenly in his own world entirely, turned away, and made his way out of the room, arms raised to the ceiling, talking loudly about delusions of ruling the world with ‘the world’s greatest artist’ at his side. The talking faded as Acne-Face presumably made his way down the hall.
So Acne-Face knew the girl and the singer. Maybe he should try to talk to Acne-Face again? Acne-Face did tell him to stay away from the other two, but where was he going to find Acne-Face reliably? He had a fairly good idea of how to get in contact with the other two. Besides, Acne-Face sort of frightened him. He seemed… unstable. He had come into this life trying to avoid unstable, and was going to avoid it if he had the option.
Right then. Girl. He would talk to the girl. She would be easier to talk to. And when he did, he would be cool, and calm, and demand answers. Yes. Determined, he set to work on playing something on the keyboard. It would keep him sane until it was time to visit the cafeteria again.
When the time finally rolled around, he nearly ran to the cafeteria, abandoning all previous thoughts of remaining calm and collected. He squeezed his way through the door around the lines of people waiting for leftover chicken nuggets, and tore around people to the salad bar. She wasn’t there yet, and he hoped she hadn’t already come and gone. He tried to slow down his breath and look as though he had something to do there while he waited. Finally, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the familiar shade of purple floating through the crowd.
She moved around the last nugget-starved student between them, and stopped when she saw him. Could she really have not expected him to go looking for her again? Did she think Acne-Face would be that frightening to him?
“You again. I see you made it off the floor alright.”
After her initial look of surprise, she had taken to calmly making a salad. He wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to her.
“I… I heard that singing,” he started. He thought it best just to get this out as fast as possible before she could interrupt him and get away again. She was already giving him the strange stare again. “And, I know this is going to sound strange,” he began again, “but for reasons that would be really difficult, and impossibly long to explain, I need to see the person who’s been singing. It’s … well, let’s just say it’s important.”
This was the most speaking he’d done in a long time. He’d gotten really terrible at communication lately. He’d been talking to himself for so long he had forgotten how not to sound like a lunatic to others. Judging by her raised eyebrow, he still sounded quite loony.
She tossed a few croutons on her salad and looked up at him as though she had just noticed him. She straightened up, and prepared to leave, apparently not looking to give him an answer of any type. Trying to ignore him, was she? His chest tightened at the thought of her turning around and leaving him to another day of wallowing in all of this. In a moment of uncharacteristic bravery, he reached out and grabbed her arm.
“No, no, please! Please, I need to talk to- or even just see- whoever’s been-“
“He won’t want to meet you, just forget it,” she interrupted, “Whatever reason you could possibly have isn’t good enough; just forget you heard anything.”
She wasn’t exactly cold. But she wasn’t entirely welcoming either. She seemed to have a slight undertone of sympathy in her voice, although it was possible he wished for it so badly that he imagined it. He still hadn’t released her arm, and was determined to try again.
“Please. Let him be the judge of that and just let me see him,” he pleaded. “I just- I need to know if he’s the same as I am.”
She sighed, and looked down at the salad. She looked at it for what seemed to be forever, before looking back up at him for a moment, and then back at the salad. She clicked her tongue once.
“I’ll tell him to go to class for the rest of today and tomorrow. You find him on your own; I won’t be responsible for any of it.”
With that she easily slipped out of his grasp, and made her way to the door. She never had to steer out of the way of anyone, and made it to the door before what had happened hit him. He finally had his chance to see this person. He would just go out into the hall, and when he saw him he would –
But how would he know when he saw him? If he saw him?
He ran back to the band room as fast as the traffic in the cafeteria would allow, gathered his things, and sat on the floor near the entrance to the choir room, waiting for classes to change. As soon as they did, he would start scouring the halls for this elusive singer. He took off his glasses, and wiped some non-existent dirt from the lenses with his T-shirt. Replacing them, he gazed up at the ceiling.
It was strange. He was here, in this life, first and foremost to find someone else entirely, yet he had been so consumed with finding this singer he had nearly forgotten that one he had come here for. His hope was that finding this person singing could help him discover the best way to find the one he was really looking for. If he and the voice were both indeed the same kind of invisible, maybe this singer knew something about it that he didn’t. The songs that echoed from that room seemed to fit so well. Like he knew. They seemed to fit a certain someone he knew in his other existences; a someone he was trying to find now.
When he had last died, and saw that person lying there, discarded, he asked to be allowed to try life again, if only to save the soul of that someone who had become important to him. In this new life, he had promised, he would tell that person how important he was as soon as he could, because after two lifetimes, he understood how fragile living was. And that either of them could disappear at any moment.
He had wanted to make sure it was alright to do this. He had no right to make this person’s soul go through life again, he at least needed permission. The people in charge agreed, surprisingly, and gave him a few slight seconds to ask, before he had to decide. Eyes opened. He asked. He got an answer.
“I just… don’t want to remember all of this shit. If I forget me, but remember good things, like Freezies… and infomercials…then…”
It had ended there.
They had taken that to mean agreement, and now here he was, and presumably, that one person was here somewhere, too. He had spent several other years looking, and had yet to have any luck here. He was beginning to think that the people in charge of this operation changed their minds at the last minute to see if he would kill himself in frustration. They liked mind games like that up there.
He sighed, and stared at the ceiling a little harder. Just as the patterns were beginning to warp, the bell rang. Funny, he had never seemed to hear these bells before today. He stood up, and looked around eagerly. The purple haired girl emerged from the choir room shortly afterward, and shot him a sideways glance. A half smile crossed her lips.
“Good luck,” she said to no one in particular. He hoped she meant him. “And nice idea, but it won’t be as easy as waiting for him to come out this way. There is another door back there, you know.” She walked away, not so much as giving him a glance to ensure that he had heard her, and continued down the hall. She was joined at the intersection of the hall by a dark skinned girl who seemed terribly excited about something, and they walked off together.
He stood, stunned momentarily, and then began to run down the hall. Traffic and congestion were worse in the main halls, and he had a hard time focusing on anyone. Even when the halls started to thin out, he still couldn’t see anyone, or hear anyone even remotely like his target. How was he supposed to find this person? He had only heard him singing, not even speaking. And even if he had heard speaking, how would he have distinguished that voice from all the dozens of others in the hall?
He finally, after a few brief delirious minutes, slumped against some lockers as the halls emptied out, with only two or three people in the hall. This was going to be difficult. He only had the few hours left today, and a few class changes tomorrow to find him, and then he’d have to do back to her and try to convince her to let him in again. He was alone in the hall now. He rubbed his temple a little before trying to regain some hope and commanded himself to think of something.
With no better option, he thought he’d go to all the classrooms and see if he could ‘sense’ anything from the people he was able to see through the windows in the doors. It was a long shot, but it was more productive than attempting to channel him from the choir room. He climbed to the top floor of the building, and planned to start at one end and weave his way down. He looked in every door he could, but had no idea what he was looking for. This was all so pointless…
He had made it back to the first floor when the period ended, and the next bell rang. He looked around desperately, but again the students all looked the same. As he spun around looking for any sign of the singer, his vision blurred the faces around him into one massive blob of bobbing colors. He began to feel dizzy, and put a hand to his head. Slumping over, he was now looking at faces from chest level out of the corner of his eyes. People were getting more and more surreal in appearance, voices were becoming static. He thought he heard a faint humming over the buzz, but couldn’t make out what it was.
He stumbled over sideways, and supported himself against the hallway’s wall. The blurring lessened, and he picked his head up to gaze down the hall over the heads of the students passing him by. At the end of the hall, he could make out a messy mop of black hair, wearing headphones, and generally taking it’s time getting to wherever it was supposed to be. The humming grew louder, and the headphones came closer. He stared intently. Something about this felt important. His head began hurting again.
The hall was beginning to thin out, after a miniature forever, and the owner of the head phones was starting to come into view.
A tanish-colored skin tone, and a long-sleeved striped shirt. Carrying a sketchbook, several pencils, and a CD player that was turned up just a little too loud. Tall and thin, though shorter than he'd been imagined, and wearing a rather pleased expression. As the congestion thinned further, he began humming a little louder, and by the time the proximity was unbearably close, he was singing.
“I was born to stare
At who stares back at me
…”
His eyes widened and he stared as the singer came closer. Again, unable to speak, unable to move, and with his head throbbing, he couldn’t form any words. The singer passed and opened his eyes as he did, pleasantly at first, then widening and staring in what looked like surprise. Neither of them said a word, and the singer walked while continuing to make eye contact, the headphones continued to play.
He couldn’t believe it. They were one and same. The singer, and the one he was looking for since he had been reborn, so close to him all this time, were the same. His singer wasn’t so sleep deprived now, and seemed a little less homicidal, but the mannerisms, the looks, the body movements and shape… all the same. Had he even seen recognition in those eyes?
The singing continued, even as its owner broke the eye contact, and it faded off to the end of the hallway, a little louder, yet a little more confused at the same time. As though even the singer felt that the words were somehow appropriate.
“Take me how I am
‘cause you know I’ll never change
I was born to stare
At who stares back at me…”