[a short story I've been writing for a while. it's a bunch of maudlin bullshit, but there ya go.]
Shut Up, Wilco
The smell of smoldering roaches hung in the air like marionettes from some illusory desire. Wilco sat, a stilted mannequin on his old couch, trying desperately to fill the sleeves of his late father’s leather jacket, and to leave an impression greater than he thought himself. Smoke from his cigarette slithered into his mouth, and poured out of his nostrils like time from a broken hourglass.
Beside him sat Persephone. Her father had just died two weeks before, and grief still hung heavy on her head. When she called Wilco three days before, at the end of the Fall semester, she didn’t tell him about her father’s death, and her unexpected request to see Wilco rekindled a feeling he thought he had forgotten. Whenever he was stricken by this hybrid feeling of hope and uncertainty, and the flies of lovesick speculation buzzed around his head, he swatted them by telling himself, “Shut up, Wilco”, a mantra he wished could dissolve the let-down he was afraid he would face.
Wilco and Persephone found themselves together for the first time since the summer of their high school graduation. They had been close, but after choosing different colleges, a year-and-a-half of estrangement now stood between them. Now, she held his old guitar like an injured animal, pouring out derivative but pleasant melodies that rang like the enchanting static of a detuned radio. Trite but indescribably charming lyrics pervaded the room, filling Wilco with the same longing that continuously hollowed him. Wilco’s mind once again turned to his unwanted but undeniable attraction to Persephone; he wondered, as her voice scintillated about him, if he would ever affect her as deeply as she affected him.
Shut up, Wilco.
Her listless vibrato spoke the end of her siren song, and Wilco searched for the words that would do justice to the awe he felt. Despite his sincerity, what sounded was awkward applause, trailed by ten-cent compliments much more superficial than all the truths he wished he could’ve spoken about her. After that, the conversation slipped back into the circuitous and stale musings of two sleep-deprived misfits. Over tired guitar chords and half-hummed songs, their words continued to circle about the platitudes of youth. But as the night grew old, they sank slowly toward one another, until they traded that year-and-a-half of distance for the comfort of an overdue embrace. The night died slowly like that, with every instant that eschewed Wilco’s longing and doubt feeding those flies and that hybrid feeling.
Shut up, Wilco.
Their exchange of stale but genuine words persisted until Wilco no longer had the forbearance to ignore the flies. At that moment, every instant of stupid, blissful affection that he had ever felt for Persephone burst out of his mouth. All the sickening drivel, all the repressed sentimentality he had pent up within himself, now hung in the air with the smoke and the desperation. The confession of his malformed admiration for Persephone raised her brow like an alarm, signaling to Wilco the beginning of a speech he had heard countless times before. Persephone began to hum the dissonant hymn that was the truth of this circumstance, the sirens of bereavement diluting her words with pain and confusion. She had no real consolation for Wilco; the signals he thought he heard over the phone were the distressed vibrations of a mourning mouth. In the wake of her father's death, the weight of her grief had made her unable to be alone.
The amorphous letters that spelled the names of Wilco’s conflicting emotions rattled in the cage that was his head; Hate, love, ignominy, pain—His lips parted—deceit, regret, disdain, derision—but nothing would sound. Finally her words began to trickle to a halt, but as her mouth churned hurt and spurn to Wilco’s ears, his mind could focus on nothing but the deeply enigmatic gaze that could never fully dispel his attachment to her. When her words finally stopped, Wilco could muster nothing more than “I’m sorry.”
Persephone assumed that was an empty consolation, but while Wilco did feel a trenchant sympathy for her, that was not what he meant. Wilco felt weak and apologetic for his own blunders. He was sorry that he didn’t listen to himself.
Shut up, Wilco.
