Flowers from 1970

Chapter 12: fact from fiction

Chapter 12: fact from fiction

George had his eyes closed, headphones on, laying on his bed.

He was listening to Flightless Bird, American Mouth by Iron and Wine, and though he normally listened to songs of a completely different genre than this, he continued to put the song on repeat. He felt emotions he had never felt before be suddenly reeled in by the careful construction of melodious sounds. For a boy who's life was run by focus and set goals, he had not been used to being so driven off course by turns of events he could not explain.

He believed there was a science to everything. He knew that if he tried hard enough, everything he had ever known could be solved with numbers and quiet genius. He had been a firm believer in the construct of everything he knew being just another number. Life was data. Everything he had ever committed himself to had been data. His job, daily routines, and his whole life were just another algorithm he knew was solvable on pen and paper.

So why had a phone call suddenly thrown all his beliefs down a waterfall of madness?

He could have just been clinging to the one person in his life that had ever given a damn about him, but he felt something more. Amidst the impossibility and outlandish circumstances was an emotion that was formed simply by exchanging words on a device connected by a rip in the timeline. He wasn't going to run to a scientist to get an explanation, or post about the miracle that was this old telephone and show the world that he had discovered some sort of magic. It was almost like he wanted Dream to himself. That this bond was made strictly for them, and that the world wasn't meant to know.

Dream's voice threw his logic down the drain, along with all his crap about scientific proof and algorithmic nonsense. He had been the magnetic pull that he needed to realize how much he had messed up his life, his relationships, and everything decision he had ever made, all to help himself.

So he lay there, wondering why the one entity in his life that had seemed to fix him was someone he couldn't have.

What he wanted Dream as? He wasn't sure.

He had never had a friendship in which he'd find it safe to spill his inner demons in exchange for words of comfort and honest criticism.

George and Dream had made a schedule in which Dream would call. 8 PM every night, and even earlier on weekends. George glanced at the clock, squinting to see he thankfully had two more long minutes to wait before he'd hear the saving grace that was the phone ringing.

Three minutes had gone by, and though George knew that not every call was going to be on the dot, he felt a little lonely and worried.

Ten minutes went on, then thirty, then an hour and a half.

He had heard a knock on his door just as he was about to give up waiting and make dinner.

He placed a small figurine on the phone, so if it rang the phone would shake and the figure would fall, and if George came back and the figure was on the floor he'd know if Dream had called while he was gone.

He forced himself downstairs quickly, not wanting to miss the call in case one ever came. He opened the door to see Wilbur, with his usual pocket notebook in hand, and Niki holding a bottle of apple cider.

"Wilbur, Niki," George greeted, "what brings you here at 8 in the night." He gestured to their presence and the bottle of cider.

Wilbur wrote in his notebook and stuffed it into his pocket, "Well it's been a while since we had friends to have a chat and a drink with, so we figured to knock on the door of our fellow Brit to see if he's available."