RENT (Lynnexa AU)

Light My Candle

Christmas Eve. 1989. 9 PM Eastern Time.

Brendon
From here on in, I shoot without a script. See if anything comes of it. Instead of my old shit.

The bike ride home was cold. The wind blowing in my face didn't help at all. I wasn't dressed warm enough, I only had a light coat and a scarf on. I'm pretty sure my nose was turning red.

When I got home to my apartment, I noticed some piece of papers that looked familiar. Ah, yes, eviction notices. That time of year again. We didn't pay last year's rent either, and we're sure as hell not gonna pay this year's rent. Knowing Lynn and I and literally any of our neighbors, we're probably not gonna pay next year's rent either.

I walked inside and it was also cold in here too. Must've turned off our heat. Great. Merry Christmas to us. I handed the eviction notice to Lynn, and she laughed.

"Hey, since they turned off our heat, I was gonna start a fire. Gonna burn this with all the other ones. Mind if I burn any old screenplays?"

"Please, burn all of them for all I care."

She started walking around the place and tearing posters off the wall left and right. I looked over to our windows and noticed it was opened a crack. I went over to close it, and then heard our phone ring. I let it ring and let the person calling talk after the voicemail message.

"Brendon! Hey, it's Steven, I'm downstairs, throw down the keys!"

Steven was one of old roommates, he was a teacher at MIT, and always came around for Christmas, and then back at his teaching job.

I grabbed the keys and threw them out, and he catched them. I went back inside to help Lynn with her fire.

"Anything else we can burn?"

"Your notebook with all the songs you'll never finish writing?"

"Shut up. I'm gonna look around in my room for more stuff, you look around too."

==================================

It's been a little over half an hour since I saw Steven. What happened? It shouldn't take someone thirty minutes to walk three flights of stairs.

"Any sign of him?"

"No, I was about to go out and look. Do you wanna come?"

"Nah, I'll stay here. Think I finally might have something for a song."

"Pft, oka-a-ay. And we're gonna pay our rent."

Lynn

Before I could come up with a witty comeback, Brendon left. I picked up my guitar and started playing the same few chords for a couple minutes, and decided I need a break. I've been working on the song I'll never finish all day.

I put my guitar down on the couch and sat up. I placed my head into my hands and sighed.

I went outside on top of my roof, and a cold breeze hit me the face. I shivered a little, and then looked over the city. I looked behind me and found a chair, and sat down. I relaxed a little and kicked my legs out.

One song... Just one. I don't care if it's the only song I write. At least one thing I can leave behind before I die.

I used to write songs more easily in the past. I actually used to be in a band. We were called "Pvris," we replaced the "a" with a "v" because we thought we were such badasses back then. Our careers were short lived, we only had one album. It was fun while it lasted.

I remember at one of our shows, I spotted a girl in the crowd, standing at a small table all by herself. She had frizzy red hair, not like orange red hair, she died it a bright red. She was really into the song we were playing, she was doing a little dance to the beat. I met up with her after the show, and introduced myself to her. We hit it off the moment I said hello.