Dealing With Absence » h. styles au

44ᵀᴴ CHAPTER

                                        44ᵀᴴ CHAPTER 

      "God has mercifully ordered that the human brain works slowly; first the blow, hours afterward the bruise" 

He watches as the sun goes down eventually, the bright yellow, glinting colour moving slowly through the grass and turning into shades as if it’s walking away from him.

The night previous had been filled with the sounds of rain hitting the ceiling like bullets, calming down for mere seconds before coming back stronger, louder than before. Harry couldn’t help but think God was having fun playing with the weather by the time being, lacking something else to do rather than keep him very much awake and aware of nagging sounds in the back of his mind. As he stared up at the roof above his head, he had his fingers tangled over his stomach and toes that couldn’t seem to stop fidgeting underneath the tissue of the sock, which at some point became too noticeable and he just got rid of it.

The rain, though. It completely let go of all clouds welled up on the wilderness above, leaving a completely clear sky behind; a smell too fresh of damp ground and fallen leaves, usually so absent. Harry can still feel the moisture as he sits idly on the gathered group of rocks, reaching aside for his water bottle as the sun keeps going away and all he’s left with is his sunglasses – now seeming gaudy, due night approaching.

He sits, then, for a while more, because it all seems futile, right now.

The warm haze that seemed to surround him all day during the photo-shoot has completely vanished, his plaid shirt now feeling so not enough as the breeze sweeps through, and it’s all he can do not to shiver down from head to toe and force his body up to find himself a cab and go back to lock himself into the motel for the night.

Instead of the obvious, Harry ignores all of his own body’s protests and chugs down what’s left of his water, camera hanging from his neck after a long day of more work. He’s just so exhausted. The marks underneath his eyes seem to be blending enough with his skin to cave holes into it, ink the dark tone to his face almost as if he’s tattooed his skull’s orbits to plain sight. His eyelids heave more than they should with the lack of sleep, a mind too troubled with thoughts to even let himself blink an eye through the whole night long.

The past few months have been chaotic, to say the least. With a mere snap of fingers, and so it seems,  Harry’s agenda filled to the brim with appointments he’s not sure he’ll be able to accomplish, running around like a freak to try and fulfil deadlines without compromising his payment. And he needs it so much, right now.

The gallery is going great, and he’s been able to afford more repairs than he thought possible at first place, and bit by bit, he’s getting there. Each time he walks into the warehouse it seems something new has been installed, small changes here and there, that as a whole turns out to be much like how Harry had first imagined his place to be.

It fills him with pride whenever he pushes open that door, seeing nothing but the mess of materials littered all over the place, albeit a vision of a space ready for work, not much furniture and no lacking art. He wants so badly to be able to expose his work, now that he’s come back to it full-force.

He’s come back so determinedly that whenever he’s back in London, he barely sleeps where there’s an actual bed for him. Instead, he goes spend his nights on a moulded mattress, where he can stand up and walk down a few metres before reaching a canvas and paint, lose himself in mixed colours rather than his apparent insomnia.