Before It's Voiced

Fairytale

This is going to be interesting. All the love to chaotic-panda for putting up with the mess this chapter was and kinda continues to be <3

~

fairytale

noun

a fabricated story, especially one intended to deceive

Pete doesn't dream in the same ways he used to, details becoming questions with every passing night. He no longer dreams of words left unwritten or scenes left unsaid. He used to dream the way he wrote, without limit and with too much emotion buried in the seams. Now, though, all he finds each morning is a terrible aching loss in his chest, as if his heart's been left to beat in the dreams he can't recall. Now, he's left with nothing but the desperate desire to see past the veil of darkness cascading across his nightmares and dreamscapes like the depressing expanse of a starless night sky.

He's left with nothing. Nothing but a new collection of words to transcribe each time he opens his eyes. While his dreams fade away with the touch of the sun, flying into oblivion like a kite into an unseen portion of sky, his words are more plentiful than he ever remembers them being.

They come with no warning or inspiration, no reason for the sudden flood of thoughts invading his mind. His sentences belong to no story and his phrases are only his to know.

I dream of night and day at once. I dream of baby blue and the shade of the sun dancing along a sky painted with the ocean's colors. I dream of broken whispers and lips still stinging when I open my eyes. I dream of things I can't recall and I dream of emotions they haven't found a name for yet.

I dream of nothing and everything at once. Of universes as they expand and collapse in time with the incomparable twitching of my lungs. I dream of drowning and flying and standing with my feet planted firmly in a darkness set to blind me.

He spends hours each morning— or afternoon or night, depending on when he wakes— scribbling across blank pages until his eyes are sore from the messy scrawls. He only pauses to help his mom or Hillary but, even then, his mind is always on the words left to write.

Just one more sentence, he thinks as he writes five more. Just one more word and then he's done.

As he fills enough pages to create yet another novel— an entire notebook filled in a short handful of days— he reminds himself how foolish it is to believe he's ever had the ability to stop himself from doing anything.

I write about dreams I don't believe in. I'm tied to the battle of wits and the desire to seem clever. Would they all think that of me if they saw the things I've written now? Or would this finally kick that last rotten belief out from their aching mouths?

Their praise and applause and love are armor I can't wear anymore. And the shining piece of my mind they all grasp for with their rusting lips and shattering words is lost in the sand I keep beside my bed. Buried like a treasure I forgot I had.

It's even more foolish to pretend these words mean anything— even to himself. He doesn't know where they come from or why. He only feels that something's been lost and he can only pretend there's a way to retrieve it.

And he's a writer; there's only one thing he's good at.

I'm a writer. I'll always try to find meaning in meaningless things and these words are the most unimportant things I've written yet.

While he writes these silly things, his book's publishing schedule makes its way onto his mom's calendar, taped to the fridge because her magnets have all lost their charm. She tells him there's a month or so left until the first copies hit the stores. She asks him if he has any celebrations planned.