Click Here for an Explanation of the Rating

Music – 3

I love the piano in this one, and the way he’s singing the song. It has a ‘funny part’, which, I always love when he does that. I just think it adds a lot of character.

Poetry – 2

It’s a pretty literal song, but I really love the range of descriptors he uses. It also is funny, which can be hard to pull off in lyricism.

Change – 1

There’s no change in this song.

Insight – 2

I can think of a couple songs that are on a similar subject, but I like his plot twist of “so do I”. It’s also not a super common idea for a song, and I think he pulls it off.

Good – 4

I love this song. I think it’s great. I’d show it to a first time listener, if they had a sense of humor.

This story is a part one. To find part two, click here: Falling of the Rain.

Story

You’ve just moved in two days ago and I already want you to leave. The house felt full enough without you, and now it’s absolutely crowded. You’re loud. You’re active. You seem to take up the same amount of room as three people, God knows how. There’s no need to ever speak that loud. And worst of all? Everyone else seems to love you. Everyone loves you right away. The second you open your massive, loud, obnoxious mouth. 

Great. 

It’s certainly making me look, or at the very least feel, like a freak. A freak in my own home. Great. 

Just great. 

Just as I was starting to fit in in my new home. If you can call it that. 

I moved in right after the Event, and I won’t talk about it here. To be honest I can’t really talk about it ever. Moving on. 

It was bound to happen. You’re in the hallway. I’m in the hallway. You’re standing there. In my way. 

“Hi! I’m Sarah.”

I don’t say anything in response. I stare at your outstretched hand, embarrassed for you. 

“I just moved in.” You keep talking. 

Why? I wonder. You should stop talking. I am clearly not talking, so you should see that there should be no more talking. I keep staring at you. 

You’re grinning at me like an idiot. Or a clown. God this is embarrassing for you.

“Well it’s just awesome to finally meet you. I mean, here we are, living in the same apartment and we don’t run into each other even once over a week! So funny how crazy life can be! I was looking for a new place for sooooo long and this place is just sooo perfect, isn’t it? I mean, I love it! I love the owner, she’s great, the other guy seems great too, I’m obsessed with the neighborhood. It seems quiet, which is something I absolutely love!” 

Ironic. 

I can’t keep listening to you talk, and you seem to have no inclination to stop. I turn around, walk into my room, and close the door. I really hope that situation doesn’t happen again. 

—

You keep forgetting to turn the lights off. I know it’s you because before you moved in it was significantly darker, always, and now it seems every bulb is always burning. It has to stop. Eventually I decide talking to you about it is more important than not hearing you talk again. I walk over to your door, and stand in front of it, collecting myself. Finally I knock once. 

“Oh hi!” You come out of the room, beaming at me. Once again. 

“You have to turn off the lights.”

“Oh really? Why?”

“Electricity.” I try to explain slowly, since this should be obvious. “It’s wasteful.”

“Oh I just thought since we don’t pay for the electricity, and it’s so much nicer and warmer around the house with the lights on… I thought it might be okay. To be honest I get so spooked out in the dark! This way, it’s nowhere near as spooky. Haha I know that might be silly.”

“I know we don’t have to pay for it. I’ve lived here longer than you. I know how it works.”

“Oh I know. I didn’t mean anything by it Thomas, I just think it can be so gloomy, truly abysmal, and not to be dramatic or anything but how on earth is someone supposed to feel at home in the dark haha!”

“Some of us manage.”

I can’t keep talking to you. I assume your head must be filled with sugar instead of brain matter. I give up, turn and walk away.

“Okay bye-bye talk soon!”

I hope not. 

—

The owner who rents out these rooms lives in the bedroom next to mine. She’s older, sweet. Caring. After the Event, living with her scared me less than all of the alternatives. She was straightforward, pushy. I was sitting at a small table in the back of a bar when we met. I had been at that table every day from open to close ever since the Event. She saw me, she came over, sat down. She didn’t talk at first. When she did her voice was low and soft. She asked me several questions. I don’t think I really answered any of them. Then she told me in no uncertain terms I had to move in right away. In the state I was in, I just listened. 

And she loves Sarah. Sarah buys flowers for the house, and puts on music when she’s home. Her music is terrible. It’s loud, it’s obnoxious, it carries straight through my shut door, with the towel tucked into the bottom gap, and distracts me from my thinking. 

When I moved into the room, I only bought a bed and a chair. I set the chair in front of the window, and I spend my free time just staring out of it and thinking, a favorite pastime since the Event. My window faces the alley between our building and the one next to it. I love watching the alley. It’s the same every day. It doesn’t change. It doesn’t surprise me. It’s not intrusive. It doesn’t sound loud and obnoxious, like the music that is currently coming from downstairs… 

I can’t take it anymore. How can anyone think like this. I run down the stairs, mad, intentionally landing as loud as I can on every step to emphasize how mad I am. I’m not sure where all this rage has come out of – 

“Please! Just one goddamn minute of fucking silence! Please!” 

She’s looking up at me from the kitchen table. 

She’s terrified. 

Sincerely and genuinely scared. 

I reel back from the effect I’ve had on her, thrown off by it. 

“I’m … so sorry…” she stutters. She quickly turns off the music. Now the house is dead silent. And for the first time since she moved in I notice that she’s actually… small. Very small actually. Shockingly small. 

She’s starting to cry. 

She’s sitting at the table, visibly shrinking into it. Tears are now streaming down her face. 

“I’m… sorry… Thomas…”

I panic. I never meant to scare her. 

I immediately try to backpedal.

“No no no, it’s okay, it’s fine.” 

But I can tell it’s not working. 

“I’m sorry I … I didn’t… I mean…” 

She won’t look at me anymore. She’s staring down the table, trying to hide the fact that she’s crying. She looks so small and so broken at this moment. 

I slowly sit down across from her. 

I want to fix it. 

I don’t know how to fix it, I realize. 

“Um, what were you working on? Are! … are working on? What are you working on?”

She’s staring at the table. Stifling sobs. I look at the stuff in front of her, shreds of magazine pages and miscellaneous craft supplies. 

“Is it collage? It looks like collage.” 

It’s not helping.

“Stop it. Stop. I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean it.” 

It’s still not helping. 

“Okay look I’ll do anything please, please, I feel awful.” 

It’s a while. A while of her, sitting, trying to hide her crying. Me, sitting across from her, staring at her. I don’t think I blink. I need a sign from her. Anything to show I didn’t permanently ruin everything. 

“Could you pass me the scissors?” She says quietly. 

“What?”

“The scissors. I need them.” She sniffles. She still won’t look at me. 

“For what?” She’s going to stab me. She’s going to stab me for what I did. 

“I am making a collage. You were right.”

“Oh.” I pass the scissors. 

I sit next to her. She starts cutting out little shapes. Her hands are still shaking a little from the crying.

“I like to collage because it lets me take a break from thinking.”

“Oh.” I didn’t even know she could think at all, let alone think enough to want to get away from it. 

She’s gluing the scraps to a big piece of construction paper. She doesn’t seem to have any kind of order, or strategy. I guess she was right about the break from thinking. 

“I like sitting and looking out my window.”

“Your window?”

“Yes.”

“Doesn’t it face the alley?” 

I just look at her in response. I guess I’m not sure what to say to that. She finally, for the first time since I yelled, looks up at me. Her eyes are red from the crying. I mouth ‘I’m sorry.’ She looks back down.

“What else do you like to do?” she asks.

“Oh. I don’t know. I used to like cooking, I guess.” 

“Oh! I’ve always wanted to learn how to cook.”

“I don’t do it anymore. Sorry.”

“Why not?”

I don’t respond. My heart rate speeds up. My mouth dries up. Maybe she can tell. She looks at me again. Am I sweating? She looks farther away. 

“Oh hey it’s okay I don’t care. Who cares? Cooking is overrated anyways. Thomas! Hello! Um, have you ever made a collage?”

“No.” 

“You should try. Here.”

We sit together the rest of the evening, and she shows me the incredibly simple process. No thinking required after all. When we’re done, my collage looks like something made by a professional. It’s a black and white gradient, all the strips from the magazine arranged in perfect order from darkest to lightest. I’m very proud of it. For someone’s first time, I show some real promise. Her’s on the other hand reminds me of … nothing. It’s seemingly completely random. Colorful. Abstract. 

“Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it,” she jokes.