Date: 14 Aug 2000 20:13:22 -0700 From: Guy Friar Subject: Icarus of Auriga, Chapter One Icarus of Auriga Prologue: Over a month-and-a-half ago I found a small wooden sail boat by a beach not far away from where I live. I don't really know why I noticed it, or even considered it interesting. Maybe the fact that I was alone and nobody around that could be the rightful owner of the object, got me thinking it might be lost and had just stranded there. Whatever the reason, I picked it up. While carrying it off the beach, I realized that something was moving around in the boat as it got swayed by my walking. This, of course, sparked my curiosity, and after I got home I opened it up. Inside it was a plastic bag, and inside the bag there was a diary. What the diary contained dazzled me. It, like any other diary, contained a listing of daily events over a period of time in a person's life. The writer of this particular diary was a 19-year-old boy. However, what made this diary rather unique was that it also told a very strange and unusual love story. But even as this extraordinary story shocked me, it enchanted me as well. I won't tell you the nature of the love story in the prologue, I just hope that the less information I give you the more you'll be interested in reading what follows. This story is based on what I read in the diary. I want to make it perfectly clear, however, that I wrote this story with the permission of the diary's writer, whom I can't name. A series of coincidences resulted in my making his acquaintance on the Internet, only a couple of weeks after I had found the small sail boat by the beach. Even though the diary didn't reveal the writer's identity, it did contain a few hints and details only available to the inspective eye, and those lead to my finding him in the anonymous world of the Web. He has proven to be a very interesting acquaintance, and communicating with him through the Net gave me a much broader and more accurate view of his diary's account. His unusual story resurrected the writer within me, and with his permission I wrote out his story accurately based on the diary and what he has personally shared with me. In the story I have also included some of his original diary entries, also with his permission of course. I hope you will find the story as interesting as I have, but since I want to tell the whole story it will take a few submissions to the archive before it will contain the whole thing. So, please be patient and enjoy it as much as you can. Comments, of course, are welcomed and appreciated, and you should know that comments to the diary's writer will be delivered as well. All comments or questions, or whatever it is you feel like writing, should be e-mailed to: Tungl@nightmail.com 04.09.2000 Wednesday Entry 284 Well, I can't keep this. Too risky. Our fucked up society would burn me at the stake should this be found and read by just anybody. I've enjoyed it though. Keeping these dark secrets all hidden here in my cursed book of things you shouldn't speak of. It's amazing really. I was incapable of keeping a diary just a few months ago. Not like I never tried. I was trying. I just wouldn't keep it up, no matter how I tried. Then it comes to this. Someone encourages me to keep a diary, to keep trying - next thing I know, the diary is the air that I breathe. Toxic air. I must get rid of it now. I don't know. Maybe someone will find it. But they'll never find the writer. It's impossible and I'm glad. Relieved. I've filled it with facts that I couldn't talk about with anyone. I've read it over a number of times now, and I decided that destroying it isn't necessary. Even though my name, Ari's and Eli's names are in here, I haven't been using their last names, or mine. Places and landmarks are not in here either, so whoever reads this shouldn't be able to locate any events, or be able to figure out where we live. So, I won't destroy it. I'll just throw it off this cliff and let the ocean take care of its future. Hopefully someone will eventually find it, and read it. I guess I'm hoping that partly 'cause I feel a need to share this. And I haven't been able to. The memories in here are very important to me, so destroying them would be like forgetting. But as long as it's out there, whether floating or in somebody's hands, I'll remember. And I will have gotten something off my back that ultimately would've eaten me alive. The love you gave me filled my life, and I'll miss you 'till the day I leave this cold existence. It'll get colder now. Chapter One Snow really gets me down. It's a killer. It stifles the pretty little flowers, and strips the world of its color. I guess for a depressed youth Winter isn't exactly comforting, but even so suicide rate isn't very high in Winter. Despite the hopelessness, the isolation, all the black-and-whiteness of Winter, suicide rate goes up in a time when color and sunlight have started driving the gray abyss away - in Spring. It's a fact that I don't really get. Maybe I'm just not really depressed. For me, if I ever think about taking my own life, it's during Winter. I think it makes the most sense when the oppression of school imprisons us, when Sneeze Cough the Virus seeks out its victims, when howling wind keeps you up at night, and when light and color leaves your life. You may disagree, but I think that's a time to leave this place, and go somewhere eternally warm and loving. - Then again, for depressives, Winter is a time when you can roll around in your misery. That's a good time for depressives. Everyone is cold, having trouble, and at least semi- unhappy. We finally fit in. They can't spot us as easily when the world is just as gray to them as we see it 365 days a year. So why end your life? Maybe the hope that's seemingly invisible to you, is found in the misery of others. Then Spring comes. The Evils of frosty black and white start giving in to the powerful Goodness of light and warmth. Everyone's happy again, smiling every which way. Except you. Because you're depressed. God intended no happiness for you. Suddenly you don't fit in anymore. You've become the cancer that plagues the world with its blackness. "What's the matter with you? - Why can't you at least pretend like you're enjoying this? - Why don't you answer your phone? - Where were you today, not at school is certain enough! - Everyone else is having fun with this. - Come one, it's a sunny day. - Do you hate me?" It's the time when unhappiness and discontent is as flamingly obvious as a lightning in the sky. Happy people notice you. You don't click with others as well as you used to. And even though the world is getting brighter, your view of it isn't - and you panic. By the time I met Eli, my depression, with its self-isolating tendencies and loneliness, had become a frantic desperation. I had sought shelter in a job at the local day camps for kids. I had always found comfort in being around little boys, it sounds bad enough and I didn't exactly feel proud about it. It got me wondering if maybe I had more serious problems to deal with than melancholia, it got me to question how sane I really was. I felt like a total freak. There's nothing wrong with working at day camps and enjoying it, but I enjoyed it for all the wrong reasons. Well, looking back at it I blew it all out of proportions, naturally. I did like kids, and I wasn't always looking at them wondering what they'd look like with their shirts off. But I did like them for that reason as well. Still do. And because of how unnatural that is, I decided I was nothing but a low-life pedophile and that I was working with kids only to have something to jack off to when I got home. True enough boys turned me on, but there was always more to it than that. I found something in the kids that I could find nowhere else. They made me feel like I meant something, they looked up to me, and if they'd notice a hint of sadness they'd always come running and try to comfort me. I mattered. They'd see things, and pick up on hints that teenagers and adults wouldn't. And what's more, their attempts at comforting me were usually successful. The day camps were not only a shelter for the kids during the hot summer days, they were an important shelter for me as well. I thought about my condition almost every night. Lying in bed, picturing the day before. Thinking about what a monster I was. I knew I could never hurt a boy, and taking advantage of my situation with the kids was a thought that disgusted me beyond description. I'd roll around, thinking: "Am I a bad person, am I a good person?" The answer always tended to nest in the environment of the negative. The kids loved me. I was one of the most popular instructors at the camps. The kids would all group around me during lunch time. On trips they'd compete with each other over who would get to hold my hand, who would get to sit next to me on the bus. It was cute. During the summer I got to know a lot of really great kids. One in particular. Eli. Eli was a very special boy. There was something about him that just grabbed my attention and held it. He was a shy little boy, you didn't see him talk much. He'd usually sit by himself, he'd wander off sometimes apparently just to be by himself. He did join the kids in games, and the kids generally liked him - but he was different from all the others. He was a beautiful kid as well, extremely handsome. He had dark hair and brown eyes, slim build. He had a very particular look about him, a look that I mentally connected to his eyes, but it was more than that. He seemed to be of some foreign origin, but I couldn't tell you which because I have no idea. All I can tell you is that he looked normal enough, but you'd always notice him, his particular look would separate him from the many. I guess he was a little tall for his age, but it wasn't anything that you'd notice. So it wasn't any one thing that gave him his handsome unusual looks, he was just different in a very complimentary way. Needless to say I was very interested in getting to know him better, but it seemed hard as he had shown this tendency to keep to himself. I didn't know how to go about it. I often addressed him with such superficial phrases as: "Hi! - How are you? - Have a great weekend? - Those are cool shoes. - Good work in that ball game, chief. - Bring anything tasty for lunch?" But it was never very personal. But he liked it when he was shown some attention. He probably wasn't used to it at all. And even when you'd address him superficially, and say things that didn't really mean anything, no matter, you'd always be rewarded with the most beautiful smile on this side of the galaxy. Then you wouldn't care if his answer was a simple: "Yeah." All you needed to see was his smile, and he had paid you back a thousandfold. One time, at the camps, we were on a trip to a wooded area where there had recently been built a family amusement park. It wasn't a park like Disneyland, where there'd be a number of mechanical amusement providers like roller-coasters, but it had a very special atmosphere. There were swings, and slides, and big tree houses, everything built to be in accord with the forested environment, and designed for a bunch of kids and teenagers to climb and have fun with. Reminded me of the story of Peter Pan, where all the kids live in tree houses and have all these fun ways of getting around, all made out of the natural material the forest provides. It was actually pretty impressive. The kids were all very excited. Actually, so were the instructors, most of whom were rather young themselves. The youngest instructor I can remember was about fifteen. As soon as we got off the bus the kids just went wild. And during the time we spent there everyone had a great time. Well, except Eli. I had noticed that Eli had gone missing. For some reason I couldn't spot him anywhere. I knew he had been on the bus, and he'd certainly been at the camps that morning. I looked all around the playground area, but he wasn't among the kids. I figured right away that he might have gone off somewhere to be alone, but I got really worried nevertheless. I asked some of the kids if they knew where he was. Some of them had no idea, others claimed he had been playing with them just a few minutes ago, but had withdrawn from the game and gone somewhere. So, all in all, no one had a clue. I didn't want to make a big deal out of this and notify the head instructor, because I was certain Eli had to be close by, watching birds or something. And he'd be back soon, he always came back. Well, at least up until then he'd always come back. Maybe something was wrong this time. So, I told my co-workers that I was going to go look for someone, and left the playground area. I went into the woods, and had my eyes open. I didn't call out his name, because I was still thinking I might be making a bigger deal of this than necessary. I didn't go far, I could always hear the gleeful voices of the kids playing from where I was looking. I walked around a bit, but didn't see anything, so I decided to turn back. If he hadn't shown an hour before we were scheduled to leave, I'd notify the head instructor and we'd search for him in groups. Silently I was begging God to have him be alright. On my way back I noticed a dead mouse lying on the ground. And as much as it disgusted me, I went for a closer look. Why on Earth people always do that is beyond me. I picked up a stick and poked it. It was all bloody, and probably half-eaten as well. "Whatcha doin'?" a familiar voice asked me. I looked around, and there he was. Eli was sitting on the ground a few feet away from me. I dropped the stick, and immediately started hiding my relief. "Oh nothing really, just pokin' the mouse with a stick. Like you do." Eli smiled. I often amused him with my half-serious remarks, and I guess I was sort of a clown to him. And to most of the kids I was the 'funny one', that may be why they liked me so damn much. "Well, it's dead," he said, and threw a small rock aimlessly toward it. "There was a bird eating at it a moment ago." "Eew, that's disgusting. But you're right, it's probably dead." Eli threw another rock, hitting the corpse so it moved an inch. "But, how come you're not over there playing with the kids?" I asked him, and walked over to where he was sitting. "I dunno. I was, though." He didn't really look at me, as I sat down beside him. He just poked the ground and wrote his initials on it with his index finger. "Are you okay?" I asked him, with a friendly consideration in my tone. "Yeah, I guess," he said. And for a minute we just sat there quietly. "Are you feeling sick, or something?" Eli shook his head. "Well, you look kinda down. But you tell me you're okay, so, you know, I have to believe what you tell me. But I want you to know that no matter what, you can always tell me if something's bothering you." "No, people always think I'm sad or feeling bad when I'm by myself. But I'm really not. I just like being by myself sometimes, that's all," he said, and he hadn't looked up even once after I had sat down. "Well, I can certainly understand that," I told him reassuringly. "Everyone needs to be by themselves sometimes. I do it a lot too. Actually I think I do it too much even. And when you do it too much, you start feeling lonely. Because you kinda isolate yourself if you do it too much." "I don't think I'm lonely," he said, as in thought. "No, I didn't say you were. I said I was." It seemed that what I had just said affected Eli in some way. He didn't say anything though, and it looked as if he didn't really know what to say. So, again we sat there quietly for a minute. The birds were singing around us. The forest was breathtakingly beautiful in all its naturally green glory. "Do you have any friends," Eli asked. A black crow sat down on one of the green branches above us. "A few, not many. Good ones I mean. How about you?" "Sure," he replied. "Well, the kids seem to like you a lot. I bet you're the most popular kid in your street, huh?" Eli looked up at me, with an 'excuse me?' look in his eyes. "Not really, and I don't think the kids here like me that much either." "Sure they do. They have lots of fun with you, I can tell," I told him and gave him a friendly smile. "Why, 'cause you're the instructor?" he said doubtfully, and looked away. The smile on my face shrunk and transformed to a 'deep-in-thought' bite on my lower lip. "No, because when kids are smiling and laughing, it's usually a sign that they're enjoying themselves. And when kids don't pick you last for softball, and even walk up to you and ask you to join them in a game, it's usually a sign that they like you," I told him in a more serious tone. He looked up at me. His eyes seemed to believe me. "You don't have to be an instructor at a day camp to know that." "My brother is though," Eli said, seemingly out of the blue. At least I wasn't following his train of thought here. "Your brother is what though?" "Popular," Eli replied, and I caught on immediately. "Oh really? How old is your brother?" I asked him. "Eleven, almost twelve. He's probably the most popular kid in our street. He's in sports and stuff." "Yeah, that's a good way to make friends. What kind of sports is he in?" "Track and field." "Do you like sports?" "Not really, it's okay. I like soccer, but I don't want to be a part of a team." "And why not?" I asked him, and made another attempt at sending him a friendly smile. Eli smiled back. That beautiful smile. "I dunno, it's fun when you play it with friends and stuff, but I don't want to do it all the time." "I see. So what do you like to do all the time?" "I don't think there's anything I'd wanna do all the time," he said, and kept the smile as a perfect additive to his face. "But I like playing the cornet, and the flute. I also like reading." "Wow, you play the cornet? And the flute?" "Yeah. I'm just a beginner, but I'm getting better though. I can play a few songs." "That's really cool. I used to play the piano, but I stopped and today I hardly know which key is which anymore. If you keep it up, you won't regret it when you get older. For me, I just couldn't be bothered to waste too much time on the exercises. That's how stupid I was. Today I wish I never stopped, and I'd be damn good too." The smile on Eli's face broadened. "Too bad you quit. I'm never gonna quit, I like it too much." "That's really great. And maybe one day you'll be a soloist. Then I insist you invite me to one or two of your concerts." Eli laughed. His laugh was more beautiful than any music. We exchanged smiles. Then we shared another quiet minute. I felt so good for some reason. The black crow above us had turned into a small singing bird. Again I was overwhelmed by the magical green all around us. What a great day. "I think we ought to get back out there with the rest of them. They might get worried, you know." "Yeah okay." We stood up, brushed the dirt from off our bottoms. He reached out his hand. I didn't know how to react. I showed no signs of being surprised, received his soft little hand, and side by side we emerged out of the woods back to the playground area - holding hands. And he held on to me throughout the day, and when it came to boarding the bus, there was no contest. He was attached to me, and thus he was granted the privilege of sitting beside me on the way back. To me, however, it was I who was privileged. A bus ride has never been so unforgettable. When we got back to the camps, the sky had become clouded, and it had grown colder. I watched as most of the kids and all the instructors rushed to get overcoats, some even decided to stay indoors. But I was watching it from a mental distance, I didn't feel as if I was in the same place as them. Where I was standing it was warm, and the source of all that cherished warmth was standing right beside me, holding my hand. 06.17.1999 Thursday Entry 2 Today was great. It's been three days now since I broke through Eli's little shell. I feel he might be changing my life. Or maybe I'm just crazy. God, it's weird. How can you feel so much for someone so quickly after you get to know them? I'm probably just kidding myself. But he means so much to me. Saw his brother for the first time today. He came to pick him up from camps today. They're the brothers perfect. He's really good-looking too. He's different in some ways, but similar in so many others. For instance, that look seems to run in the family. They both share the same distinctive characteristic facial features, but naturally they're not identical. His brother has reddish brown hair, and even though reddish hair isn't always a good thing for ones looks, it makes him look great. I can picture him in track and field, he's very slim, like his brother, which is good. And 'cause of his sport activity he's probably got a killer body. Jesus, I shouldn't be saying these things. Fuck me. The kid's only, what, eleven. But it's true. Eli has got such a beautiful body. Slim eight year olds usually do. Naturally I haven't seen it all yet, but I saw him shirtless a few days ago. Okay, okay. Control yourself. It's the pen, it's not me.