Cody

Below us, the town is a moving ocean of flickering light; music and laughter drifting up to us in an ebb and flow of festive sound. The cold sparkling grape is refreshing me, bringing me back from the brink of exhaustion, and beside me, in the moonlight playing hide and seek among the clouds, sits the most calming presence I've ever experienced, and yet, my intestines are trying to eat each other.

I should be enjoying this; the soothing breeze bringing me subtle whiffs of Glitch's enticing fragrance and the knowledge that I can sit up here, unobserved, at peace with the world, at least for now.

I am enjoying it, which might be the biggest part of the problem. Here beside me in hints of Vanilla and Lilly of the Valley is the sweetest girl I've ever met, and I don't believe for one second that she didn't want to take part in the craziness going on down there. Her foot is lightly tapping to the beat of every song, and every now and then, I can hear her hum along softly while she gently sways to the rhythm.

Why is she sacrificing it for me?

I nearly collapsed with relief when she suggested hiding up here on this tin roof rather than staying down there with the noise and the struggle of remaining on my feet. My knee was screaming at me to give it a break, and my head started to pulse uncomfortably. I felt close to puking all over the lawn, passing out or doing both.

It is nice up here. There are some stacked hay bales, used as decoration, I suppose, and I dragged two over to near the edge, one for us to sit on and another at a right angle to it so that I could stretch my leg out on it. This is exactly what I needed. It is almost comfortable.

 I don't think Glitch regrets marrying me for the festival and hiding up here with me. If she does, she is hiding it well. Her smile never falters when she looks at me and catches me gazing at her. She seems happy. I am happy too, but I shouldn't be. I have no right to be happy.

It is not fair for me to sit here in a small portion of heaven, enjoying myself while so many people I care about are buried in the ground or have their ashes scattered in places where they will never walk or play again, places we used to enjoy together.

I'm sick of hearing that it's not my fault, that I am not responsible... that I should live.

I shouldn't be here with this girl. I know that at some point, I'll make her smile disappear too. Nobody should ever make her smile disappear. Glitch's face was made for smiling. Will she still look at me like this if she knew how I got to be here, or would she turn away from me, suddenly uncomfortable and filled with regret? Too damned sorry for me to bear being in my presence.

I don't need anybody's pity.

"Don't you want to be here, Wally?" The sound of her gentle voice chases away the dark fingers dragging at my heart and shatters the anxiety steadily building in and around me, its jagged walls cutting into my sanity. 

"Wally?" I chuckle, and the concerned expression dissolves from her face.

"That is how you introduced yourself, and I rather like thinking of us as specs in a sea of other specs, each doing their own thing in a vast tapestry of activity. Look," she says, pointing at the people enjoying the festival. "Danny is giving Joan a ride on his cow because she climbed onto the stage to protest the dance and got in the way of Mrs. Dunkirk and Humphrey's tango. I think he is taking her to the first aid tent."

I look, and I see a girl with a crumpled paper megaphone sitting angrily on a cow while the animal is chewing on what appears to be a placard of some kind... probably Joan's protest sign. A tall man peacefully leads the cow along, suspenders pulling his pants up to his chest and as far away from his shoes as they can possibly get. I know Danny from seeing him around; this is not his festival look. He always dresses like that.

I think I saw Joan in the ceremony earlier, holding two candles above her head, one lit and one unlit. She wasn't in the rows of brides and grooms; she was facing the rows, her back to the stage. She might've been trying to marry herself or set the stage on fire. I am not entirely sure which; she was shouting something, but I couldn't hear her above the general noise going on.

Why would anyone be protesting the dance?

"And there's Gina Myers, racing off on Ben's bike, leaving him to do some kind of line dancing all by himself now. I did hear her several times telling him that it's her or the bike; he cannot marry both of them... I guess she and the bike decided they belonged together," Glitch giggles, her laughter like soft rain on dry ground.

She points out strange scenes going on below of people competing for Aunt Suzie's pies as if she didn't bake enough to keep the entire Granary Downs in pies until Christmas and children running around, weaving among the dancers' legs, trying to trip them up, and I realise once again that these people are the weirdest bunch of misfits in the world. They all fit together very well right here, though, where they found a home.

I can feel my smile trying to return as my eyes roam over the craziness down there while I listen to Glitch's often warped interpretations of what we're seeing.

My heart twists painfully inside my chest when I spot my grandmother dancing with Paul Stetson. Their movements have the kind of harmony couples have when they often dance together. I see easy twirls, steps completely in sync and the way they smile when they look at each other startles me into realising the vast extent to which Gramma has been putting her life on hold for me.

That is not fair!

Why did she hide this from me? I did not need her undivided attention. Sure, it's a bit of a shock to see her give looks like that to a man who is not my grandfather, but Grandpa hasn't been with us for too many years now. Does she really think I expect her to be alone forever, mourning the loss of the husband she loved so deeply? Farming all by herself because her grandson abandoned the dream he shared with her.

Just how selfish does she believe I am?!

Those town meetings, lunches and dinners she often had to attend, were they visits to Uncle Paul? I really do know how to muck things up for everybody!

I take a long sip of my grape drink, emptying the can, trying to rid myself of the agitation this new, fresh wave of guilt is washing over me. I should just leave Phantom's Rest and go home. There's no place for me here. There's no place for me there either...

"I didn't want to come to the festival," Glitch tells me, tilting her head to look at me again, her hair forming a silky fall down her shoulder. She is no longer smiling; her eyes are dark pools in the weak light, the bits of moonlight escaping from among the clouds, tracing her features in an ethereal way that makes me wonder if she's really here.

Perhaps I am still lying in the field, drugged out of my mind.

"Too much noise and things going on?" I ask, my voice sounding as strained as I am feeling.

"Yes," she whispers, placing her empty can on the ground beside the hay bale. "I was afraid I'd get scared, and the shadows would come and take my mind again."

"The shadows?"

"I slept for a very long time," she tells me solemnly, and then her smile breaks through the misty sadness hovering between us, slowly transforming the melancholic expression on her face to become radiant and warm again. "I feel truly awake right now, sitting here with you, seeing all that life and love down there."

I follow the directions of her hand, my eyes finding Jasper and Allie. They are no longer dancing; Jasper sits in a large tree like a muscular elf, framed by fairy lights and dodging lanterns, while Allie jumps up and down on the grass below him, trying to grab his ankle. I smirk, wondering what he'd done now to anger her.

Jasper is good at making people angry.

I don't know if I would use the word love to describe what I see right now. The guy is laughing in the face of danger, as he has always done.

When we were kids, we'd play chicken with Gramma's prized stud bull, running to safety like our butts were on fire whenever he'd charge at us. Diving over the wooden barriers of the enclosure, standing up with blood streaming from his nose, Jasper would laugh, punching the air with a yowl as if it was the best fun ever to get all scraped up and bruised by running from an angry bull.

I guess I did the same thing. It really was the best fun...

Neither of us laughed when Gramma saw whatever garbage we were up to and was the one chasing us... there was also no place of safety to run to from her. Jasper and I were always in trouble together; the level just varied a little each time. We brought it on ourselves. Sometimes it was my brilliant plan that got us into trouble, and other times it was his.

When I wanted to use sticks to shoot lumps of mud at each other until we (and everything around us) looked like we were made of clay, he was always game to do it. When he wanted to use berries and dung to paint the side of the barn in our made-up tribal symbols, I was very excited about the idea.

It didn't matter whose vision it was we were putting into action, we had fun together, and we understood each other. I couldn't wait for the school holidays so that I could come here and hang out with him.

I miss those days.

They were so much simpler, so much happier. It was before my talents were discovered, and I thought I would be the next main rugby player in history. Before, I became arrogant about my strengths and abilities and lost interest in things like farming with my grandmother, running from bulls and building forts in haystacks. Before Anara... before growing up...

Before my father died, driving a bus filled with my teammates.

Glitch is right; from up here, there is a tapestry of action going on in the town square, each scenario fitting like a puzzle piece into the next, belonging together, unable to exist by itself. Wally is not in that tapestry. He doesn't fit in there.

Wally is hiding in the dark, crunching his empty can in his fist, wishing he could be anybody else.

I'm grinding my back teeth, as I often do when I'm close to yet another anxiety attack. The muscles in my jaw are starting to ache dully, and there's an annoying buzzing going on in my head.

I shouldn't be here.

I should take Glitch back to the festival and leave; go to Gramma's house and pack. I shouldn't be here. I don't belong here. I'm as selfish as I've ever been.

I can see my grandmother laughing with Uncle Paul, enjoying herself without me burdening her, and I grind my teeth harder. Tension is building inside me from my toes up my legs, igniting the pulsing pain in my knee and filling my vision with darkness. I no longer see the flickering lights or hear the ebb and flow of the festive sounds. The air is too thick to enter my lungs. I am suffocating.

I have to get the hell away from here now!

"I won't let the shadows take you either, Cody," Glitch says, weaving the fingers of her left hand with those of my right hand, causing me to drop my can, clattering at her feet.

Her touch is like an electrical shock, startling me back into the present with the soothing breeze, the flickering lights, and the happy music and laughter. The scent of vanilla mingled with Lily of the Valley drifts around me like a gentle cloud, soothing the tightness in my jaw.

The touch of her gentle fingers spread warmth up my arm and down my legs to my toes, easing the spasms and drowning the pain.

I turn my head to look at her, and the moon has slipped from behind a cloud and is bathing her face in a gentle glow; her smile is loosening the tight bands around my heart, calling an answering smile to my lips.

I can breathe again.

"You shine so bright, Cody," she whispers, gazing into my face, and I wish with all my heart that I could see what it is that she is seeing. I'm trying to find my reflection in her eyes, hoping that I might see it there and get my answer, but her face is too close to mine, the moonlight no longer shining on the sparkling surfaces of her eyes.

I gasp in shock when her lips suddenly touch mine. They're cool and fresh, sweet like grapes, filling my heart with warmth and my brain with incredibly bright light, destroying every dark thought crowding in there.

The buzzing noise is gone now, replaced by the deafening beat of my galloping heart.

~~~