The Worn Path to the Sea and Stars

 

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Chapter 1

He tore his headphones from his ears and rubbed his eyes with shaking hands. The music was no escape when the arguing became too loud to drown out. He stood and moved from the desk to the bed, sitting on the edge and pulling on the closest pair of shoes he could see. Pausing only to grab his earphones and a hooded jumper, he slipped from his bedroom as quickly as he could whilst trying to silence his footsteps. Not that they would notice anyway, they were too caught up in the heat of the argument to notice much else.

Hurried feet took the stairs two at a time, desperation driving their movement towards the front door and hopefully a bit of peace. He reached the door and tugged it open, letting it fall shut behind him as he slowed his pace and worked on controlling his breathing. He didn't look back. He never looked back.

He felt calmer already, the cool breeze and familiar darkness welcoming him into the night like old friends welcoming him home. His hands moved of their own accord, plugging a wire into his phone and the buds into his ears as his feet took him further away, his mind strangely absent, his feelings comfortingly numb.

Troubled thoughts started to crawl and twist from the dark recesses of his mind, only to be drowned when a song filled his ears and soul with that wonderful sense of peace he could only find in music. He turned his attention to the direction he was heading, unsurprised to find that his feet had yet again taken him down the old track to the beach. He walked this path almost every day to escape the suffocating mess of thoughts and emotions that ran rampage through his head daily, ripping and tearing and shredding their way around his insides without mercy.

The beach was his escape almost as much as music was.

He turned a corner and was pulled from his musings by a sudden lack of light. The lampposts didn't reach this far, he'd covered more ground than he thought he had. He paused for a moment and closed his eyes, letting the breeze wash over him and the darkness hide him from the world.

A sudden weight against his leg startled him and he jumped slightly despite himself. He knew exactly what that weight was, he was surprised it had waited this long to make its presence known. He crouched and reached out, letting a small smile creep onto his face as his fingers found soft fur. His cat almost always followed him on these little walks. Whether she thought she was protecting him or simply keeping him company, he didn’t know. What he did know was that the small black cat being there was greatly appreciated; she made him feel like he was wanted, like he mattered.

He walked on. The two companions reached the alleyway that led to the shore and immediately a crisp sea breeze enveloped them. The tarmac beneath his trainers suddenly became pebbles, gradually increasing in size as he got closer to the beach proper.

The tide had created small ridges and hills of the stones, and it was on one of these hills that he finally came to rest. He sat beside his tiny, fluffy companion and breathed deeply, trying to dislodge the tight feeling in his chest. He felt better than he had in the house, in the house he had felt a panic attack trying to dig its claws into him and it had taken every ounce of control he had to fight it off long enough to get out. Now there was just the lingering anxiety, a feeling that never really seemed to go away but occasionally could be suppressed for a while. That bubble of worry, anger, guilt, sadness and hopelessness just sat calmly in his chest, biding its time while it waited for him to let his guard down or lose control so it could burst and fill him with its poison before starting to grow again. It was an endless cycle. Inevitable. He couldn’t get rid of it, but he could fight it. Every day he chose to fight he won a small battle. Most of the time winning these small battles didn’t feel like much, it felt like he was trying to bail water from a boat during a rainstorm. Even though it seemed like he’d be trying to empty that boat in vain for the rest of his life, he knew that if he stopped trying he would sink. So, he would fight the mental battles every day that he had to and he would keep fighting no matter what. Some days he’d lose the fight and it would set his progress back weeks or months, but today would not be one of those days.

He removed his earphones and listened to the sound of the sea. The tide was out. He could hear the waves rushing to the shore and the sound of stones being dragged over one another as the sea pulled the white horses back into its depths.

He realised he was absent-mindedly stroking the cat; he could feel the rumble of her purring beneath his palm. Briefly he wondered what she was thinking about, whether she was fighting any battles in her mind. He concluded that she probably wasn’t.

The wind brought tiny droplets of salt water with it, not enough to get anyone wet but enough for the boy to feel the sting on his cheeks.

From where he sat, the sea looked black in the night. Reflections of light glittered and danced across its surface, brightly coloured lights from the city across the bay to his right, and silver light from the stars everywhere else. In the distance there were a few tiny lights on the horizon, some sort of ship he figured. It was beautiful. He pulled his hood further over his face and lay back to look up at the stars.

Out here, away from the light pollution of any big cities, the stars were bright and plentiful. He thought they looked like someone had taken a sheet of thick black velvet and poked hundreds of holes in it before laying it over a bright white light. When he thought about the reality of the stars and the vast universe beyond his sight he felt incredibly small, it was daunting but exhilarating. He tried not to think about it, sometimes it made him feel better about his problems and other times it invoked a sense of nihilism that he wouldn’t be able to shake for weeks. That was not a roulette he wanted to play tonight.

He popped the earphones back into his ears and pressed play on his phone. The melody filled his ears, sucking his overworked mind into a beautiful dance of tranquillity. His cat tentatively placed her front paws on his chest. He scratched under her chin and she walked onto his chest completely, curling up on him and kneading his stomach. He felt a deep sense of calm. Yes, he would fight. He would fight as long as he had things to fight for, and when he thought about it he had plenty. He had his broken, mismatched family. They may be messed up and mostly frustrating, but they loved him and deep down he knew it. He had his music, the one thing that never let him down. He had his art and he was getting more skilled at it every day. He had books to escape into when his mind would allow him enough focus to read one. He had his cat. He had video games. Yeah, he had plenty to keep fighting for.

“You know what, Wilma?” He whispered to the cat, “I think we’re gonna be alright.”

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