The beauty in nothingness...(Grayson)
Posted: 11 Aug 2018, 00:18
Blistering agony racked his body, every muscle was tense and white migraine spots were dancing in front of his vision. It was a nightmare, one that he did not believe he would be able to leave anytime soon, and it was all his brain-dead boss’ fault. The moron had known that the new hire was currently useless, yet still, he put him on the rota for the busiest nights of the week – and in all his illogical wisdom he had decided that Akakios should be his teacher.
“So, um…how do you…um…put the new barrel in?”
Useless. They were all blinking useless, and he was at the end of the admittedly very short fuse when he turned around to give the other male a glare that could strip paint with its level of acid. “Incompetent,” it was all he said but it was enough to have the man backing up with his hands held up in the universal sign of ‘Don’t hit me!’.
Everyone around them turned to watch as the new kid was introduced to the side of Akakios that earned him the title of ‘Emotionless Hobgoblin’, a few of them even waved their hands about like frantic ducks in the attempt to get the kid to back up and just walk away. Of course, the new guy didn’t listen and instead just gave a kind of smile that screamed ‘Aren’t I cute? Can’t be mad at this face!’ what he didn’t expect, but everyone else did, was the total lack of shits that Akakios gave.
“How did you get hired when you clearly have no ability to do the simplest of tasks? You are without a doubt the most illogical hire that the manager has ever made, go and sit in the corner until it is time to clock out. I do not want to hear or see you until the end of my shift.” To make his point even clearer to the brainless troglodyte Akakios raised a hand and pointed over to where the stool sat, said stool was located in what was known by the rest of the staff as ‘idiots’ corner’. Most of them had spent four or five shifts sat twiddling their thumbs in that corner.
Around the room, winces could be heard, and the new guy was doing a rather good impression of a goldfish – Akakios as usual ignored all of this and got straight back into his job. No one here seemed to understand. The noise was too much. Their questions were too much. Everything was just too much.
The rest of the shift passed by with an awkward tension. No one dared to talk to Akakios, they assumed he was in one of his moods and didn’t want to be disturbed by anyone. So, they floated on by like ships in the night, never looking in his direction, even when he clearly required their help, they ignored him, and in return, he stumbled through the headache.
At 1 AM they finally pushed the last customer out the door, picked up their coats and left Akakios to close-up. The very second the last of them walked out the door Akakios reached up and finally turned off the noise. Silence.
Only in absolute silence did he feel truly at peace, it had the same feeling as a friend’s arms after a long day. There was something so beautiful to him about the absence of the harsh noise of the world. Hearing people couldn’t comprehend the torture that came from the racket they created, all they could grasp was the sweet music, the gentle sounds and elegant rhythms of their world. To Akakios birdsong sounded like nails on a chalks board, and music held no appeal. He could easily live in complete tranquil audio dimness.
Since birth he had been this way, it had taken him a while to accept that he didn’t have to fit in, that he was finished as he was without having to try to be ‘normal’. Where the rest of the world relied on their hearing he instead watched humanity closely and observed things that others overlooked. It was as if he had a direct link to the satellites that orbited the earth, and every day they would send him new visual data to analyse.
Once he had locked the club up for the night he decided that he wanted to walk for a bit, the cold breath of wind on his forehead soothed the headache, and the idea of seeing the trees at night was an inviting one. So, he pulled on his black leather jacket and started at a sedate pace out into the obscure night.
It was a route that he often took. Down past the park, on to the shop, hang a lest and then walk a couple more blocks before he was able to slip into the warm embrace of his sanctuary. He had been doing this exact walk since arriving in Harper Rock, it wasn’t the fastest, but it was the safest.
There must have been something in the air, some gas that killed his brain cells, because one minute he was walking his normal route, and the next he was slipping down an alleyway, completely oblivious to the man who stood not too far away from him yelling at him to turn back and keep walking the way he had been walking.
This was not a safe street; many things went bump in the night here, though to be honest, it was mostly gangsters that caused the most harm. Akakios knew this, he had had his fair share of run-ins with them, of course normally he had the sound turned on, so when he saw the five men dressed like TV thugs he didn’t even blink. Now, Akakios isn’t normally illogical to the point where he uses his first language on people he absolutely knows won’t understand him, but today his head hurt too much for him to even give a crap, so, instead of opening his mouth to tell the men to go away he held his left hand out flat with the palm facing the floor and balled his right hand into a fist with only his pointer finger out, he then slipped his right hand under his left like a train going through a tunnel (go away).
The five men just stood there dumbly for a moment, but the magic of a man using his hands to speak soon wore off and they were again moving towards him…
“So, um…how do you…um…put the new barrel in?”
Useless. They were all blinking useless, and he was at the end of the admittedly very short fuse when he turned around to give the other male a glare that could strip paint with its level of acid. “Incompetent,” it was all he said but it was enough to have the man backing up with his hands held up in the universal sign of ‘Don’t hit me!’.
Everyone around them turned to watch as the new kid was introduced to the side of Akakios that earned him the title of ‘Emotionless Hobgoblin’, a few of them even waved their hands about like frantic ducks in the attempt to get the kid to back up and just walk away. Of course, the new guy didn’t listen and instead just gave a kind of smile that screamed ‘Aren’t I cute? Can’t be mad at this face!’ what he didn’t expect, but everyone else did, was the total lack of shits that Akakios gave.
“How did you get hired when you clearly have no ability to do the simplest of tasks? You are without a doubt the most illogical hire that the manager has ever made, go and sit in the corner until it is time to clock out. I do not want to hear or see you until the end of my shift.” To make his point even clearer to the brainless troglodyte Akakios raised a hand and pointed over to where the stool sat, said stool was located in what was known by the rest of the staff as ‘idiots’ corner’. Most of them had spent four or five shifts sat twiddling their thumbs in that corner.
Around the room, winces could be heard, and the new guy was doing a rather good impression of a goldfish – Akakios as usual ignored all of this and got straight back into his job. No one here seemed to understand. The noise was too much. Their questions were too much. Everything was just too much.
The rest of the shift passed by with an awkward tension. No one dared to talk to Akakios, they assumed he was in one of his moods and didn’t want to be disturbed by anyone. So, they floated on by like ships in the night, never looking in his direction, even when he clearly required their help, they ignored him, and in return, he stumbled through the headache.
At 1 AM they finally pushed the last customer out the door, picked up their coats and left Akakios to close-up. The very second the last of them walked out the door Akakios reached up and finally turned off the noise. Silence.
Only in absolute silence did he feel truly at peace, it had the same feeling as a friend’s arms after a long day. There was something so beautiful to him about the absence of the harsh noise of the world. Hearing people couldn’t comprehend the torture that came from the racket they created, all they could grasp was the sweet music, the gentle sounds and elegant rhythms of their world. To Akakios birdsong sounded like nails on a chalks board, and music held no appeal. He could easily live in complete tranquil audio dimness.
Since birth he had been this way, it had taken him a while to accept that he didn’t have to fit in, that he was finished as he was without having to try to be ‘normal’. Where the rest of the world relied on their hearing he instead watched humanity closely and observed things that others overlooked. It was as if he had a direct link to the satellites that orbited the earth, and every day they would send him new visual data to analyse.
Once he had locked the club up for the night he decided that he wanted to walk for a bit, the cold breath of wind on his forehead soothed the headache, and the idea of seeing the trees at night was an inviting one. So, he pulled on his black leather jacket and started at a sedate pace out into the obscure night.
It was a route that he often took. Down past the park, on to the shop, hang a lest and then walk a couple more blocks before he was able to slip into the warm embrace of his sanctuary. He had been doing this exact walk since arriving in Harper Rock, it wasn’t the fastest, but it was the safest.
There must have been something in the air, some gas that killed his brain cells, because one minute he was walking his normal route, and the next he was slipping down an alleyway, completely oblivious to the man who stood not too far away from him yelling at him to turn back and keep walking the way he had been walking.
This was not a safe street; many things went bump in the night here, though to be honest, it was mostly gangsters that caused the most harm. Akakios knew this, he had had his fair share of run-ins with them, of course normally he had the sound turned on, so when he saw the five men dressed like TV thugs he didn’t even blink. Now, Akakios isn’t normally illogical to the point where he uses his first language on people he absolutely knows won’t understand him, but today his head hurt too much for him to even give a crap, so, instead of opening his mouth to tell the men to go away he held his left hand out flat with the palm facing the floor and balled his right hand into a fist with only his pointer finger out, he then slipped his right hand under his left like a train going through a tunnel (go away).
The five men just stood there dumbly for a moment, but the magic of a man using his hands to speak soon wore off and they were again moving towards him…
