Everyday Truth by Cartoon Moon

 

As the sky detached itself from the half-light of evening, the bus lurched out of its stagnant position and crept into the unfurling traffic ahead. The windows filled with the fierce assault of October rain, instantly creating pixelated images of all in its line of sight. Bright ambers and reds merged together; creating a consonance of autumn which had been peaking with its usual force. Outside was an onslaught. A field of dancing umbrellas, ducking and weaving almost in unison yet giving the air of a swarm of infuriated wasps. Each one a threat. Leaves which had given so much of themselves to the rampant beauty of the village now lay sediment. The carpet they created now provided a rich tapestry of colour that blanketed the paths; deep autumnal colours overlapping one another giving a sense of sadness to the concrete as if playing out one final dying wish to inspire.

 

Inside, the safe protective warmth of the bus may have given the illusion of comfort but the reality was far from it. Second hand music rattled around the space as it spilled from over-eager headphones, adding a disconcerting buzz to an already close environment. The air was moist from the rain that evaporated from the shoulders of coats, hanging transparently in the yellow light. What could not be seen, however, could be sensed. It provided a thin film over your eyes, almost as if you had just awoken but couldn’t shake the haze. It gave the place a fuzzy feeling. Commuters felt an unease as their minds were dulled by the combination of audio and visual restraints. Newspapers were ruffled and folded, pages turned, statuses updated. The melodrama of the commute was enough to generate proclamations of frustration and boredom; spreading the negativity that encapsulated the bus far beyond its geographical location.

 

The vessel had nothing else of note aside from two lovers. The ease with which they carried themselves gave away the connection between them. Sitting opposite each other, conversations started and ended with single utterances. Facial expression replaced the need for vocalization. As the journey wore on, laughter was replaced by intolerant shrugs between bus-stops. It was as if the full nature of human relationships was taking place, cyclically, between these two individuals. He watched as she looked away; almost at once his gaze followed hers, being channelled to share her experiences. Then she spoke, long and full. Her palm was open and upturned, giving the impression that was questioning him.

 

**************************

 

‘I’ll have to ask my head’, he said, sliding down in his chair as if to shield himself from his own answer. It was an untypical response to a typical request. It was said it in such a way that it seemed like the most intuitive of phrases ever coined, while simultaneously being as frivolous and as disconcerting as an off-colour joke. He had been making a habit of such utterances for as long as she could remember. Words tumbled out of his off-centred mouth with an assured ease of thought and delivery that befell the listener with wonder at the thought processes that could possibly contribute to as idiosyncratic a manner of speaking as his. It gave weight and credence to the persona he had crafted and nurtured throughout his teenage years and into early adulthood.

Bourne from accident yet carrying the weight of scars too heavy to let go of. The way he thought about the world was a culmination of circumstance, misinformation and possibly the most formative, fear. Fear of rejection and the recurrence of the inevitable dejection that comes of it. Fear of being seen as a cookie-cutter ‘lad’. The type that was emotionally and, in the most private recesses of their imagination, sexually, indebted to anything that upgraded their interactions from passing to meaningful. Most of all though, he was laden with the irrational yet perfectly alluring fear of truth. Like any others that fear truth, his fear was such that to succumb to the abhorrent world of fiction that categorized so many of the words he heard, that he could not think of a more important trait than to seek out a different form of communication. One which satisfied him yet allowed him to bask in a secret egotistical warmth.

Something gnawed at him though. He wasn’t like others. He saw through bullshit. He was different.

Like everyone else.

 

*

 

‘Yeah, it was some ability alright’, she thought. An ability to see through the banality of social convention, to scrape away the layers of truth, counter truth and projected anti-wisdom that pervades modern interactions. An innate compulsion to unearth a hidden yet simple logic, reaching far beyond the generic Instagram filter of discourse. It was this ability that had so endeared him to her. It had fed her mind with remarkable arguments against the accepted reasoning she had come to regard as fact. Facets of herself that she could but offer helplessly, carelessly drifted out of her as she listened. She swam in his words. It wasn’t so much an ebb or flow that lifted her. Conversely, his phrases were clunky at times. Their juxtaposition made her dizzy. They were also instrumental in pushing them, as lovers, apart.

As the words landed in her ears, she grimaced. The sort of grimace that told him everything yet nothing. It was a look that had reciprocated his words all too often recently. They both knew it yet neither knew the cause. As her reply formed on her tongue it hit her. It would be more accurate to say that it blossomed inside her, as in reality, it had been growing and developing in her psyche for some time. It was only now, sitting opposed to him on a late night bus, watching with half dead eyes as the lights of a thousand and countless living rooms lit up by the glare of widescreen televisions, giving the façade of contentment, drifted past them, that she could fully formulate the reason for her disquiet. It stirred a sense of loss immediately for she now had no choice but to face up to the stark reality that the deterioration of their relationship had evolved into a full stop.

 

Ultimately, she thought, everyone is a fraud. Not one single person can look at themselves without feeling the sharp pang of guilt. She allowed her mind to follow this idea to its conclusion. For as long as she cared to consider, she had looked up to him as some bastion of honesty. Her opinions were, unknown to her, formed from his. She has subconsciously allowed herself to be surrogate to his truth. His opinions. His fears. But what were they? On another day, she had watched in awe as he shared opinions on honesty. Honesty, he said, was too wretched a concept to be beneficial. The people that declare themselves as honest, he had continued, were simply using it to mask the barbed message they delivered. Once she had disentangled herself from her confusion at such a statement, she had not only come to believe this, but she had a deep admiration for the notion, repeating it herself on a number of occasions.

It was only now that she had thought to ask herself, amidst his twisted English and quirky charm, what reason he had for being so honest? What was he delivering? More pertinently, what mask was he wearing? His record collection might have left a more transient listener stumped. His clothes might seem deeply independent yet gloriously populist. His political affiliations might scream revolution, peacefully of course. What was now impossibly easy to see however, was that the person he had so carefully constructed was nothing more than a shadow. A nuanced yet formulaic version of everybody else. His truth, she conceded, was hers.

Her truth was anyone’s.

As the bus stopped to relieve itself of a sterile looking lady with unkempt hair and too many concerns on her mind, it jolted her into consciousness.

 

‘You know, you don’t always have to speak like that’, she said.