HOME | DD

Description
He says, son, can you play me a memory?
I'm not really sure how it goes
But its sad and its sweet and I knew it complete
When I wore a younger mans clothes

Shawn's throat burned. His body was tired and haggard as he slumped against the mahogany wood of the bar, the thin cushion of the barstool not aiding to alleviate the numbness that had crept into his thin frame from the waist downward. Beside him sat his brother of some thirty years, though technically they were not brothers by blood. Jim sat next to him, his fiery red hair seeming to attempt to compensate for the sadness evident in his expressive brown eyes. Ever the silent type, Jim said not a word to the bartender, cleaning one of his many false crystalline glasses with a rag he had taken from his belt loop as he helped a customer father down the line. The sound of the glass hitting the mahogany was something the bartender must have been attuned to from Shawn and Jim's many appearances to the bar, because no sooner had Jim set it down then the bartender was there to refill it, also equally as silent. The endlessness of the night stretched outside the windows and doorway of the bar, beckoning to those who were foolish enough to be ensnared by its faux charms. As Shawn gazed out the windows and into the night, he remembered a time when he reveled in the night, and with a sigh he drunkenly stood, motioned to Jim, and hobbled out of the bar.

The next morning found Shawn rousing from the couch of his shared apartment with his old friend Jim, a splitting headache causing him to mutter as he headed for the kitchen side of the small shelter he called a home. The phone rang out, deafening in the silence and his suddenly pain-filled ears. "Name?" he questioned into the phone, his once nice and temperate voice filled with malice. "Sorry," a distinctly female voice said on the other end of the line, "I must have the wrong number..." Shawn sobered instantly. He knew that voice. "Brooke?" he asked, and at her positive response, his blood sang through his veins. 'Gods,' he thought 'that hasn't happened since she left for college...Oh how I've missed this feeling...this awareness that someone cares.'

After a short conversation with Brooke, in which Shawn scheduled a lunch for himself and Jim, Shawn placed the phone back on its hook, noticing the peeling wallpaper for the first time in a long time. "Lord, what a mess I've made of my life."

This is all I have for now. More to come possibly, but I dunno. Not up to the usual par I know, but its 4AM on a Wed. Morning, and I've naught else to do.