Far Above the Clouds. That’s a song written by the british composer Mike Oldfield; a true legend. I wish that I could be the little child screaming in it. Being far above the clouds, that didn’t sound so weird right now. Opening Heaven’s gate, taking your first steps into the celestial city. Imagine not being alive, not needing to worry about anything, just giving up life. Sadly, those who commited suicide didn’t end up in God’s arms. So I couldn’t take my life. Besides, I couldn’t hurt my parents and Olivia like that. They would be so sad, even Olivia. Yeah, even my little moron of a sister. Those were my rather sad, daydreams, there on that bench in the school’s hallway. It was Friday, and tomorrow was my ‘test’ date with Lydia.
“You are alone, Coombe.”
“Huh?” I stopped right there, putting an end to my daydream. In front of me, she stood. Her second words to me. That girl I’d met earlier that week, the new girl. Her black hair was more beautiful than ever. I was in the perfect position to admire her legs, they looked like they were, as a certain somebody had said, made for kicking someone in the balls.
She repeated herself. “You are alone, Coombe.”
Why did she have to repeat it? And why did she just point out that I was sitting there, alone. What a bitch.
“How do you know my name?”
“Teacher’s files.” She held up a folder, through the red plastic I could spot a students journal. Didn’t know her name, nor did I recognise the picture. She was telling the truth though, she had stolen it, I presume. “Why are you alone, Coombe?”
She sat down next to me on the bench, but left a considerable amount of space between us.
“You are no longer alone, Coombe.”
No shit, what was this girl’s problem?
“I never asked for your name?” I muttered. She took the folder she held in her hand and dragged out another document. This time the picture was of her.
“Mist, Melicia.” She said it in monotone, like she had no desire to live at all. No excitement, no happiness. Melicia Mist, that was exactly what was written on the document.
“I need an acquainted,” she said. But did she sound motivated? No, it was like someone had forced her to spit those words out her mouth. “You will be my acquainted?”
Overwhelmed by her way of speaking, the only thing I could utter was a silent “Yes.”
“What’s up with the use of surnames though?” I wasn’t expecting an answer. But surely, she did tell me her reason.
“Coombe? Your name is not Coombe?” She looked surprised, like she’d gotten it wrong.
“No, it’s technically Coombe...but that’s my surname. You see my first name is Ethan.” For looking like she did, she didn’t seem smart.
“But it is written here.” She held up my journal this time. What a terrible picture; I tried to remember when they’d have time to take it.
“You see, in these journals...well, the surname is written first,” I said and pointed out the mistake she’d made.
She nodded. “I understand, Ethan.”
“So, Melicia... How come you just ask a stranger if they could become your friend?”
“That is my way of getting acquaintances.”
Oh, is it so, Melicia Mist? It’s definitely a weird way to seek friendship. To be honest, imagine if I’d done that to others, I would probably receive a fist in my face, not to mention all the weird rumours that would go around. “Hey, look! There’s that weirdo, Ethan, or whatever. I heard he tries to befriend people just by asking them if they can be his friend.”
Yeah, that would be horrible. My life status would plummet from the purgatory to hell.
“We should exchange numbers, that is what friends do.”
Straight to the point, I liked it. It’d taken ages to get Lydia’s number, in fact, we only exchanged them yesterday. I mean, it wasn’t like we knew each other, but you know, numbers are just a number, nothing of importance.
“So you are my friend now? I thought you said acquaintance.”
Then she smiled, it was the first time I’d ever seen her do that, so I was a bit surprised. But that was a good thing, she didn’t need to be so distant. Hell, she’d even moved closer to me on the bench since we started chatting.
“Those are synonyms.”
Surely they can’t be, right? Or am I in the wrong here?
She repeated herself: “Those are synonyms, Ethan.”
“Yeah yeah, whatever you like…”
She got up from the bench and looked towards me as she walked away; she didn’t utter a single word. Then she was gone around the corner. This felt surreal, why had a random person just walked up to me and asked for my number? Was she truly lonely like me? My only assumption was that she in fact was a loner, and therefore she had probably watched me be lonely as well. Who knows, maybe she only wanted to befriend loners?
Wait, what if it was some stupid trick? What if she was playing with my poor feelings. I bet she just stood around the corner with a bunch of normie-girls and laughed their ass off. A notification got my phone vibrating. I decided to pick it up and see what it was. Hm, maybe this wasn’t a trick? She’d texted me a single word: test. I replied back with an OK and a smiley face. No wait, scratch that last part; who uses smileys anymore?
Then lunch break came, and guess who decided to appear? Yeah, Avon. So you decided to come to school now on lunch break. You couldn’t just attend from the very beginning this morning? Better keep those thoughts to myself.
“Guess what? I know the new girl’s name,” I said as he sat down at the table. He’d bought the standard lunch. It consisted of white fish, presumably cod, but no one could know when it came to the school cafeteria, and a bunch of under-boiled potatoes. He pressed the mayonnaise bottle to make it come out on the plate, but instead he made a mess and had to wipe it clean.
“Huh, you’ve been stealing Court’s student journal?” Those words gave me a strange feeling of deja vu.
“No, she actually...well, talked to me.” He looked up from his plate, he was definitely surprised. “Yeah, she casually just walked up to me. Literary asking for my number.”
He laughed. “You sure are lucky.”
“She seems so weird though. She speaks in monotone and is extremely formal.”
“Who knows, maybe she’s an aristocrat? Rich parents maybe?”
“Oh, and another thing. You know that I joined the Comedy Club, right?” He looked surprised and started laughing again. “How much did Ian pay you?”
I uttered a small chuckle, and then tried to take a bite of the little sandwich I’d bought; even that one was awfully bad. It had an extreme lack of any condiments, to the extent that I would’ve been better off eating cardboard. I never shared my feelings to girls with anyone, so Avon wasn’t an exception; he had no idea that I liked Lydia.
“Lydia asked me if I could help her out.” Something like this must’ve gone on in his head: “You’ve spoken with two girls in a short period of time, what in the?!”
“And what did she want then?”
“She asked me if I could help her to get closer to Ian. Apparently, she likes that guy. So we’re going to watch some stand-up tomorrow.”
“I agree, that is indeed the best way to get closer to Ian. Hmm...so…why did you join the club then?”
“Nothing. Besides, I need your help. If I’m meeting a girl, even if it’s not a real date, I need something different to wear. You’re always so stylish, Avon. So can I ask you for help?”
“Actually, I see my schedule is free after school, we should go then, OK?” he said and picked up his phone, pretending that he was some elite stock broker who had a busy schedule and had to put every single appointment into his calendar. He stopped there, and we both turned our eyes towards Melicia. She’d taken a seat right next to us at the circular table.
“What is your name?” she asked and looked towards Avon.
So you didn’t bother to look him up in the student journal then. Well, I can’t expect you to know everyone at school just because you stole the journal. Also, you had the urge to be formal with me, but you go straight to asking someone’s name when you meet them. You know that it’s standard to first mention your own name and then ask the stranger for their name?
“A-Avon,” he stuttered.
“I will help you get clothes for your date too, Ethan. I am a woman so I know what you need to wear to look good,” she said and smiled. This was the second time she’d done that in front of me.
“It’s not...like that, Melicia.”
“What is it like then? Who are you going out with? We are friends now, show me!” She once again brought out the student’s journal from her bag and pointed on it. “Show me.”
“Don’t you think it’s just a little weird walking around with the student’s journal?” Avon asked her. He looked concerned, it was like he was thinking: “Please don’t look me up! You will see all my terrible grades.”
“Why? No. If I can see them with my eyes in real life, how is a photograph any different?”
“I don’t think that is how it works, but OK.”
“Anyway, which girl you have a date with does not c-concern me...I shall help you become a stylish man, after all...I am an expert,” she said, trying to sound comfortable. But then she suddenly seemed annoyed, and not that it was easy to tell, but she definitely seemed a tiny bit angry.
“I’ll let you help me if you return that journal,” I said and pointed at the folder which was now on the table. What if someone saw it? Oh boy, we would be in so much trouble.
“Fine,” she said and pouted. This was the first time she genuinely seemed to be normal. But it didn’t change the fact; Melicia was seriously strange.
Someone had spilled out a sticky fluid in the staircase leading up to the third floor. It got stuck on my shoes and a creaking sound could be heard at every step I took. There are some that can simply not behave. At least you could call the maintenance staff to clean it up if you were too lazy to clean it yourself. This school consisted of a bunch of retards; idiots that didn’t know how to do the easiest of things. It was always me or any of the other few moderately smart people that had to deal with the simplest of things. It’s extremely exhausting being the one asked to do stuff by the teachers and the school’s management. They know they can rely on you, so they use you as the safe bet. This one time I was tasked to move over a hundred PCs from the student council’s office to three different classrooms. “New shiny stuff that could absolutely not be damaged.” At least that was what the president had said. Oh, Ms. President, also known as Everleigh Gray. She believed the student council was some supranational dictatorship, like in teen movies. She’d been in arguments with Mr. Court numerous times when she’d tried to use more power than she actually possessed as the president. I guess, Mr. Court, wasn’t that bad of a guy really. I mean, there was no lie that he hated the majority of the students at this school. But he was fair, diplomatic, and sometimes even funny. I guess, he actually was a good teacher, even if it was hard admitting it.
Now, teachers! If you need to take a safe bet and let me do important stuff because you can’t trust the students you put so much time into teaching. Why in the world choose me? You could just choose Everleigh or someone else at the council, they fucking signed up for this shit. Not me, they did! THEY DID!
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I could relax. It was nice spitting all that negativity out, even if it was just in my head.
When I got to the classroom, Avon was already there. He must’ve taken a shortcut or something, because I remember clearly that I’d left before him. Come to think of it, I didn’t know any shortcuts at this school. Was there any at all? Our teacher began speaking just as I’d sat down. Everything she said just went straight through my head; not a single thing stuck and I learned nothing. It used to be like this, average grades, average dude. I didn’t see myself as a normie, because I wasn't. But perhaps I was an average, boring person. It’s definitely hard to divide yourself up into the standard person-types that existed in this world. Either you were smart, stupid, average or just a person who didn’t care. Those were the 4 types of students, and all of them sounded terrifying. Who even wants these divisions of students? There’s no telling; imagine if you had a public poll, asking all the students what division they would consider themselves to be in. Hell would break loose, I’d expect no one to take it seriously, even if deep down they knew these divisions existed, and also exactly knew what division they would be in themselves. It’s just speculation, but it sure would be funny. Personally I seemed to be in either the ‘average’-division or the ‘don’t care’-division. Maybe I should ask Avon? Or even Melicia? Yeah, that would be a funny experiment, asking Melicia of what division she thought I should be in. I wonder what division I would place her in, probably the ‘smart’ one. Or was there some hidden division just for her? I don’t know, it seemed hard. Let’s just say she’s in the ‘Melicia’-division.
After class, I’d been assigned to bring a bunch of survey results to the student council. They ran surveys now and then to, as they said it, check the well-being of the students. We all knew this was a bullshit explanation for them to do something. In reality, the student council didn’t do shit; it was just there to serve as a symbolic group of top-tier students. I did as I’d been told and grabbed the folder of the survey results. They were anonymous, so looking at them wouldn’t even be funny. But being scolded by Ms. President Anne wouldn’t be such a bad thing. She was definitely cute, even if her chest was almost flat. Breasts don’t mean everything, you think I’m some pervert?
I knocked on the door to the student council, a quiet voice said:
“Come in.”
And boy when I came in I was surprised. There was only one girl there; the president: Everleigh Gray. She looked her usual self, her demonic-like eyes stared at me. Her extremely shiny black hair stunned me and her skirt was folded up into her shirt a fair amount above the recommended length.
“Once again, I appreciate that you brought these documents to me. Thank god there’s at least one less stupid person than the others in your class.”
“W-what do you need those surveys for anyway?” I stuttered. I was still almost frozen by her beauty.
She sighed. “Even if I told you there’s no way you’d understand. Sorry, but let us with normal brains handle these things.”
Shut the fuck up, bitch, I wanted to say. But seeing her like that, not even the bravest person in the world could do such a thing. She’d probably tie you up to a chair and force your head inside of a bucket of boiling water numerous times until you apologised. And if she didn’t, she’d be a murderer. Not that I mind though, tee-hee.
“I guess...you’re right,” I said. I was totally lying, I really wanted to know what she would do with those surveys.
“I see you haven’t touched them, you’re a good boy, Ethan.” She said that like I was her pet, running around doing all her errands. Again, not that I mind though, tee-hee-hee.
“Thank you very much, Everleigh.”
She smiled. “Don’t thank me, I should be the one thanking you. You’re always very helpful. You haven’t thought of joining the council, have you? We could really use some new members.”
That was a pleasant surprise, she just said that I was stupid. I guess her reasoning was: “Since most of the school is retarded, and you’re the one who’s the least retarded.”
I shook my head. “Nope, that hasn’t crossed my mind.”
“Well, you can go now,” she said and pointed to the door. “And if you ever want to join us, there’s a seat open.”
“Thanks,” I said and walked out.
I didn’t give it much thought, but I guess joining the council wouldn’t be so bad after all, definitely better than the comedy club at least. And since I already did a bunch of errands, maybe this was the perfect time spender for me? On slow days, I would have somewhere to go. And on normal-pace days, well, I don’t know what would happen there, but hopefully it was bound to be good. Let me just leave the Comedy Club first, and then we can talk, I thought.
“Oh, there you are,” Avon said. He was standing outside the entrance with Melicia right next to him. “Good afternoon,” she said.
“So where are we going?” I asked.
“Melicia has actually picked out a few places which would suit you...at least I hope,” Avon said and chuckled.
“Failure is not an option, I have made sure of that. This mission is my first as the friend of Ethan Coombe, so it will not fail.”
“Haha, you’re a funny girl, Melicia,” Avon said. He looked confused, and with much right, she was definitely weird. I wondered what store she’d picked out; hopefully it was good. I guess I should’ve just picked the store on my own, instead I had no idea where we were going. We walked towards the station, it wasn’t long so there was no need to take the bus for the mere 2 stops. The road on our left was bustling, it was fairly quiet during weekends and during off-peak. But now, during the peak, it was extremely busy. So busy in fact, that traffic jams formed at the intersections. Melicia looked down on her phone, but it seemed like she still had a grasp of the real world, so she wouldn’t accidentally walk out on the road and get hit by a car, or wore, a lorry. The entrance to the station was crowded, and so were the platforms too. You had to be careful not to get pushed down on the tracks. We remained quiet on the crowded train, it would’ve been hard speaking anyway.
“Here we are,” Melicia said and pointed towards the storefront. The store was filled with gothic-like clothing, models with piercing and black leather jackets. It felt like the main demographic of this store was either metalheads or EMOs. Sureley, this had to be a joke; there was no way she was serious, right? I glanced at Avon who met my eyes with a serious look, then he smiled a bit. “Hmm, this is weird,” he said without Melicia hearing.
“I-I don’t think this...is my type,” I stuttered.
“Completely wrong, this suits you perfectly,” she said and opened the door.
Don’t I know what’s the best for me? Or am I in the wrong here? That aside, I was shocked when I came into the store. It smelled of cigarette smoke and alcohol. This store wasn’t part of some mega-chain and instead, appeared to be just owned privately. I guess this would allow the staff to do whatever they wanted during work hours. I mean, it was practically empty except a middle-aged man wandering around the shirt section. It had its perks, the staff could do just anything when no one was watching. This place was weird, no saying that would be an understatement; THIS WAS FRIGHTENING.
“This would make you look like a man,” Melicia said. She held up a black t-shirt with If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular? printed on it in white. You could really tell the low quality of the print. It looked like it could be scratched off in an instant with the shortest fingernails. The fabric looked washed out; it was basically screaming retro. The price tag confirmed my suspicions; only 8 pounds. Still, there’s no way I’m wearing that, especially not when meeting Lydia.
“A-are you into this stuff, Melicia?” Avon stuttered.
She sighed. “Is this not what men wear on dates?”
“I guess...if you’re at a metal concert...or something.”
This was the first time I saw Melicia laughing, she even laughed so hard that the depressed-looking staff member behind the counter looked up from his magazine. Was his melancholy cured?
“Oh my, if I’ve ever seen three high school students in my store before,” he said and laughed. Then the laughter turned into coughing, presumably from all the cigarette smoke. “I think you’ve got it all wrong, girl. If he’s going on a date, may I suggest a different store?” Without waiting for an answer he continued: “My friend, cough, runs a store just outside this neighbourhood.” He shared the address with us and waved his hands to show us to leave. But Melicia, as stubborn as she appeared to be, insisted on continuing searching for clothes inside the store. So she took a firm step with her right foot, banging down on the floor, further inside.
“You kids nowadays are weird,” he said and sighed, returning his vision down to the magazine he was reading.
Yeah, right? This whole culture is weird and disgusting. Whoever in their right mind would walk around with nits and spikes on their jacket?
“Look at this,” Melicia said. “It would look really…”
Without letting her finish the sentence, I answered with a “No.” She didn’t want to admit defeat however, she was still believing that this was normal clothes for a date.
“I’m going to wait...outside,” Avon said behind our backs, carefully. The bell over the door sounded as he left the store. Inside were only I and Melicia, plus the middle-aged man and the staff member behind the counter.
“Look, Melicia. You don’t seem to understand the general rules in clothing. Do you really think this would suit me? I mean, look at this,” I said and dragged out a badly folded t-shirt from one of the drawers. It had the same disgusting font as the one before, only this time with an even more lewd quote.
“Do you not want this girl to like you?” she asked.
“No. It’s not a real date for god sake. IT’S A FAKE DATE!” My shouting drew the attention of the middle-aged man, his eyes looked suspiciously at us. The staff member didn’t seem to notice though, he was well inside of the magazine he was reading.
“We are going,” she said and took my hand.
My...hand? Huh? What is this warmth? Melicia always seemed so cold. But her hand, man, it got all of my body warmed up. Like the warmth that comes out of a fireplace, it spread out evenly and induced me with some sort of well-being and comfort.
“I think she understands,” I said as we got out. Avon was leaning against a tree planted between the road and the pavement.
“Well, then. We’ve covered one store, which...ehm...yeah.” He looked confused, trying his best no to mention anything sensitive about the store that could make Melicia angry. “We still don’t have anything for you to wear on your date. So...let’s just go to a normal chain-store or something; there’s a shopping centre near.”
“Fake date,” I corrected, without the other two hearing.
“B-but..I made a list of stores,” Melicia said. It was almost like she was crying, disappointed in her performance. After all, she’d said it was her first “mission” to help me or something. Weird, I thought.
As we progressed towards the shopping centre, which thankfully wasn’t located very far away, I couldn’t avoid thinking about Melicia’s taste in clothing. There’s no way that she’d even seen a guy in those clothes go on a date with a girl. And even if that was the case, it must’ve been a one-time occurence. Guys would usually dress in somewhat formal clothing, maybe a slightly nicer t-shirt and jeans, or going a bit further and dressing in a polo and a pair of chinos. Some would even go dressed in a shirt. Not that I knew for real thought. I’d never been on a date before, all of my experience came from watching teen dramas and rom-coms on TV. Combining more than three colours would also be considered a bad idea. Prefered ones were black, white and maybe navy-blue. If you felt a bit more bold you could go with a mixture of brighter colours like lime-green, white and maybe yellow. One thing was certain however, you never wore more than three colours! It would ruin the cleanliness of your outfit, and the girl would either think you were some art-head or a socially awkward loner. But again, not that I had any real-life experience.
As for what a girl wore on a date; frankly, I had no idea. My own take on the matter was that watching TV didn’t give me a sufficient amount of material to work with. A girl’s wardrobe was much larger than a guy’s, technically speaking. The excessive amount of ways a girl could go dressed like exceeded the ways guys could by a landslide. However, I wouldn’t say we were lucky. In fact, our appearance matters a lot, way exceeding that of the girls. Speaking from a guys point of view, girls had it much easier when it came to finding love.
No further explanation is needed, I would eventually go on and embarrass myself.
We eventually found ourselves in front of the shopping centre. It was big, seriously humongous. The main entrance was glass plated from top to bottom, there were no normal doors; only turnstiles, like the ones in the metro. You see, in this modern and sophisticated world we lived in normal shopping centres had been replaced. Instead, a new payment system was implemented. You essentially scanned the products from every store you wanted into your smartphone, and when you went outside you just scanned the phone again at the turnstiles. And as simple as that, the money was drawn from your account and you could casually just walk outside without any human interaction. Perfect for loners, and even if I wasn’t one of them, giggle, I certainly enjoyed this system. I guess it had its flaws, but that is given with any system. There’s simply no way you can please everyone, but you have to look at the bigger picture; look at what’s best for humanity.
“I think I’m just going to buy this shirt,” I said. I held up a piece of white fabric with plastic buttons. It was creased almost everywhere, so an ironing was needed.
“It looks good,” they both said in tandem. I couldn’t agree any less. But more important, it was cheap. My shortage of money was caused by Olivia and her unhuman-like craving for expensive sweets. Why I was keeping up with her all the time, I didn’t know. I simply couldn’t answer it myself, even if I wanted to do so. It is hard to lose siblings, so you can indeed have arguments with them. But I didn’t want any arguments; I tried to avoid trouble everywhere I went. Now that I think about it. That’s legit indirect blackmailing. Indirect as in the way that her intention wasn’t to blackmail me, but it certainly felt like that. Hopefully something like that didn’t go on in her head, and that I was solely imagining.
“You should seriously try these trousers out too.” Avon held up a pair of black fabric trousers. Nothing special, just ordinary, somewhat formal looking, trousers. Melicia didn’t seem too happy about it. If I decided to go with the shirt and those trousers she would be left without lending any help at all; her mission would’ve failed. Not that it matters to me though, I was just happy, no, intrigued, by the fact that a girl had joined us.
She was still angry when we left the store. “You did your best, Melicia,” I said and smiled. I then turned to Avon and with a smirk on my face said: “Welp, that didn’t help, she seems so down. Don’t you think, Avon?” I spoke louder to try and irritate her.
“I believe we still should check out that store we got recommended,” she said.
Something seemed wrong, I doubt taking advice from him would be a good idea. But anyway, I guess I could please her for a moment.
“Sure we can do it,” I said. Avon nodded in confirmation. He brought up his phone from his pocket and searched up directions to the address we’d been given.
“Oh, fantastic. It’s right around here somewhere.” He looked relieved, was his stamina bad or something? Avon showed us around a corner into a small alley. The asphalt turned to cracked concrete under our feet and pools of AC-water formed inside of the dents. On one side there was a white flat complex, but the colour had been worn off, probably due to the lack of maintenance. On the other side was an iron fence, it reached high up so climbing it would be near impossible. An ivy was growing all over it, making the visibility through the fence restricted. It was really spooky, and it seemed a bit unloved. All in all this place looked like a shithole. I couldn’t even imagine how a young girl like Melicia would feel if she walked down this alley alone, in the dark. The risk of getting mugged, or even worse, raped, was probably quite high. The alley ended and we had reached something one would have called a square if it wasn’t this unpleasant. A pair of cars were parked alongside the wall. They had definitely seen better days, corrosion had formed around the wheelbase and one of the car’s windscreen was cracked.
“Oh, kids. They never rarely come here,” a man said. He was sitting outside of what once looked to be a storefront. It now looked like something out of a dystopian movie. Iron bars covered the smashed windows, the door was almost broken and the neon sign above, which spelled LOVE♥TOYS, was flickering with a few letters not even lit up.
“He tricked us.”
“Yeah, let’s go.”