No Distant Music

Shea had spent her whole life listening to signs to dictate all of her choices. She saw a message from her dead grandpa in every butterfly, a conversation partner in the wind between her fingers, and a soft greeting in the patches of small blue flowers along the fire road behind her childhood home. Her deciding factor in her choice of university was that her grandpa’s favorite song, “Life is a Highway,” played on the radio while she thought about one of her choices.

A choice Shea was now wondering if she should have based on tours and facts instead as her heavy black boots trailed through the brown leaves that piled in the corners of the sidewalks. There were no discernible seasons in California other than hot and hotter, so all the chirping cardinal reds and dripping mango yellows existed only in Shea’s mind as she tried to picture herself anywhere else.

Of course, there was some sort of charm to the little town surrounding her university, but it was a little hard to appreciate with the oppressive grey of the sky and the humidity making sweat drip down the back of her neck at the moment. The tight ponytail that she had tied that morning only served to make her curly blonde baby hairs poof up like a lion’s mane and give her a headache from the tension. Even her clothing choice of baggy jeans, her comfort Van Gogh graphic tee, and light zip-up hoodie were too heavy in the muggy heat of the Thursday afternoon.

Thursdays used to be one of Shea’s favorite days with the weekend so close and all the possibilities for new memories and adventures waiting with it. It also helped that Inez always had Thursday afternoons off from work, so they could just drive around and talk until their voices faded with the rising of the stars. Two years after high school, Shea still ached with phantom pains as she watched cars of rowdy students drive past screaming song lyrics while she just trudged around the neighborhood in an endless loop with the silence of no new notifications ringing louder than the podcast streaming through her headphones. At least, Inez and her had grown so close over the years that Shea could still carry conversations with her in the universe inside her head, so it was almost like nothing had changed. In a way, it made her miss Inez less, which might be even more depressing than the former.

They had stayed in touch for a few months after graduating, but news of how much Inez loved college and was meeting platonic soulmates left and right soothed Shea’s worry just as much as it made her pity her own silent walks and empty lunch table. Maybe a part of Shea just resented Inez for the seed of doubt she had planted in her the last time they ever talked on the phone.

Shea was sitting contently in the window seat of her favorite cafe. The just loud enough music made conversation possible but faded in the background for all the single tables of people trying to get any work done. Her passion fruit tea glowed golden yellow in the ray of the afternoon sun, as Shea checked her phone during her desperately needed break from her homework. One missed call from Inez. The sun suddenly made Shea break out into a sweat as her fumbling fingers pressed call back. She raked her hands through her hair as the FaceTime call went through after a few rings.

The same sun shined on Inez as she smiled from under some tree. It was hard to remember sometimes that her school was only forty minutes away. They chatted for a while about ‘how are you’ and random class anecdotes. Even though it was a bit awkward, it was still them. Shea was smiling so hard her cheeks were starting to ache and her voice was getting scratchy from actually holding a conversation.

“But, how is college really? I never saw you as the higher education type,” Inez said in a breezy way as if she had just commented on the weather.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean you’re smart and passionate enough, of course, but I thought you were going to join the Peace Corps and actually do something with your art.”

“I’m still going to.” Shea could feel herself getting defensive, but she couldn’t help it. Sure, no one had really seemed that interested in her art or process at school, but those things took time.

“Why wait? You need to ask yourself if you’re just going to college because that is what is expected of you. I know you, Shea. You’ll let the world decide everything for you.”

The words Shea had been planning to say were sucked out into the void with the rest of her breath. Inez, the crystal collecting, tarot card reading, Inez was telling her to be a more active participant in her life just because she was a bit superstitious.

“So, I should just pack my bags and leave because everything isn’t immediately going my way?”

“No, I’m just saying you should think about it.”

That was that. The call wrapped up quickly with Inez needing to study for an upcoming test and Shea with an empty stone in her stomach that wasn’t there before.

A part of Shea felt determined to prove Inez wrong in some way. She tried to make friends and assimilate into the new culture of the school, but nothing ever stuck. The people in her classes had always been nice enough, but no bond ever formed beyond small talk and occasional study groups for some of her more dreaded GE classes. She could recognize some of the people in her major—the fine arts college was far from the largest on campus—but they all looked vaguely familiar yet impossible to match with a name. Sometimes, Shea would remember the glint of caramel sun in the hair of the swimmer that sat in front of her once it dried halfway through each class, the way that one boy with a triangle of mismatched color in one of his eyes would laugh just a little louder than everyone else, or the old spike of jealousy and awe at the impossibly smooth and complex blending of that shy girl’s pastel work from a past critique.

  Shea could recall these insignificant details with a single glance at someone during a passing period or from the window seat of her favorite cafe, but that spark of recognition never bounced back her way. She was always left staring back at blank, unseeing eyes. A stranger just sailing through her college years without a trace of her existence left behind to show for the time rushing past.

Shea knew that Inez would tell her that she should take these little moments to foster friendships with those people that didn’t recognize her by helping them with a due date or a paper topic. It was no use.

She wasn’t an Inez. Her words flowed out of her mouth like a broken tap, all random spurts and never quite palatable enough to drink without a grimace. Shea knew that she had become a pity case, except no one in college had the time or commitment to put her psyche back together with something stronger than scotch tape. Maybe Inez was right. Shea had quit every sport and extracurricular she had ever tried whether it took a few days or several years. She just never thought her college experience might end the same way.

The roads around her had finally quieted down the further she traveled aimlessly from the main street. No students or ruthless cars trying to run her down made it this far. The episode of her podcast could finally be heard. A story about someone being killed by avatars of an entity called the Lonely. Yikes, definitely not the divine sign she was hoping for.

Usually, Shea tried to keep her mind focused on homework, her steady footsteps on the sidewalk, or whatever she had chosen that moment to blast her eardrums out with, but her recent critique made even her favorite forms of distraction fail in comparison to the thoughts of her life since graduating high school.  She had spent hours on her gouache piece only to put it on the wall and see the reality of it next to everyone else’s in the class.

The doors had banged like a percussion arrangement with art students throwing them open with a flourish and then letting them slam shut behind them. Everyone looking for any small way to relieve the stress of an upcoming critique. Shea had done the same and rushed over to attach her work to the wall. No one else wanted to be the first one on the board, but she relished in staring at her piece taped proudly by itself and imagining it was a gallery opening, rather than the school’s dingy wall with the paint starting to unfurl. With eyes shining, Shea stepped back and just took in her piece for one glorious moment. She had spent hours getting the perfect cherry red for the crab apples and blistered her hands sharpening her colored pencils to form the delicate lines of the tree bark. A few years ago, her grandma had cut down the very same crab apple tree from her driveway. Sure, her husband had died fifteen years ago, but it was their marriage tree and Shea knew she had to put it to paper the second she found the old folded picture of it at the bottom of the kitchen drawer.

  Shea’s heart sank as each critique hammered against her skull in a way that she knew had sunk its claws too deep in her skin to ever let go. All anyone wanted to talk about were techniques, backgrounds, and perspectives. Shea knew all of those aspects were important, but there was more to art than just technique. Do emotion and meaning have no place in the art world anymore?

A part of Shea wished that this moment would turn into the chip on her shoulder that pushed her to become an improved artist and stun the world with each new piece. That was probably the worst part of it all. There was no sudden rush to pick up her pencils and inks to throw the mess that tangled like a Gordian knot in her head onto a sheet of paper. No divine being had struck her with the gift of a clear mind and cosmic creativity. What was the point of any of it if no one saw behind paint strokes and eraser marks? Mostly, Shea wanted to create a world beneath her bed and live the rest of her days out as a hermit. The only thing that kept her walking—even though the sky was starting to pink and the autumn wind finally got the memo to do its job—was that some stubborn piece of thin thread still left hanging in the tapestry of her hopes and dreams. A thread that she knew would be cut and forever discarded if she didn’t figure out some way to navigate back into the fantasy world where she had any chance of becoming a semi-successful full-time artist before she convinced herself that being a dropout or changing her major to something she wasn’t passionate about was more worth her while.

At this point, the only street she hadn’t walked on was her own. The sudden spark of delight at seeing a Halloween pun in one yard and another other one with dozens of skeletons performing different garden tasks had worn off after the third or fourth lap by. One of the gardeners that called out her name whenever she walked by was starting to look concerned, and she was pretty sure the last time she passed by her smile was a little too wobbly to get away with not being questioned if she saw him again. She kicked the same small grey rocks, crunched the same brittle dead leaves, and continued not to be blessed by a single cat sighting.

Her thoughts had cycled through the same endless loops as her feet, and Shea finally had to realize that the sign from beyond that would solve all of her problems might not never come.

One of her classmates, Maisie, the quiet pastel girl, explained during her presentation of her piece that the abstract swirls and the distant feeling of wonder and confusion came from her wandering around these same streets Shea did. Apparently, she had heard distant music coming down random side streets. Once she thought she had reached the alley, house, or run-down church that was the source, it would fade to nothing and then pick back up on a different path. Does meaning only matter if you are the teacher’s favorite and dabble solely in abstracts? Who decided that thick strokes were somehow less valuable than soft swirls?

Shea heard no distant music. She heard music at that same little church, but it was a funeral march intermingled with choked-off sobs for the potential of the life never lived. The only thing she heard in the alleys were some chickens in far too small of an enclosure and dogs barking from the windows. The houses were pretty much the same, just with the roar of the AC, television playing some random sports game, and the laundry machine circling ever onwards. What made Maisie a better vessel to experience the unexplained? Had Shea not always listened to every slight tremor in her ordinary that could be some sort of sign?

Her walk back to her house was more of a drag than anything else. Shea reached back and grabbed her phone out of her jeans pocket only to pause before typing in her password. The usual walk home go-to of calling her mom to check in had never seemed less appealing. The last thing she wanted to be told was that she always tried hard and that everything would work out. Neither of those things were solutions or any of the sympathy that she desperately wanted more than empty reassurances. Inez was always good at that. As much as she could talk Shea’s ear off about whatever weird fact she had read or some long-winded childhood story she had heard ten times that week alone, no one else listened better than her. They would turn down the radio on their drives and she would just listen with her body turned completely towards her. Whenever Shea’s voice would break or come to a lull, Inez always had a thoughtful response and the comfort she had silently asked for.

Maybe Shea could call her. Sing the tale of what two years of wasted paint and absolute radio silence had done to her. Her insides all twisted up into something unrecognizable after Inez had spent four years painstakingly breaking down every wall and sealed layer.

Not today, not in this universe. No way was their first talk in ages going to be filled with sorrow and tears. They were only nineteen years old. Weren’t they too young for this much certainty of failure? Scribbled diary entries with tear-stained ink and messy sketchbook pages were supposed to be full of dramatics that would make her cringe to even think about in a few months. Those were late-night ventures, not thoughts that darkened her whole day. Shea wouldn’t let her know how much a single offhand comment had worked on her like a tree full of crows. Inez never understood how much power her words held over Shea.

Shea’s feet were already shuffling on the welcome home mat before she realized that she had reached her front door. She had been so excited when she had seen the door for the first time. TARDIS blue, a perfect entryway into what could surely only be years of excitement and adventures. Surely. The only foot traffic the door actually saw was not TimeLords or newfound friends, but just herself and whatever delivery service she wanted to use that day. She thought about painting on it once, but she knew she would just regret it every time she came home.

As she stared at the door, that sudden lightning bolt of clarity sent her neurons alight. It wasn’t the creative inspiration Shea had been waiting for, but the sheer determination to create despite not knowing the outcome. The door unlocked with a snap of her wrist, and Shea ran to grab her paints and brushes. It didn’t matter that painting was not her forte and that everyone would see whatever mess she created on her door. The fish, trees, and eyes she knew would inevitably end up somewhere in her doodly design was for her, and for once, that felt like enough.