Listen To The Silence by Sheryl

Chapter 11

...Hear the city scream...

Roaming, roaming. If he could just stop pacing, if the dizziness would just let up, just for a minute.
His hands wind in his hair, pulling, twisting, pain a grounding force, keeping him connected. God, it was so noisy, so loud, the streets of NY were never this loud, or maybe it's just the echoes inside of his aching head.
Pacing, pacing, standing still bringing the vertical rendition of bedspins, too much... Loudspeakers bellowing incomprehensible gibberish, roaring shudder of jets shaking the world, daggers into his brain.
Where are they? Not here. The boy had promised, promised him that someone would be here to get him... and nobody is here, though they could be, in all of this din how could he know? They'd page him, they'd page him, he'd hear his name... but no name, no, not here, no rational, cool, professional voice paging Jesse Doran to his waiting party, no! Because there is no waiting party because they're NOT HERE!!!
Anger boils in him, thinking, pacing, the last few hours his own personal hell, and all for nothing. They'd almost arrested him, catching him with his hand in the utility zone, fingers digging into the fuses, finding the envelope, finding the strength to run as the fat men in their ludicrous uniforms chased after him, shouting. Did they think he'd planted a bomb? What did they think he'd been doing?

Hours at the terminals, stomach crying burning distress, struggling not to be sick, not to pass out, so dirty they hadn't wanted to let him on the plane. In the end of course they'd had to... had to, and made sure he knew it, knew they didn't want him there. They'd stared, they'd all stared, stares of strangers, murmers of disgust, disregarded tears burning clean inroads down his cheeks. He could hear them, though they  thought he couldn't, hear the comments, the whispers. Plague bearer, that was how they talked, how they treated him, shivering curled into the corner of his seat, afraid even to ask for a blanket, knowing they'd refuse. His pain meant nothing, only an impetus for them to get rid of him. He'd spent half the flight in a fever saturated paranoia, afraid they'd simply throw him off into midair, a screaming boy projectile in dirty jeans, tumbling back to earth, the struggle finally over.
They'd let him alone. Left him to shiver and vomit his way through the flight. Longing, longing so intense it was pain, hideous, unmanning, stripping his soul... God he needed someone, someone to care, someone to touch him, someone to tell him he was still real, still human, still alive. Flood of tears wetting the seat cushions... alone.
Then landing, landing only to find... nothing.
Nobody.

"In the beginning was nothing... which exploded."
Senseless phrasing, something from a book he'd once found funny, circling and recycling in his mind. Where were they? They'd promised, promised they'd be here for him.
Smells of food assaulted him, bringing raging snapping biting hunger and black, death-like nausea, mouth watering horribly. He had to get away from the food.

"Sheffield."
The voice fell out of the air, just behind his head, the weight of it a little brick of madness. He knew the voice, it was that boy, that boy from the hotel, the one who'd told him to come, the traitor. The one who'd lied to him and made him feel so safe...
Just the voice, no face, no image, no body, no sweet warm comforting arms, just the voice. Didn't mean anything, couldn't mean anything.
God, what was it with this place, he couldn't understand anyone! He resisted the urge to grab someone by the coat and force them to speak English, he KNEW they were speaking English, British English because he was in London! London, what in God's name was he doing here? Unknowingly, his thoughts mirrored the thoughts of the boy he had followed, echoed that other boy, also lonely, also confused, and ultimately aimed for the same destination.
His anger rose higher, his sense of injustice strong.
Following the voices of insanity across the ocean, and then abandoned. Nothing made sense here, nothing. Even the junkies made more sense!
Signs that directed him nowhere, arrows leading to blank walls, only the periodic rumbling quake of the planes keeping him grounded, keeping him anchored.

"Sheffield... hurry."
The voice again, startling him, head banging into the pole he suddenly didn't see. Damn them! What do they want? What do they want from him? It's starting again too, that directional sickness, he can only go in one direction again.
Blood from his scalp runs into his eyes, and he touches it briefly, dreaming at the dab of red, marveling that his body still holds such color. Pacing, upstairs, down, gut instinct avoiding security, shrugging off people.
Something in his shoe... something, got to get it out, sitting virtual torture as the room spins, eyes open in disbelief as one ragged shoe tears in his hands.
"Oh fuck it then!"
He leaves them where they are, climbing to his feet, desperate to stop the spinning. Keep walking, just keep moving.
"Find a map, find a person, find something but hurry!"
"Shut UP!!!"
"Jesse, do it!!"

Fingernails dig into skin as the voice of madness, not a brick anymore, a noose, dragging  him, pulling him through the doors.
Propelled now, barefeet crushing into steel grates, down, down, down and out onto the tarmac, out into the waiting station, eyes pulled to the map.
Sheffield.
North. Far north.
Wordless, thoughtless, feet crunching over broken glass, his face turns to the north, carrying him, relentless as the tide, onward...
Unnoticed, the rain falls.

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