Chapter 703: Side Chapter: A Wish Come True
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-<<You got this Mitch! Seventy ain't no thang!"
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There was yelling, there was a hollering. And with a chorus of deafening shouts of surprises, a loud, frenetic voice broke out.
“Alright! Alright! We got a winner, peeps! Last one standing! Dave just called it quits which means Mitch over his has just won the infinite pie-eating contest at a solid sixty-nine blueberry pies! Good fuckin’ number to end on dude! You did it, Mitch! You big, bald magnificent blue-faced bastard!”
Tyler tossed his phone over to Billy, who too was blue and sticky around the lips, carrying a swelling gut that hung over his skinny jeans.
Nauseous, enfeebled, and with an ominous rumbling in his gut, Billy pointed the camera forward, catching the scene of a whooping, clapping Tyler, his Tyler-y ruckus resounding an open field, as a whirled around behind a long table looming with slanting towers of blueberry pies, rapping his knuckles across the surface.
“So, to cap it off! In last place we got Ken probably still puking in his car sitting at thirty and a half pies. Good try! Not good enough though. Third place is Billy there-” Tyler pointed a finger over the camera, tutting his lips. “Was vouching for you dude. Only fifty? You let me down, my man. Shedding manly tears right now. But I know you’ll get ’em next time, ey?”
Somebody began slowly stumbling into view, obscuring the camera’s shot, entering from the left and slipping out of the frame to the right, the sound of retching and groaning audibly fading.
“And there goes Dave at a too close sixty-seven,” Tyler announced, watching him shamble with a look of amusement. “Leaving Mitch with his well-deserved sixty-nine! The rightful king of pies! Applause! Fireworks! C’mon, everyone in the chat, go show him what he’s worth!”
As the stream exploded with a pouring stream of cheers and support from everyone tuning, it seemed that all Mitch desired at that point was the bed of grass he was sprawled upon and a puke bag on standby.
“He’ll live!” Tyler reassured, taking his phone from Billy and pointing it back directly at him. “Anyway, got a shitstorm of a mess to clear up now though, folks. Probably shoulda chosen a less messy meal for the challenge, but that’s what we get for being a dumbass.”
A strong gust of wind blew causing Tyler attention to briefly flicker upwards to the darkening skies... and for just a brief moment, his wide hyperactive demeanor receded.
“Well, well, getting pretty late out here now too. That means that’s gonna be a wrap, folks!” He proclaimed to his audience, signaling off-frame to his crew to start clearing. “Remember, this is just the third round for the million grand prize! Still got a long way to go, fams! So tune in next stream for the next challenge! I seriously hope you guys aren’t afraid of heights, or planes... get fuckin boys, aight? ‘Kay, see you all around. Thanks for coming...”
With a rapid influx of hearts and waves littering his phone screen, Tyler promptly ended the stream... and finally, he could shed his smile... wear it for too long, and happiness can be very exhausting.
It took till the arrival of stars glittering the dark sky before Tyler and his crew had completely cleared the field of their mess, cans, papers, recyclables, all properly sorted and discarded. All things considered, it has been quite a long day of filming, but alas... the night was still young and bright.
Billy, Mitch, Ken and Dave were raring for a night of drinking and fun across nightclubs across town to commemorate the win, but as they all clambered into their cars and hitting the road, Tyler instead went swerving in the opposite direction.
“No can do, boys,” He told them. “Got other plans for tonight. Hey though, raise a glass for me, would ya? I’ll see you all tomorrow bright and early, aight? Don’t give a shit how shitfaced you are.”
The four peeps asked and they probed, trying to figure out the reason why the life of every party was all a sudden skimping out an entire night of cheap booze and pounding beats.
“Y’all just have fun, go!” Tyler completely brushed them off. “I got shit to take care of, that’s all. The sooner the better too, now go fuck off all you outta here already! Don’t forget that drink!”
And after swearing on their life that they wouldn’t, the group went off on their separate ways, car after car turning to the right on the junction, while a lone pair of headlights beamed the asphalt road going ever deeper to the left.
Beneath the silent night sky, Tyler drove on along the near-deserted road... fingers tapping against his steering wheel to the rhythm of his stereo-speakers, humming along the best he could to one of the radio Dj’s selections for the evening when it happened.
A certain song began to play. The soft voice of a woman began to serenade him, the gentle strumming of guitar strings sounding in harmony to the voice’s lovely melody.
Hearing it, bobbing to it, Tyler could only shake his head in amusement, “Creepy as shit,” he remarked, before turning up the volume to near its max.
It would be a while before he finally reached his destination, in the close pitch-black of night, he parked his car in the deserted lot... and from afar, the soft glow of the cityscape shone like a dome of light in the distant horizon.
He leaned over to the backseat of his car, grunting as he fumbled a bit with the empty air before, crinkling and rustling, he took out a large plastic bag, with the contents within sagging the bag downwards with a bit of strain.
Tyler hopped out to the outside, teeth chattering from the near blistering cold. After his eyes had adjusted, he continued the rest of the journey to his destination on foot, his footsteps going from the grit of gravelly to the muffled clack of paved stone as he reached a set of steps, an open entrance... and as always the place was as quiet as ever, as peaceful as ever, but never ever, barren.
With tombstones, with so many names engraved upon gray withering slabs, how can it ever be barren?
In a funny way, with this many people around, it did almost seem like a brimming, teeming rave, only just deader... much deader.
“Well, shit, look at that,” Tyler chuckled to himself, following the ever-winding path forward. “Guess I still am at a party, after all.”
In the dark, it was a lot more difficult finding his way across at first glance, but he had walked this trail for too long to ever get lost, and eventually, indeed, he finally found the right turn, the correct place... and just a few meters ahead laid his mother’s grave.
“Yo, Mum,” He greeted her, taking smaller steps as he got nearer. “Funny thing happened just now, your favorite song started blasting my speakers, how freaky is that? You tryna tell me something? Should I visit more often? What?”
The small gray slab did not respond, but Tyler didn’t mind in the slightest. He stared at it for a moment longer, noticing the flowers that he had left for her before somehow still flourishing with life and bearing no signs of wilting.
As he recalled, the Big Man pluck them out from somewhere... and wherever the hell they came from, it seems they were very long lasting.
“Anyway, won’t be here on the day itself... so this is the best I can do... so here... this is for you...”
Tyler dug through the contents of his bag, and dug out a small wreath of flowers, leaves, and ribbons, carefully propping up against her headstone, and then rifling through the plastic again, he pulled out two cans of beer, one he cracked open and set to the side, while he took the remaining one for himself, settling himself down on the ground as comfortably as he could.
“Here’s to a Merry Christmas, Mum,” He declared, lightly bashing his drink against the other. “Wherever the hell you may be right now. Cheers.”
Still only hearing nothing, still only feeling the bitter cold, Tyler slowly lifted the can to his lips and began drinking alone.
He didn’t mind it though, he never minded it. For as long as he could remember this was just the way things were. She’ll always be silent, she’ll never speak to him... so that’s why, as much as he could, he’ll always do his best to talk enough for them both.
“Still though... it’d be nice if you can take your turn again speaking,” Tyler muttered, slowly swiveling his drink within loose fingers. “Your song on the radio. You used to sing it all the time. I had to turn it all the way up, you know why? ‘Cause I almost forgot how your voice even sounded like.”
He tried to smile at the notion, tried his best to find it somewhat amusing... but he found that he just couldn’t. Try as he might, he just couldn’t find anything about it to laugh about.
It just wasn’t funny at all.
“Don’t worry though,” He assured her. “I got you as a core memory. Like hell I’d forget something like that.”
Once again, the ringing silence was the only thing present to heed his every word. Tyler took a large swig of his drink, attempting to move on from the thought, when all of a sudden-
She spoke.
“Do you truly believe the dead would find comfort in both your presence and your words? Or is it that you yourself are simply looking for reassurance in the indifference of silence? Just which is it really?”
Tyler became a makeshift sprinkler of beer for a moment there, dousing it all over himself in extreme shock. Some shot up his nose, some stuck to his throat, lungs, ending with him coughing and hacking, struggling up to his feet.
With eyes tearing and squinting, Tyler whirled around in alarm, his heart beating hard against his chest.
“What...? Who...?!”
But as the shock gradually subsided, and he had a second to process, he realized at once what he had crucially missed at that moment. This terror, this fright, and that voice...
He had felt it all before.
There, beneath the looming shade of a tree, a splotch of black darker than the night, a slender figure stood swathed in shadows... and once again, Tyler felt his heart pound a single deafening beat more.
He had seen that sight before.
“A...Amelia...?”
The figure gracefully weaved forward, emerging into the limelight of night, looking mystical, looking divine, and in the words of his own most inner thoughts, looking hot as fuck.
“Surprised, are you?” She asked, noting the prominent look of disbelief frozen on his face. “Believe me gone forevermore, did you?”
Then with a condescending gaze veering elsewhere, and hands automatically folding atop one another, the hottest, gothest chic to ever grace his existence gave him a very long, very weary sigh.
“Believe me...” She said to him, “As did I...”
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