A Spaceman

Chapter 29--It's the terror

I don't listen to music. I've asked every person here so far. They listen to music. they know what sort they like. They can name a favorite song. I can't. I was unaware of this peculiarity. I know I'm different from them. I know they don't think like me. I didn't know I was this different, though. that there was this other thing they all had that I didn't. I knew about morals, aversion to dead bodies, aversion to murder, guilt, love, fathers, one plane. One thing they think about all the time. as opposed to me, which is eight by the way. Eight different things in my head all the time. Music isn't one of them. it makes me sad somehow and I'm not usually sad. I don't like it. I didn't know I was this far from all of them, and the fact that I didn't know it irks me. I couldn't be prepared for it. Kip looked at me strangely. I don't want them to know. I don't like them to know.

"Hey, what're you thinking about?" Tom is standing in front of me, she rubs my arms but doesn't move them down from my head like my sister used to. I move them down by myself.

"How'd you know I was thinking?" I ask. We are at the Chaplain dinner thing, so we're allowed to mingle and chat. I'm thinking.

"Aren't you always thinking?" she asks, with a smile.

"Do you like music?" I ask her.

"I guess---what do you mean?" she asks.

"I mean do you listen to music?" I ask.

"Yeah, sometimes, when I run I used to, sometimes at night when I can't sleep, why?" she asks, still smiling at me and holding my gaze.

"Do you have a song you could name---maybe sing some of the lyrics?" I ask.

"Yes, probably a couple, why?" she asks, bemused.

"Kip asked me, and I don't---I can't name any songs I know," I say, "I didn't know I was that different from other people."

"You don't?" she asks, surprised, "I mean---- do you just not like it---like quiet maybe?"

"No, no, when I was a boy, I remember hearing music, playing, in school for assemblies, or in stores and such, and like I remember hearing things I liked and hearing a note, and not being able to hear the rest of it and wondering what it was."

"What about that song, the one you sing to us when we march?" she asks.

"That's something my sister used to play," I say.

"You were telling me last night, how your sister died," she says, frowning a little. Oh excellent I wanted to bring this up.

"Was I? I don't remember well, what did I say?" I ask. Well that was easier than I made it out to be for the last twelve hours.

"She was strangled? Did they ever catch who did it?"
shit shit shit.

"No," I say, with a deep breath, "No, they didn't."

**

"You doing okay?" Liesel asks, kindly.

"Yeah," I lie.

"You looked pretty bad in the gym earlier," she says.

"Just over exposure to Titus," I say, shrugging, "I'm better now. it felt really good to hit him."

"I bet it did," she says, with a smile. "You didn't get in any trouble?"

"No, just detention duties, apparently Card has that effect on a lot of people," I say.

"Well, that's good," she says.

"Oh will you quit trying to make small talk with the likes of me and go and try to snog somebody---like that Wendy girl literally everybody but Logan and I stare at?" I ask, with a sigh.