Jet Black Heart

track 003: nothing after midnight

track 003:   nothing after midnight

NOW.

          It was raining the first time Stevie had run away from home. She had been fourteen, and the argument that'd driven her out the door had also driven her mother to slam the front door shut and throw the deadbolt. The metallic thunk of the lock sliding into place had driven a silver bar through her chest. And she was alone on the pavement. Stevie had stared at the chipped door for a moment, alone with the pounding silence that filled the air, permeated only by the growl of thunder from the dark sky pressing down upon her head.

Then she'd turned around and walked away, arms wrapped around herself, frozen fingers trembling, seeking out the hollow notches in her ribcage out of habit, ghosting over the bones jutting prominently from her skin. Within seconds, the rain had drenched right through her dark jeans and black knitted sweater, which sagged against her gaunt body, a sopping weight on her caved shoulders.

It didn't matter.

None of it mattered.

She kept walking, and walking, and walking, her rage blunting into a numbness that spread through her body as the rain lashing against her cheeks mixed with the warm tears she kept blinking out of her vision. It didn't matter. Not once did she feel the gelid chill racking her body, nor did she grieve about the fact that she'd been locked out of the house without a coat. She didn't know where she was going, she just let her feet steer her in any direction away from the house, away from her mother, and walked until the cracked pavement stretched into black tar roads cratered with potholes filled with murky water.

Miles of road and buildings passed in periphery, familiar and unfamiliar. A car or two screeched past her, splashing dirty water over her jeans and boots, but she didn't care. There was only that vacuous hole ripped into her, and the festering emptiness sitting in her bones. She kept going, passing a petrol station and a few shops, until she heard the music—the low growl of a bass, the calamitous clatter of cymbals, the poignant whine of a guitar, and the fervent yearning of a Van Halen song: "For the distance between us / As are the stars, I only have you / In my imagination..."

When she looked up, she caught the bright halogen glare of the electric blue neon sign hanging above a set of wooden doors.

Heart-Shaped Box.

Among the stretch of shops, settled like a cavity between a bookstore and a skate shop, the dingy pub pulsed with a dark thrall. It'd changed hands and branding a million times since Stevie had been born. For now, the management team had settled on a gritty, grunge front that seemed to pair well with the hole-in-the-wall appeal. At the time, it'd taken her a moment to place it, and she wondered when it'd change again.

As Stevie stood beneath the sign now, seven years later and completely dry, she felt the ghost of the rain icing her skin, the prickle of numbness growing beneath her skin. Her blood roared in her ears, drowning out the music piped through her wired earphones. Despite the thick, oversized leather jacket swallowing her body, a violent shiver wracked her body.

Mounted on the wall just outside the pub, a chalkboard read: LIVE MUSIC EVERY THURSDAY NIGHT—7PM.

At some point the evening sky had bruised the sky and though it hadn't been raining, Stevie felt as though she'd been drenched in cold water. As she peered up at the neon sign that spelled Heart-Shaped Box over the wooden doors, she was struck with the strange vertigo of falling backwards in time. The bookstore and the skateshop had long closed, its dust-caked display windows dark.