Carpe Tenebras: IV

Taps and clicks sounded from a corner of the dark blue room. Sitting fairly straight on a padded stool, Brain Finch held a black and white guitar controller. From the TV centered on the far wall, a hardcore melody played. Colored bars whizzed past on screen as rockers in the background shredded, producing the sounds that people from the 70’s and 80’s knew and loved.

His blue eyes rippled with concentration while his fingers sought out the desired keys. Brian thumbed the strum bar with mad skill, sweat dripping down his left temple. He irritatedly wiped it away with his shoulder, continuing to generate awesomeness with his fingers. Suddenly, he let a whirlwind of movement erupt, placing his right pointer finger on the far orange key. For a few seconds, Brian continued to unleash his finger-tapping power until he accurately replaced his thumb and banged out one last chord.

Slumping in relief, he stared at the TV. He’d been on Expert, gotten 100%, and a 1208 note streak; Brian nodded contently then reached for the window shade to his right. He squinted in shock as it rolled up, blinded by the striking summer sunlight. Once his pupils had adjusted, his eyes wandered the small area. The dull sapphire blue walls were covered in posters, mostly of bands or movies but an occasional map from a video game hung around. His unmade bed lay on the other side of the doorway, a desk and laptop at its foot. A Peavey Predator Ax was carelessly propped up against the ROCKBAND drum set, the game’s microphone dangling from the red drum pad. Brian stood up; leaving the controller propped against the wall, he stretched, and walked over to turn off the television. It hummed out with a satisfying zap.

Shaking off the dull ache from sitting on a stool for a few hours, Brian made his way to the kitchen. He could use some water and a snack. Though it was already afternoon, he hadn’t had anything to eat since the night before. Seeing as it was summer, he could do whatever he wanted with himself; during the school year, Brian had to keep healthy. Teaching itself was an easy job, but being a teacher was somewhat stressful for him. He tried to make his classes fun and interesting but not many people were too keen on learning Latin. While most of his students worked their butts off, sometimes it didn’t pay off, leaving them failing or close, and discouraging them from continuing to try.

Brian yanked open the door of his fridge. As always, the bottom shelf was stocked with Poland Spring water. He grabbed one and reached for an apple from the crisper. He closed the fridge and went to wash the apple. Overlooking the sink was a small circular window. Brian loved to stand there and watch people pass by on the street. Not many people drove around but there were plenty of neighbors that walked by on a regular basis. While he didn’t know everyone’s name, Brian could match up a face with a time frame. The tall blonde woman with her yappy Chihuahua was a 2 o’clocker and the old couple from across the street were 4 o’clockers. Brian’s next door neighbor, Dan Finn, was an 11 o’clocker. Dan had bumped into Brian in the community garden a few weeks ago and even though they’d lived next door to each other for about a year, they’d never met before that. Brian left for school at around 6:45 each morning and Dan didn’t get home from the hospital until 8. He’d go to bed at 1, almost 2 hours before Brian was allowed to leave so it was almost impossible to have met during the school year. But now it was summer and Brian didn’t have to work, leaving him to explore the neighborhood during the day.

With the apple scrubbed to his liking, Brian went and plopped himself in his living room’s La-z-boy. Bookshelves hid the leaf green walls, covered by old college textbooks, favorite novels, and lots of Latin texts. On the small table next to the recliner, a Sudoku book lay on top of the previous week’s newspaper, spread open to the crossword puzzle. Brian’s father had died with Alzheimer’s, showing his only son how important it was to continue to fight memory-loss by staying sharp. The loss of her husband had devastated Brian’s mom who stopped trying to fight her breast cancer. A small framed photo of his parents disrupted the stream of books on the closest shelf. It’d been taken by Brian on their last family vacation before he’d gone off to college. He missed his parents but it didn’t feel to him that they were dead, just off in some remote country with no means of communication. Brian tried not to think about it.

A knock on the door interrupted his nostalgia. Jumping to his feet, apple in hand, he crossed the room to peep through the hole in the door. A short man in a black pinstripe, hands in his pockets, waited anxiously. He looked to be in his early-mid 40’s, with balding grey hair and knowledgeable brown eyes. Brian had never seen this man before but he thought he might be a neighbor. He cautiously opened the door.