Darkness veiled the shudder of dust as the boy paused in his sluggish gait, hat tassels knocking lightly against his chest, listening to their hollow reverberation. Toes, shrouded by dusty white socks, pushed their blunt ends against a rock on the floor- one that lay jagged, triangular, perfectly geometrical and yet somehow ragged, skin bundled with blues and grays that stretched all the way to its core. He nudged it once more, listening to the steely clatter of its teeth against the floorboards, a sort of flat, tasteless sound diffused by wind and white noise. Much of the Allein home's interior was like this rock- strangely geometrical, filled with rectangles and spheres and triangles, yet jagged and toothy, floors littered with his mind's debris- old books, half read and half open, broken terracotta, numerous rocks, clay marbles, puzzle pieces, pots of numerous levels of usefulness drying, fired, or aged and dead. And they all seemed to gather near the splintered walls, lying tired, upturned and disheveled, tendrils of a scattered mess slowly infecting the middle of the room. And, like the rock, they all held a layer of dust, symbols of a youthful life neglected.
The boy swayed in his stance, leaning down to fondle the rock near his foot, letting particles of dust recede in his loose, hanging grasp, before it slipped from his ghostly hand and knocked against the dull floor, a cloud of dust, wraith-like, swelling from the rock's fall, and the boy resumed his sulking gait, hunch backed, staring at the floor. He walked slowly, describing a wide arc around the window and its brash window shutters, reluctant to return but loathsome in staying away, white noise swelling slowly in his ears. A dull, hanging oppression signaled the Ghost's absence, but the boy never made the connection, overcome by the cobwebs of a longing mind. He paused, turning fully towards the window, silent.
Abruptly, the boy broke away, hat tassels thumping lightly against his chest, and made his way through rusted air and cluttered floors to a table, pushed into the room's corner. Upon this table, leaning with a sigh unto the wall, were numerous lumps of dark grey clay, out of place in the geometrical household in large, messy lumps. Near the table hunched a smaller one, lower to the ground, a small, flat wheel on top of it, attached by a shaft to another, larger one on the bottom, and beside that sulked a small wooden chair, it's high back facing the small wheel-table so that if one were to sit in it properly, they'd be facing directly away from of it. Que scraped a small ball of clay off of the table, putting one, socked foot up on the seat of the chair and facing the wheel, folding his leg beneath him and resting his chin on the chair's back. Placing the clay on the center of the wheel, one foot hanging down, he prodded it lightly, making no move to start the wheel's turn.
There was a certain passiveness to a fold of clay, smoothed simply by water's touch, bent by a single hand, able to meld back into nothing whenever he so chose, for, if the clay were not fired and simply left to dry in the air, the solid stature of a finished pot could be diffused by soaking it in water. And yet, when fired, it stood so solid and resolute that without enough thickness to its walls it grew brittle, breaking only in shards and chunks, left eventually to be torn down by time and the wind. Still, it survived, for he'd heard tales of ancient pots discovered in the ruins of old cities, or found by miners buried within the earth. Truly, clay was a contradictory force, existing only to his whims, and yet when he gave it power through fire it ceased beneath his reign, stubborn and brittle and broken.
His disappointment at such a... complete creation would soon be tempered, however, for his mother would return home with more clay- native clay, perhaps, pooling in lakes from mountain rivers, drying into a rusted red, or those from far off lands, rarer, dug from the earth, of different, magical, incredible qualities, so foreign to him that he could not give up the pleasure of molding it to his whims, and he'd soak and mold and soak again, refusing to allow such beauty to escape his power. Clay that was white as the purest sand, when fired, so smooth it was almost glassy, creating dishes of porcelain imitated by jealous glazes, clay darker, brown, grey, that when heated burned bright red, clay of numerous purities and mineral densities that justified use after use after use. But of all the clays, his favorite one to use was one found high in the mountain rivers, and, later, was discovered to have an extremely high iron quantity, so that it appeared a dark grey. And, oh, with that he could do so much- for when fired with high amounts of oxygen it dried red, but when fired without access to air, it became silhouette black.
The boy rolled his eyes thoughtfully up towards the ceiling, where there lay a single shelf installed by himself, and on this shelf were a potter's jewels- those of ancient techniques and rare pieces practically revered in his isolation, and of the many was a single pot with a style called black figure art- silhouettes painted on the red, iron rich clay. And oh, how thoughtfully he imitated these creations, painting on a leather dried pot a mix of water and clay, so that when fired the makeshift paint would grow glossy and nonporous, allowing for it to stay a deep black while the rest of the world dried red. And yet, so he hated relinquishing his control, for only would designs become visible when fired, and once fired it would never again return to be submitted by his hands. It was sacrifice to be sure, for- Oh, how he loved the feeling of control, to mold a vase into being however he wished.
Returning his gaze towards the clay, Que's socked foot pushed against the bottom wheel and this, moving with the axle, caused the wheel on top to begin to turn, the ball of clay molded onto its surface spinning with it. The boy wasn't quite a fan of the wheel's fast movements, preferring the use of a slow wheel, but he couldn't ignore the enchanting symmetry of its creations, and yes- yes, he imagined a pot where such symmetry was key, one with long, flower like petals, dipping and rising like waves of the sun, such a warm red that it glowed with scorching acidity, and at its center he'd paint tendrils of ivy, mistletoe, a dark black silhouette of vines wrapping an acrid flower that glowed as bright as the sun, and these would encroach on the sun's petals until they just reached the tips- and there, there he could abandon the use of a fast wheel and return to that of the slow he so desired in order to fashion their tips with a crude geometry, and on these he would paint with his liquid clay, faces- circles, blobs, malformed by the sharp, unsymmetrical tips, with long, curved, begging eyes glowing as hot as the sun, staring forwards, ever forwards, always forwards, unable to turn their heads to glance at each other, pushed into place by silhouette tendrils so that they hadn't even knowledge of the great, beaming, sun like flower that had given them their eyes, staring forwards, ever forwards, always forwards...
The veil of white noise lifted from his ears, softer, now, muted, dull, shrouded by a subtle shriek of wood as it cast drifts of dust across the floor, and the boy turned from his still spinning lump of clay to find the silence returned. He breathed, running his tongue across the back of his teeth, tasting a sort of foreign acidity, before fully curling from his perch at her words, letting his eyes dwindle on the Ghost. Softly, slowly, statue like, the boy settled back to his previous position- chin resting on the high chair back, one leg curled beneath him while the other hung, swinging slightly, entranced by the dust veil that played with the fabric a game of tag, swelled by the minuscule currents of wind from the swing of his foot. Again, the boy reveled in such a feeling of mastery, able to create wind enough to sweep away the dirt, an atmosphere all of his own.
And then, through the white noise, as if it had lifted just for them, her words finally reached him, and Que ponderously froze, drifting off into a distant land without a thought, simply staring, staring forwards, ever forwards, always forwards...
A vile sting grew in the back of his throat as the boy blinked, resuming the swinging of his foot in a sluggish movement, stimulating very little flow of air and dust alike. White noise swelled, then receded, and the boy responded in his dry monotone ''never is,'' fascination brewing cold at the strange awareness he had of his jaw bone as it pushed against the high chair back when he spoke. The boy kicked the wheel again, wetting his fingers in a pot of water before clasping his palms upon the cool, grainy surface of the clay, centering it upon the wheel, chin resting quietly on the tall chair back.
As he threw his sun's petal bowl, white noise turned from a tide into a cloak, a rough, oppressive, woolen cloak, pushing down against his head, worming his way into his ears, and its force grew stronger and stronger and with this strength his ghost's grew emboldened, slipping from the walls into the house, growing ever more acute, emotions powerful as they were swept down the street, turbulent souls residing in houses around growing fiercer, sharper, forming geometrical shapes that seemed also to be symmetrical, and the boy worked the clay with an ice cold fury, a tautness to his muscles, a tightness in his fingers as these forces grew over more powerful, and white noise swelled in his ears and pushed and battered and obscured all noise and he closed his eyes yet still he saw ghosts, spread in an ever wider area, statues of an ancient world, stamping their struggle unto his head like seals, never to be erased, drifting, dancing, silent, deafening, euphoric and passive and boiling, outlining with a sharp pen the dull grey of streets and houses, walls, buildings, forces that kept them away, the ghosts of his house multiplied into those of the street, and then the town, and farther, still, foreign seals, stamped upon his brain, and Que's b;ppd glowed a terrifible blue as, before the boy could think, he'd abandoned his clay in favor of tugging his hat with palms dirty with clay and sweat, tugging it low, lower still, until white noise died once more into a simple tide.
Only then did the boy recognize an unmistakable, sour reek of stewing ferocity from the ghost beside him, the one who was always beside him, and it grew only more powerful as Que ran his tongue across his teeth and tasted the grit of rage, and Que grew mad at the ghost and the ghost grew mad at him, reflections amplifying each others emotions as if they were one and the same, while somehow the thought of his mother sulked in his mind as Que wrapped his hands around his hat and tugged it ever lower. Silence- a stand off of anger and frustration.
The boy turned from his chair, aware of genuine surprise as it scratched with a gritty hiss against the floor, for it was as if he had forgotten of the noises of the physical world, and he slipped from the high backed chair with a slight totter and stared past the eyes of the girl, falling farther into a deep slouch. Longing swelled, abrupt speech.
''I put my pots outside today,'' he added, as if an afterthought, head tilting towards the floor, sock kicking lightly a strangely triangular rock. ''Someone saw me. I could feel their surprise. Their fear made me afraid. It always does.''
He kicked it again, relishing in the noises of the physical world, speaking once more, wishing his voice would have that same, sharp tang. It was dull and flat. Surreal. A shaft of frozen light in broken sentences with little variation. White noise threatened to push the world away again, and oh, how the boy wished he had a basilisk mind, where his worries and his phantoms turned to stone with a single shaft of light.
''She was governed by desire.''
He paused at the end of the sentence, reluctant to leave such a broken end. Yet his own voice unnerved him- flat and tasteless, white noise. He settled for kicking the rock again, fulfilling an empty desire.
Dust fell, flat and dull against the floor as Que slouched further, hands hanging lifelessly down, not a twitch to their restless fingers. He turned to walk away, but the walk was aimless, leading to nowhere but silence again after a few steps, staring forwards, ever forwards, listening to the flatline of his heart.
Silence beckoned a last noise.
''Another human.''
And he grew quiet once more.
