No Precedence

It was a blisteringly hot afternoon. Birds chirped in unison as they flocked for shade, people laughed in synch, pouring water over themselves to cool off. It was really hot. A flash mob were demonstrating an intricately choreographed dance in the wide streets of the town centre. Having worked months together on the routine. People were taking videos, marvelling together at the sight. Socialites came out and generally revelled in the sun. At least, all this was probably happening. Maximilian didn’t really know. He just was presuming.

He hadn’t been outside for a couple weeks, give or take a day or two. He was pale, in the way that you wouldn’t expect a ghost to appear sun-kissed. The home he had made was very empty and large, each room containing bare essentials. Somewhere to sit, sleep, somewhere to cook, somewhere to bathe, somewhere to work. No anecdotes or indications of any interests. All the walls were spotlessly white, making the unfilled spaces feel even larger, emptier, than they were. Maximillian was sat in his boxers, skin sticking to a now soaking leather sofa, in what he called the living room.

“What’s it going to be today, Max?” He said to himself, his voice echoing back at him. “What shall we do?”

Instead of doing anything in particular, Maximilian found himself ruminating. Sticky thoughts that had been stuck to his mind just as the sofa clung to his pale skin; they prodded at him periodically, bringing discomfort, much more frequently than the heat did. It was often cold and raining in the town of Vixen. He felt an overwhelming sense of loneliness as his mind began to search for his last meaningful interaction with another person. Years had gone by. He had friends just under a decade ago, then they seemed to disappear for reasons he couldn’t even remember. Any good times spent with them, his family, any laughter shared, were now hazy, obscure, and just made him feel low. He was a tiny speck of white, grey, or black on a large canvas where true colours pulsed, and no one ever noticed him. No one ever recognized him as a being. He had been completely forgotten.

There was a knock on the door that brought Maximilian back from the depths of his mind.

No one ever knocks, he thought.

He got up from his seat quickly and felt hair rip from his back, arms and legs. The sound was violent.

Ow! He thought.

“Uh, who is it?” Maximilian asked, slowly approaching the door, feeling his heart race like he was half into a marathon. He was certainly sweating enough for it.

“Delivery for Maximilian Friendless.” Said the door.

“A delivery? Really?”

“Uh…yes.”

“You can just leave it on the doorstep, thank you.”

A minute passed. Maximillian opened his door, in just his boxers, to a fairly busy street, picked up the parcel and shut himself back inside again. The package was rectangular, wrapped in earthy brown paper. Maximilian stared down at it in his hands, dumbfounded.

“Who would send me something?”

With a sudden burst of excitement, he tore at the paper until it revealed a box. On the front, handwritten, it said:

‘Missing You x’

“How can you miss someone who doesn’t exist?” He said, eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

He opened the box. Inside was a stack of polaroids. A lot of them. The first was laid face down.

“What on Earth?”

Maximilian dropped the wrappings on the floor and sat back on the sweat-washed sofa, placing the box of polaroids on his lap.

With a deep breath in, he picked up and turned the first one over.

The subject was him. Taken from a distance. He was sat on his favourite bench, in his favourite park, doing nothing in particular. He hadn’t been there in a while.

“What in the?” He laughed through his nose.

There was a collection of him sat on the bench, staring into the distance, or down at himself. Then of him walking through the park. Maximilian turned them over one by one with a look of increasing bemusement, laying the ones he’d been through on the wooden floor of his living room. He was on to a collection of very low-light pictures of him in the same place. He could hardly make himself out, but was sure it was him on a walk in the night. Then there were pictures of him walking on the street, walking into a supermarket, minding his own business.

“Someone cares?” His frown was beginning to straighten. Tension within him was beginning to release.

The next set of photos were of him having opened his front door to go outside on various occasions. Then photos of his house, where you could spot him peering out the window of his living room, or kitchen, but most shown the curtains drawn. Maximilian was smiling now, wholeheartedly. He felt pure elation.

Now all the polaroids were laid out on the floor for him to gaze upon. He counted them out in his head with visible joy. There were fifty of them.

“This is so wonderful!” He exclaimed, jumping up to dance around the room in his glee. “Who could this be? I have to meet them!”

Maximilian’s door was being knocked again.

Could it be them?

Maximilian threw caution to the wind and raced over to open it. It was a delivery man, probably the same one. He looked shocked by Maximilian’s urgency, or maybe from the fact he was almost naked.

“I was just asked to give you this too,” the delivery man said, handing over a single polaroid picture.

Maximilian looked at it immediately. It was of him retrieving a parcel in his boxers. Taken a few minutes ago.

“It’s…uh…real hot today, huh?” Said the man.

“Who gave this to you?” Maximilian asked.

“I couldn’t really say,” replied the man. “I’m not sure how to describe them.”

Maximilian peered over him into the street, scanning for someone it could be. They were probably taking another picture right now.

“So it was a person who gave this to you?”

“…Definitely a person, sir, yes,” the delivery man said slowly, then turned to walk away. “Have a good day.”

“Uh, thank you, you too” Maximilian said, and then closed the door. With his back to it, Maximilian slid down the door, laughing, and then yelled out with an absurd amount of volume that reverberated erratically through his empty house. Outside, the delivery man jumped, then began to run, clutching his heavy shoulder bag full of parcels with both hands.

Later, into the night, Maximillian was sat in his favourite park, on his favourite bench. No one was around but bugs, mosquitoes, namely, which were happily flying in the glow of the streetlight that Maximilian sat beneath. It was still hot enough for him to wear a t-shirt out. He didn’t even notice he was being bit incessantly up and down the lengths of his arms. He was beaming. His heart racing. The air he inhaled was cleansing and, for the first time in his life, Maximilian felt as though he was truly part of the beauty the world had to offer. For tonight, he was the subject of a surrealist painting that was, in fact, very real. Very real, and undeniably colourful. If he wasn’t busy, he might have sat down to paint it himself.

“Hello,” he called out to the shadows. “I know you must be there. Don’t be shy. I can’t wait to meet you.”

Only silence responded.

“It’s okay, I’ll wait.”

He spotted obscure movement. Bushes rustled.

“I’ll wait for you.”

Eventually, a figure, a silhouette emerged, and was heading towards the light, where Maximilian was sat.

“So you’re my secret admirer?” Maximilian asked playfully.

As the figure stepped into the light, its appearance was revealed. It was indeed a person, covered head to toe in a black spandex suit. Any indication of gender was unclear, and didn’t matter to Maximilian in the slightest. The person stopped in front of Maximilian, looking down at him.

“You’re breath-taking,” Maximilian told them, standing up to marvel at the sight.

There was silence for a few moments, then the light began to flicker, leaving them in darkness for about a second at a time. Maximilian circled the person slowly, and the person pivoted to always meet his gaze. He stepped towards them, and they stepped back. Maximilian felt chemistry beyond anything he had ever felt, this was their dance, and it didn’t even need to have been choreographed. They were making art right now, in the moment.

“Do you think you could love me forever?” Maximilian asked, bowing down low. He was mimicked. “That’s what I’m looking for, I hope I’m not being too forward.”

The person did not speak. They both stopped their dance.

“Are you shy? It’s okay if you are.”

He slowly approached the person, who was still and silent as water. As matter of fact as an element on the periodic table.

Maximilian looked deeply at the hidden face, feeling soft.

“It’s so wonderful falling for you. I truly feel so in love.”

He reached out and touched the person’s covered hand. The person gripped onto Maximilian’s hand suddenly, with force.

He jumped a little, but didn’t panic.

Then, they were holding hands.

Maximilian laughed shortly, feeling light dazzle within him. He’d never felt so warm and cared for.

“Neither of us have to be alone now. We’ve got each other,”

In the flickering light, Maximilian and his love, dressed head to toe in black spandex, stood hand in hand. Inanimate.