The Ides of March solo Finished

Backdated to March 15th, 2021

In the late afternoon of March 15th, Levi Drakos slid into the privacy of the empty classroom on the second floor, sulking into the shadows with two envelopes in hand. The soft light dangling above couldn’t reach this haven, hidden beneath a pall of shadows from tottering wooden desks, only highlighting the edges of the letters and the right side of his face with a touch so golden and delicate it was almost affectionate. His back was pressed to the window’s wall, avoiding the sun’s evening glare as it sank beneath the trees. The wind rattled, leaves and swaying branches obstructed the reach of sunlight, shattering the rays into a thousand stark fragments before penetrating the glass, leaving sparse light in the classroom anyway. It was silent save the periodic howl of the wind’s swirl and the graceful unfolding of parchment, the slow rise and fall of a shallow breathing chest.

Each and every year of life, his birthday had been a day to remember for time to come. A whole twenty-four hours of being catered to, cared for, the decorations and annual trinkets jailbroken from his imagination and brought into life to be felt, seen, tasted, and craved again for 364 days more. It was his wonderland, his realm of blissful misdirection, altered to fit his growth and sprouting interests, to whisper look at you, all grown up without ever opening a mouth. Without ever telling a lie. There wasn’t an ounce of yesterday’s corruption, not the narrowest slit in his ignorant dimension, as on those days, the moon and stars were his, the constellations sewed into the charcoal void for his, and only his, applause to validate their twinkle.

Age five, dragons, and by seven he’d graduated to dinosaurs, a small, 4’0” encyclopedia for their respective histories, habitats, and diets. His first acoustic guitar was gifted to him for his ninth, and eleventh had a surprise of its own in a mystical reality waiting for him. It was today, Levi’s twelfth birthday, that life took its sharp turn. Where he’d typically be beaming and dreaming wide-awake, he was held sweetly by murk in the corner of an abandoned room with love packaged in one hand, and a mystery gift-wrapped in the other. Where this side of being would typically be buried beneath confetti, this year’s ides of March were confronting him with stabs to the heart for every time they’d been betrayed.

Finally extending his knees away from his chest to allow the wounds to swell, the brunet dropped the curious envelope beside him and began to peel open the first with diligent movements, as to conserve his parent’s handiwork. Like it was all he’d have left one day. Inside fell out a flattened daffodil, bright yellow with the promises that colored it so dazzling. The boy twirled its viridescent stem between his fingers, watching as its glow spread through the air it brushed, leaking joy and pollen. The accompanying parchment slipped out afterward, folded neatly so the creases were art and not destruction, warm to the touch as their embrace.

‘Happy birthday!’ His parents had written in a collaborative effort, his mother’s elegant cursive signing the first word without flaw, and his father’s scratchy script contrasting it in the second. His left index finger traced over the lettering, and he could feel their pens lift and collapse, grasp their hands through the paper that divided them and dive back into home, into the blooming flower beds, relieved of his gloom. Yet he remained, a silhouette hiding behind a desk that wobbled on its unstable legs, avoiding sunlight as though his skin would welt. A slight smile came over the brunet, though, a reminder in the belief they had in him, the confidence that the bloodline would not die without first painting the town.

As his hands and the letter fell back to his lap, Levi’s hazel gaze went to the air in front of the window, where the dust swarmed in a small cloud. A single bug, so little it blended in, rammed against the windowpane again and again, hoping with every fiber that one of these days it would fly right through, free to pursue the greater lights in life. It smelled of spring in the room, if the season were confined in a box and mailed miles away, likely the influence of the opened blossom given no room had ever seemed so dull and grey in his history. After today, even the bluest skies and fluffiest clouds would be poison in disguise, because the grey was spreading like a plague, and even the bottled sunshine was wilting at the very tips of its petals.

Outside, the songbirds were singing like they knew the score. Levi fumbled for the other envelope, eager to peel his eyes from the bug that agreed that life paled in comparison to living the dream. The heedful motions had died when his soul got skinned away, and this letter was handled with less love, less caution, because as far as he was concerned at this very moment, his birthday had ended before golden hour began. Its existence was purposeless when no one could celebrate his pulse but himself. It didn’t matter how he felt about himself, that was decided once perfection and inspiration were defined, it only mattered when others came to see the two hand-in-hand, intertwined as lovers in a ballad. A piece of a stranger’s parchment wouldn’t do that for him.

Still, the Gryffindor ripped the top of the envelope off, pulling the parchment from its casing so violently that one of the edges was torn by his discontent. This note had a similar uniform crease to the former, but the artistic note to its creation had expired once the signature was altered, its esse distorted. The boy’s hands gained a modest tremble unveiling the words behind the folds, stare yanked immediately to the bizarre crest at the upper right corner before reading any of the message. In its center, a woman surrounded by reptilian creatures. It appeared as though they were almost attached to her, but the image was so compact that its finest details were obscured. After a moment of studying it, Levi looked at the words neatly scrawled on its surface.

Levi,

Happy birthday. I’ve heard so little about you but feel like I’ve known you forever. I promise the wait will not be too much longer. My patience grows thin, but we are taking steps. You’re not a secret anymore. I’m not either.

I hope this note finds you in good health. I have sent a gift but fear its interception. Should it not come, rest assured I will make up for that another time.

M.K.

Levi’s eyebrows had furrowed as his stare glided across the lines, hardened by each passing word. Lips creased downward, he’d mumbled along to his reading, toying with the tone of those idle phrases, praying they make more sense released to the world’s callous grasp. Perhaps a divine explanation would plummet from the sky, ram into the window with an unmatched force, and free that buzzing bug and by extension, himself. M.K.? No matter how hard he slammed his brain back and forth, the rolling snowball of a migraine aging with him, he couldn’t find those initials, not even submerged in the sea of extraneous details to the most pointless memories. They were nowhere, nonexistent, shared only on the bottom of this letter and the top of a headstone somewhere in the abyss of people Levi would never know.

He let go of the puzzle, not watching as it fluttered out of his dominant hand and settled in the thin layer of grime on the icy floor a few inches from his leg. The boy’s mind and eyes were no longer in sync, staring stoically into the boundless classroom but mind gone, in Glasgow, in Cyprus, in Greece. Hours from now, he’d gather his things to return to the lion’s den before curfew chimed, but before treading along that path, the jagged edge of the mysterious letter would be broadened, and its cryptic enigma would be rendered nothing but incomprehensible shreds of paper to be cleaned by the next person to wander into the lifeless walls of the second floor’s vacant classroom.