There is a
hole in his soul. It is only the 3rd real day of summer vacation, and
Will already can't handle the inaction. He feels trapped by the hills surrounding his
rural abode.
Will hates his
house; it has a
poisonous influence on his mind. There is something
maelvolent in the electric fields that big humming power cable above his room emits. Friends have pointed out a tendency towards
narcolepsy in anyone who stays too long in its
grip.
The red noise of boredom and paranoia seethe through his brain. Maybe loud music is the cure? Anything cheerful just sounds cheap and irritating. Something angry. HEAD LIKE A HOLE! BLACK AS YOUR SOUL! No. That could only make things worse.
There, of course, is a girl involved. Jamie confuses the fuck out of him. He really has a hard time telling if she cares or not. She just vanished for a week, didn't tell anyone anything. When she returns, the answering machine greets his humble attempts to make contact. fuck this, he thinks, There are other girls. Olivia might still take me on. But it's too late, wishful thinking. There are few things worse than being unloved, but Will is beginning to think having to choose between loves is one of them. Nobody gets out of that intact. No matter which way he turns, little bits of someone's soul will stick under his fingernails. But that was a winter problem, already said and done. Spring brought its own baggage; struggles with school and his malfunctioning nerves. He thought it would be a relief to be able to do nothing again. He was mistaken.
So there he is, with nowhere to run to from his inner demons, trapped in a house he is certain will devour him given half a chance, and without a car. A car is the only hope of salvation for a rural teenager. He, of course, has had his hopes dashed, against a telephone pole at the hands of his sleeping mother. She was uninjured, his freedom was ripped open like a cellophane wrapper around his dreams, leaving it open to spoilage.
The walls close in on him, blank, white, silent.