High White Sound by Hannah Herchenbach
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Late at night, when all the students had either gone home or were drinking down in the pubs, one got a sense that the campus was truly yours, that it belonged to you and no one else, a brick cobblestone hideaway dropped in the city and shielded from the outside world by towering black iron gates with fine-tipped points that kept out the duller aspects of reality.
The pearl columns and brick buildings glowed in the twilight as Katrina and I skipped and caroused and whooped through the tree-lined paths and under the soft glow of the black corner lamps for one last night on the campus.
We ascended the long wide stairs and turned, gazing out with her over the twinkling deserted landscape. Katrina found an access point through a tree that allowed us to crawl up and hoist ourselves into a giant window frame in the old library. And with the scraped up red bricks and cobblestones under our feet, I looked back out over the campus as if I was doing it for the first time.
There was a definite sense of having arrived.
Katrina and I stood at each other’s side and stared, silent spectators in the pitiful glow. In the twilight under the columns the desolate pieces were starting to come together. There was a definite sense of fondness when looking at the white and red brick buildings and I’m thinking to myself “Oh hell” because this emotion hadn’t surfaced all semester and now here it is circling around my mind in the last moments. It’s all beautiful at the end.
Maybe having too little time is a good thing. Maybe it means the journey will always be bittersweet. Having longing means it’s the perfect time to pack up and go.
I wanted to believe Jack was at the base of a mountain somewhere, eating peaches and living forever. Or bobbing in a little boat on the sea, dreaming the universe, with his snake curled by his side. Or waiting on some golden bough.
And Katrina says, "Jack?" and I'm saying nothing but I'm smiling and she knows. I longed for the one I wrote for.
I turned back to Katrina and nearly screamed upon finding Jack’s grinning face, two inches away.
“Where did you come from?”
Jack pointed to the tree. “Over there. I was just having a snooze.”
“You know what I mean. How did you get here?”
“It just so happens that a wonderful woman I know, Linda,” Jack clutched at his heart. “Is now a stewardess.” He lowered his eyelids. “That redeye flight doesn’t get any easier, let me tell you.”
“Especially when you’re sleeping with the luggage?”
Jack slapped my arm. “What makes you think I would ever do that? Although that’s not to say they’d ever find me.”
I was soaked. But Jack wasn't getting wet. “Adam said you had disappeared.”
Jack sighed. “Adam gets all his information off the internet.”
I still couldn’t tell if he was real or only in my imagination.
Jack grimaced. “Well I had, I guess. I was depressed... After my son was taken away, I had nothing left.” He let out a short laugh. “I haven’t told anyone this.”
I was still the only one who saw him.
“But I found him. Now I know where he is. That’s where I’ve been. He’s in a town that’s as far as one can get from both London and Berlin.”
So he had given it all up.
Jack shrugged. “I just wanted to get away.”
“I know the feeling,” I said. “Does anyone know where you are yet?”
Jack looked up. “They won’t for a while. I like the thought of keeping a low profile.”
As I searched Jack’s face, I found no trace of the old image. Something is being spoken between us. Something I don't entirely yet know. A thousand things, a little bit sometimes something and sometimes nothing at all.
“Take me with you.” I cover my mouth. What did I just say?
Sure, I wanted it. Yet I thought of all the credit card bills I had found in my wallet. I thought of the lies, and the many times that he had abandoned me in the night. I thought of all these things, and how I’d still go anywhere he would take me. I didn’t know whether he was a hero or a blind fool. But what did it matter? Whatever he was, I was too.
Maybe we would never understand each other. But that's all right. Out of all the things I didn’t know I knew I was better by his side.
“There are no jobs down there,” Jack warned. “Or perhaps very few.”
"Can I sit there and write things?"
Jack cackled. "That's about all you CAN do. You can't live a normal life,” he warned.
I shook my head. “Who would want to?”
Graduation is for commemorating the past – the long distortion of moments in time that form legend and become the truths of our lives. Forever forward, got to walk, got to keep in line. New York – where it all went down, and something else rose. We came as kids and left as souls.
And what was college if not doing nothing on the steps? Or getting drunk with the lawyers and lost with the artists? Staying up late to pace around a grand piano case? It was all those nights of coming up with songs in beautiful old buildings for no reason other than to be up late. It was a series of beautiful moments that I could pull down and keep in my pocket to ward off the bad days.
Maybe collecting these moments is the purpose of life. Because the bad days are going to come. And I could archive them into a string of pearls to wrap around the heart to keep it glowing on lonely sidewalk days. Maybe I wasn’t wrong after all with that vision of writing things on a hillside. Maybe I was just early.
What is this feeling? Is this getting old? Caring more about the feeling of someone else’s fallen wings to want to float down and care for them as if they were your own? Wanting something longer than one long endless day? If this is getting old, let it come forth in waves.
“But to chase after something you cannot see,” I mused. “Is that delusion?”
“No,” Katrina insisted. “That's faith.”
Katrina stood by my side, her dark brow sinking. Tears glistened in her eyes. “I can’t believe it’s ending.”
“Nothing is ending,” I said. “This place made us. And I have you because of it. This world is not something we are leaving behind. It brought us together. I found you the first day. But now,” I smiled, “a beach at the end of the world calls my name.”
Katrina sighed. “You know, one day you're going to have to learn how to escape without running away.”
I was going to ride wild horses and nap in the glades.
“What are you going to do?”
“Maybe I’ll make surfboards. Or just type things in the shade. The Prince was written in the countryside.”
“So was The Inferno,” Katrina replied. “And that wasn’t exactly by choice.” She shook her head. “I can see you staying there forever, listening to records.”
I clicked my tongue. “According to Schopenhauer, that makes me a genius.” I paused. “I’ll write you letters.”
Katrina gave me a knowing look. “Are you kidding? I know you. Always up in your own little world. You'll never remember to write.”
“I will,” I promised. “I’ll write something for you.”
epilogue
I awoke with a start back on the island, the sky drenched red from the setting sun. The bottle is gone. In its stead a scroll of words blows in the wind.
All those memories are fading. I don’t know how long it’s been. Have I been here one night? Has it been nine hundred?
I feel my old self disappearing, but now I don't mind. I’m ready for youth to end – and all the fear of death that goes with it. It was nice, but now it’s time for something new to begin.
For we are part of something eternal. We are part of an endless chain. Something transient flies within us and will one day too fly away. For we are not islands seeking sole destinies. We’re all looking out at the same stars for something to believe.
So strive on star children, seek out your dragons. Seize that spark in the night! Run, before they drift ou
So what if we cannot catch them? So what if we fall behind? What if we can never hold the high white sound that lights our lives? Then we'll spend the rest of our days standing at each other's side. At both ends of the world. With collars up against the wind.
Striking matches in the dark.
# # #
Holy hell, you made it to the end. You have no idea how many of my closest friends have not achieved this task. Thank you so much for taking the time to read my first novel. I hope you enjoyed it. If you want to keep in touch, please head to hannahherchenbach.com to check out other writings and future works. You can also connect with me on Twitter, facebook, or Instagram – just search for the username highwhitesound. And if you’re ever in New Zealand, feel free to drop me a line, all right?
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