A Reach for the Parallel

This is a fictional little snippet that I wrote about Steve, a lost soul obsessed to create a new reality.

Enjoy!


Do you ever notice that any time anyone tells you not to do something you instantly want to do it? Or that no plan ever seems to work out how you want it to? My name is Steven, a pretty common name I guess. My entire life has been spent rarely socialising with anyone, or ever feel the urge to. Growing up I had one true passion, and that was for fame. I don’t understand what I liked so much about the idea, but it naturally pulled my attention towards things that seemed impossible. For example, I wanted to act, be a famous movie star or something, but there’s no chance of that ever happening where I live. I’m not sure if what I craved was the money, the attention and popularity, being known? When that didn’t work out I went to music. I enjoyed the thrill of creating music, creating whatever kind of feel that I was in the mood for with a harmonic symphony of my amp as distorted as it possibly could be. The roar of the vibrations giving me full authority of my own sound, and I struggled to turn it into some kind of fame.

It was difficult, but I managed to find some other band mates. None of them seemed to have the drive to push their talents like I did. The image of fame wasn’t as important to them. Nick told me, “It’s not about selling out dude, it’s about the music.”

I couldn’t fathom what he was trying to tell me. The music? How could it be just about the music? It’s only sound. It’s displaced by vibrations depicting our feelings, but what good is it if only we listened to it? I couldn’t handle his attitude towards music so I appointed myself the one to get rid of him. I was doing the band a favour, but they didn’t see it that way.

Outside of the band, my only other friend was an average at everything sort of person named Barney. It was a difficult name to take serious. I always thought of the dinosaur. But unlike me he didn’t seek fame. He did his school-work because his parents told him to, he didn’t play video games because they didn’t let him do that either. He was a slave to his parents, never allowed to go out, and not allowed to play guitar because they thought it was trashy. They were a family moulded by a strong ignorant attitude towards trying to represent perfection. Like the image of a perfect family. They had brand new vehicles, a car and a jacked-up truck in their four-car garage, and a decently sized house. They were by no means rich, you could tell they were struggling but they always had to have the best of everything. It looked pathetic trying to maintain a life like that, so I kept on pushing to find fame, so it could solve all of my problems.