Étranges Libellules - Story Outline (pt. 2)

It gets late at night, and Curtis is thinking of taking a blissful bus ride back to his flat - feeling relief of miraculously finding that woman. Clare says that it isn’t safe at night; there are people who want to assault him for being black, being potentially a Muslim - I imagine in this future that things have become irreversibly divided in France.. in Europe generally.

In the ending to Days Before Christmas, when I wrote Clare being in a brighter future where she reunites with Martin - I was more naive at the time. I hoped that the world would progress in a brighter direction, to reflect Clare leaving behind her nightmarish reality to become a shining star of a person. But as I’ve gleaned, it isn’t working out that way. There’s a huge contradiction in the European psyche where they see the solution of standing up for their boundaries as racist and xenophobic, while turning a blind eye to the toxic influence of Islam migrants who don’t want to integrate with European values, but conquer everything from within.

I’d say it’s like a person who’s grown accustomed to being in a relationship with an abuser; instead of seeing it for what it is, they easily snap and blame other people, other factors - like their own family trying to reach out to them. In their mind, it’s their fault the abuser is mad and unhappy with them, and by some grace of God, would they make some amends and make things happy again -- the man endlessly pleads to the gatekeeper as he ages and withers away to let him pass before the door of the Law, but to no avail.

This is something I wanted to illustrate, having myself been in relationships gone terribly sour. At this stage in the story, I aim to make the reader uncomfortable - feeling uprooted and disoriented and betrayed by the familiar turned ugly, while wanting a foothold to hold onto for assurance.

Anyways, CJ returns home. He only has enough money for a single bus fare - it’s September, his monthly pass has expired. When he gets on, he takes a seat by the side door, and he gets some uncomfortable leers from a Frenchman in front of him. For the first time, he doesn’t feel welcome, it’s not like home anymore. Another symptom of his innocence being stripped away. He waits for the man to get off at a stop, but the man still stays on the bus.

Then a pretty couple gets onto the bus, with the girl being pregnant. They notice CJ in his hoodie (already barely hiding his discomfort). After a moment of consideration, they sit by the Frenchman, where CJ avoids their gaze - he blares out music full-blast from his earbuds, trying to take his attention off of them.. a sort of silent intimidation.

A mental image of a rosary in heavy shadow, mid-air, rotating, with a thin metal chain attached. CJ’s heart palpitates with a strange anxiety.. not unlike that of imagining something major yet to come.

Clare’s words echo in CJ. He suddenly remembers how that rosary, with its ruby centre, was around her neck, when the bus is interrupted by a molotov cocktail shattering, flames erupting over the windows, melting them into modern art. The molotov wasn’t even aiming at the bus, but rather it’s thrown as part of a riot.

In France of this time, there are no-go zones where Muslim-inhabited banlieues are secluded from the rest of French residences. Buses are not allowed to cross through them, so this riot takes place by the border of one such Muslim banlieue - instigated by young, angry French youth who want their own pure France back.

CJ ends up getting off the bus prematurely, runs away from the commotion the rest of the way home. He hears sirens approaching, riot patrols clamping on the violence.

..

Her affection, her love isn’t there anymore, and he knows it.

“Why have you forsaken me..?” -- the same words inside CJ could just as well go for anyone who has lost faith, lost hope or connection in what they’ve poured their hearts into. It’s a question screaming its soul out for an answer, no matter how insipid or grotesque.

So he’ll see Lillian, one more time. He looks over the previous conversations they’ve had together, and a thought occurs to him: what if he could peer into what she was doing at the moment when she sees his messages? He asks this possibility with his friends and one of them, Dmitriy, an experienced cracker, enables CJ to do just that.

At his residence, CJ sends Lillian an unsuspecting holographic recording (message) of himself, to check in on her - he waits a few agonizing minutes for his message to be seen (not heard), and he imagines it could be like in one of the movies he’s saw, where a kidnapper has stolen her away and is just reading all the messages she would’ve received. If that were the case, he could be a real hero.

What he sees is different.

She’s dressed as a punk rocker, seemingly expressionless as she looks over what she’s just received, before turning around to pick up a microphone and sing, soulfully, her long hair wavering in tune with her fierce energy - no audio (a limitation of the cracking tool).

The image of her fades out.. an intense jealousy swells in his heart now, consuming his emotions with a blackening, numbing pain. She was doing all that, and never even told him. She’s intentionally keeping him out of her loop.. why?
CJ plays some basketball outside alone. He does lay-ups, slam dunks, three-pointers on that aged basket to keep his mind off the emotional pain. He’s loved basketball since he’s seen Space Jam -- it’s a piece of home he carries with him. At Chicago, he’d play around evening in the alley, before he’d know it, other people would join in on the fun for a pick-up game. It always makes him smile.. before all this.

It’s cloudy. CJ puts his own basketball away and gazes out at the coldness that the seasonal change has brought out in the streets. He flashes back to Lillian -- she’s resting in his arms - they’re on a bench at the park, the most sweetest scent of nectar from the flowers. She is adoring his face with her gaze, her hands gently coaxing his ears, and he just knows if he leans in to know her soft lips by his own - the same as asking his family for a hug when he felt down or lonely - the same as hugging his plush M&M Orange when he was younger and nervous of the dark, the soft plushness letting him know that there will be a tomorrow, and that it’s enough just to relax and simply be, resting still with the glow in the dark stickers in his room, and the noises of his own breathing upon his bed. It would be alright.

It would be alright..

He feels vulnerable, and something in him just breaks, and he begins to sob, alone and to himself, not knowing why.

At the residence, CJ is packing his items into luggage, melancholy weighing in his movements. Clothes, toothpaste, laptop, while disposing much of his school notes in the wastebasket. They’re useless scraps of paper, all except the ones with his memorable doodles and made-up rap lyrics =)

Then he stumbles across his school yearbook. His attention droops on it, and he opens up the pages. Beyond the customary photos of every student, are the captured moments which he’s lived at the school. Tobogganing down the snowy hills in winter. Being in the halls when someone rode a scooter, blaring out French rock from his phone (there’s Curtis by his locker).

The graduation ball.

Curtis and Lillian dancing in the dimly-lit gym, disco lights illuminating their faces intent on one another to the music. All his memories emerge out of nowhere, and it’s like he wants to hug someone deeply for every single, stupid, little, silly moment that he’s lucky enough to have had -- no one’s around.

He knows what he has to do now.. he just needs to meet up with her in person and maybe, just maybe it would turn out to be a simple misunderstanding that he could laugh it off when he gets back home, and turn this lingering unhappiness of his upside-down.

“Please don’t, CJ. Seeing her one last time is going to make it harder for you,” his friends go. Even his own friends aren’t supportive of his predicament anymore.

CJ doesn’t want to hear it - he ventures out to find Lillian.. if she’s even still around in Paris anymore, for she was also an exchange student whose family happened to care enough to make a temporary living in this place of romance.

Afraid of showing up at her place directly (leading to an incredibly awkward encounter with her together with her family), he scours the places where he remembers she loves to go. McDonalds, the park, the classy art theatre.. feels more like aimlessly roaming in nostalgia than a purposeful search, but he finds fliers on the wall - a gig, with Lillian as the singer! Today’s the last night to see it!

The venue takes place at “La Fontayne” club - which through experience, CJ knows the address to be around the richer avenues. The ticket price is around twenty Euros - too bad, it’s sold out.

No turning back now.

CJ sneaks in through backdoors, where the crew are too busy prepping the instruments and lighting to notice while it’s raining heavily outside. He acts like he is doing some useful stuff (like drinking the provided fruit punch) to blend in.

Amidst the swirl of self-organizing chaos manifesting itself into a show, CJ spots Lillian by the makeup mirrors, having already rehearsed, loudly chattering with her bandmates about the events of their last night’s wildness.

He’s briefly relieved to be able to see her with his own eyes again, and it seems like looking upon her naturally animated self is enough to bring joy to his beating heart.. until he remembers he doesn’t belong here, with her.

It’s announced the band will be live in a minute. A crew member spots him. He doesn’t have a backstage pass, so he quickly backs into a nearby hall and ducks into a washroom stall. His heart is pounding from sheer adrenaline, he’s just comprehending what craziness he’s leapt into. At the same time, he knows he’s not one of those people who just suck it up and mope when things are going wrong in their lives. That’s worth something.

The reason he is here is because he believes in himself enough to still give a fuck.

The crew members enter the washroom with security, and Curtis can hear them talk about “securing the area from a potential code brown.” He only knows they’re talking about him, and he gulps as they search around, flashlights prodding the urinals and then the stalls [the stalls here don’t have the gap underneath the doors].

Each door opened sends a shiver through Curtis, while he hears the audience roar from the curtains unfolding and Lillian chalking it up on the microphone.

The security guards bust open the stall next to Curtis, followed by violent struggling - there was a junkie who was busy speedballing (heroin + cocaine), and it takes all the men just to subdue him, and soon leaving the washroom and Curtis safe.

CJ creeps out, and from the shadows of the backstage, absorbs every facet of the wild performance. The way the drummer slams his kit, the guitar and bass, the way she sings - albeit not flawlessly, still has this engaging passion (subconsciously reminding him of the first time he almost climaxed with her).

They want more.. Curtis wants more. In another world, he’d be by the front of the audience and Lillian would just wink at him, for seeing his soft face is encouragement.

The show is over - everyone roars with craze, and Lillian wishes them all a happy, safe travel back home. When the curtain falls and she packs up her microphone, Curtis takes this as his cue to stand up to her. It’s now or never. He starts emerging from his hiding spot, only to see her embrace the lead guitarist in a passionate kiss, a full blown make-out session. His emotions freeze, and it’s like his chest is threatening to explode from the sudden massive build-up.

The backstage is all but abandoned now, leaving a lone spotlight shining on Lillian and the guitarist. She wraps her arms around his neck while he takes her, moaning. Lifting her up underneath her legs-- carrying her to a waist-high speaker by the wall, and while she has her hands feverishly all over his chest, the guitarist unbuckles his pants and reaches beneath her black skirt.

A jolt of spontaneous ecstasy from her, her leg trembling. The guitarist is pushing deeply and deeply, over and over, again and again, letting animalistic urges whelm his consciousness.

Curtis watches. He is terribly aroused (he could start to smell their combined sweat and heat and bodily pheromones - Lillian’s, mixed with this guitarist’s), and so confused as to the turmoil of raw emotions he didn’t know he’d possessed, swirling, caving his good senses in. He hears her vocalize out her cries (of pain? no. of sheer euphoria that she never shared with Curtis), all as her hand clasps the nape of the guitarists’ neck.

“No,” he says, not wanting it. “NO!” He screams her name in an explosive rage.

It shocks Lillian and the guitarist (Cesar) out of their ravenous desire, and if you were here in this moment, it is Curtis, tears streaming down his cheeks, sadness and anguish filling the void where Lillian’s love once was. Cesar quickly tucks his glistening penis back into his pants, before approaching Curtis - he’s somewhat exhausted, upset over the intrusion.
Curtis focuses all his despondent rage on Cesar, and attempts to charge at Cesar, who simply sidesteps and in the process throws CJ tumbling across to the floor. After a second of looking upon CJ, Cesar kicks him hard.

“Stop it! Cesar!” Lillian manages to pull Cesar away. “Curtis.. um.. I never expected you to show up.”

When Curtis gets up from the ground, trembling, the look of pain in his eyes catches them off-guard. “I’ve been waiting for you so long,” he goes. “Why did you leave me.. why didn’t you tell me you were singing at some gig.. you don’t even care about me. Tell me you don’t care about me. Tell me I mean next to nothing to you anymore!”

“Is this some lover of yours Lil’? This negro-- ha. Ahahahahah! Don’t make me laugh - Lil, get him outta my sight.” (I’ve always found it fascinating when you have beautiful women pair up with people who you see act heinously, like Cesar here, even if only because of status, power.. security under the guise of men giving off domineering signals. Or because inside they’ve come to feel like this is how love for them is like, this is what they deserve.)

“Why are you so upset about me?” Lillian says, almost dumbfounded - but really suppressing a truth in her mind so she could cope with her day-to-day troubles. “Aren’t we just.. friends?”

Friends.

“No, Lillian.. I love you. I loved you since I got to know you from McDonalds.. we shared that royale with cheese meal together, and your cats. Ever since, I grew to love everything about you..” His next words, amidst his sniffles, he knows are so cheesy, but it’s the only words he has to put that feeling which permeated his summer. “I loved your humour about so many stuff.. I loved how gentle and delicate you were with your cats. I love your unique spirit underneath you. Just being with you made me so happy. You made my summer. I’m glad for that.”

Cesar spits at CJ, then picks up his jacket and storms out the door, one last contemptuous look at CJ, before leaving the two lovebirds alone.

“Curtis,” she goes. “I hardly even know you. And you don’t know me. We only met because of that stupid ball, and you just.. gah! I hate how you’re so demanding of my time. Calling me at least twice every day, wanting me to talk and hang out with you always. It’s exhausting, I can’t be there on top of you 24/7!” She is fuming now. “You know, you’re really this needy boy who’s pathetically hooked on what I do, like I’m your drug who gets you high, like I’m your dream girl who’s going to spend the rest of my life with you.”

“No.. no..”

“I really just want you to be happy by yourself. Thanks to you, my night is ruined, I have to pack and sleep for my flight home tomorrow. I gotta go.” She picks up her packed kits and knapsack. “Please stop clinging onto women for everything. You’ll find success in life. Ciao.”

“Lillian!!” Curtis reaches for her, managing to find hold on her black punk-rocker shirt. “How could you, you selfish cunt--”

“Let go of me!” She thrusts him away.

Security guards toss Curtis out of the club, into the rainy night, where Curtis looks up from the gutter and sees Lillian get inside a car, her brothers eagerly prodding her about her concert.. who cares, her car drives away.

People leaving the club look at him - they don’t think much of him besides that he’s just some drunkard.

“I HATE YOU LILLIAN!” He gets up and in some defiance, thrusts his hands against the air and the falling rain. “I fucking hate you! Rot in hell!” And Curtis screams into the rain in one last, desperate gasp, and his body muscles failing him, from exhaustion and the coldness drenching him, he lets the ground swallow him whole.

“No, no, please, come back..”

The sound of painful, stifled cries. It’s Curtis, refusing to accept what must be. Sobbing, breaking down, feeling like a sad shell of a human being.