Free Everything Beautiful Began After by Simon van Booy

imagined leaping into a bush as she rushed down to see who was there.
    George was in the habit of leaving his apartment with everything on, including lights, the radio, and once even the shower—which he’d drunkenly forgotten to get into in the first place. Without turning around, he found his keys and took from a drawer the gift certificate his father had left him—an orange envelope with a horse and cart engraved upon it. He thought it might be a nice impromptu gift, or serve in place of an excuse should his presence be discovered.
    The elevator tapped quickly in its descent, and George remembered the sound of housemasters’ shoes echoing through tall arched corridors of the dormitory.
    A year before he graduated from Exmouth, his only real pleasure, aside from translating ancient texts and music, was drinking single malt against an obelisk set in the manicured grounds of the school. He liked to sit there, drink, and hum Bach. The obelisk was known as the Exmouth phallus. Once, drunkenly, George wrapped his body around its base and screamed:
    “Thrust me deep inside, O great Exmouth cock, where no mortals dare spread fragile wings.”
    If it hadn’t been parents day, nobody would have heard and George wouldn’t have got into any trouble.
    Some of the colder mornings brought great joy. Before dawn, after a night of heavy frost, George wandered the white dreaming garden through clouds of breath and the forever nothing of stars. Like a silk puppet, he glided through the grounds, the only living witness to that day’s birth.
    George had entered boarding school when he was seven, soon after his family split up.
    The flight from Lexington to Boston was uneventful. He was served a bag of animal crackers and the beverage of his choice (Fanta). Someone from the school named Terrence drove to the airport to pick him up.
    By the time George reached Rebecca’s apartment building around seven in the morning, his memories of Exmouth lay scattered behind him. He had bought some liquor on the way and was now too drunk to focus on anything above the second floor. He simply stared at her building and tried to make sense of the blurred colors.
    When George eventually found the courage to cross the street, he realized he had been staring up at the second floor of the wrong building, and so he gave up and fell asleep in a park nearby.
    He slept unceremoniously until early afternoon.
    When he woke up, he walked carefully through the bright sunshine to the closest metro station. He felt ragged and nearing sobriety. His lungs ached for the heaviness of smoke. Like the veteran of his own private war, he painfully and crookedly ascended to the platform.
    A train pulled in.
    He watched people spill from the doors, waiting for an opening so he could board. Suddenly, Rebecca was in front of him, with a bouquet of white flowers.
    “Rebecca!”
    She seemed surprised. Her eyes were a beautiful shape.
    George tried to stand straight. “Sorry if I frightened you,” he stammered.
    “What are you doing here, George?”
    “Oh, well, I had to collect some official documents from the library up the road.” He motioned one way and then looked in the other direction and motioned that way too.
    “Have you ever been there?” he asked, touching the heads of her flowers.
    “Where?” she said.
    “You live here?” George asked.
    “You know I do.”
    “Just coming home?”
    “Yes—why do you have leaves stuck to your pants?”
    “These leaves?” George said and looked down at his soiled suit trousers, laughing. “I took a nap in the grounds of the academy—it really needs a good rake, to be honest.”
    “I thought you said it was a library?”
    “It’s both, in a way, I suppose—hasn’t it been ages since we saw each other!”
    “Looks like you need to sober up.”
    “Rebecca,” he said breathlessly. There was so much he wanted to say, but was unable to think past the syllables of her name that filled him like some delicate