★ {TIMOTHY SAIRSURROW} ★ D9 [FIN]

★ { n a m e } timothy harper sairsurrow
★ { a g e } fourteen
★ { g e n d e r } male
★ { l o c a t i o n } district nine
★ { s e x u a l i t y } bisexual

I'll leave the sun behind me and watch the clouds as they sadly pass me by
Seven miles below me I can see the world and it ain't so big at all
This time tomorrow what will we see
Field full of houses, endless rows of crowded streets

★ { a p p e a r a n c e }

It’s really weird thinking about how every person you walk by has a name and a personality and a group of friends you’ll never know and a messed up family or an amazing family or that they’re in love or that they’re depressed or are having the best or worst day of their life. There are a lot of people around and I’ll hardly know any of them, and, I dunno, that's kind of sad.

I don't know when I started writing songs for them, for the people I can only dream that I know. There's just something about strangers - the way that each unfamiliar face holds entire histories and memories and thoughts pent up behind eyes that only speak a whisper of such mysteries - that's just so tantalizing. I've never quite wrapped my mind around why, but I find something so sweet about an accidental encounter - or perhaps a coincidental meeting - of two people who may never see each other again. It drives so much of what I do; the quiet rush, the unwritten but softly supposed stories. My life bores me and I yearn for more. I capture that spark, that minuscule, knowing flame, and I scribble it out along the inky tip of a feathered pen on old piece of parchment - long, pale fingers tracing the curve of note after note, piano to forte, the rise and fall of crescendos to the drawn out slopes of a slur on the yellowed canvas of a once empty sheet of paper, now filled with a fantasy song, and it's magical.

And then I realize that I'll never truly know these people; I'll never know if the life I'd created for them on those endless pieces of parchment are anywhere near the truth, not for sure - not as surely as I know that I have dust-bowl brown hair or papery-pale skin stretched over a face full of sharpness and angles. I'll never be as familiar with them as I am with the gangling awkwardness of my too-long limbs, or the plump redness of my lips and the straight slope of my nose, or even the lone freckle just below the corner of my mouth - the only blemish among the sallow paleness of my cheeks - but that's okay, because strangers have a way of leaving this beautiful hole inside of me, and I fill it with my own imaginings of who I think they are, all their good and bad sides, all of their being. And sometimes it's good to have that piece of a person, even if that's all you have - just an illusion.

I don't where I'm going, I don't want to see
I feel the world below me looking up at me
Leave the sun behind me, and watch the clouds as they sadly pass me by
And I'm in perpetual motion and the world below doesn't matter much to me

★ { p e r s o n a l i t y }

I know I'm a sad person, and sad people are never taken seriously, it seems to me. They’re patted on their shoulders, someone always telling them it will get better. People think they’re making it harder for themselves than it should be - people think they dramatize their feelings. The thing is - sad people don’t choose to be sad, they can't just not be what they are. They can’t help it, it just happens, and when they try to fix what’s wrong, eventually it doesn’t work out. And I’m so sick of it all. Sometimes I wish I could just live happily, or die right away. Sometimes I can’t bare any more of this gloomy cloud above my head because it makes me numb, makes me weak - I end up doing nothing and just that makes me even sadder.

I'm a mess. That's the best way to describe it. I don't think very many people know that, though. I must seem like the optimist of my family, the one everyone can count on to be happy, but the truth is that I'm too busy making sure everyone else is happy to worry about my own happiness, and it sucks because I understand that and I still can't seem to stop. I don't know why, but sadness seems to constantly cling to me, weaving its way into the stretched taut fibers of my being and into the deepest depths of my soul, and there's nothing I can do about it. Sometimes I try to expel it through the tips of my fingers, strumming at the chords of a harp or pressing against the slender neck of a violin as the bow drags out its solemn song along its strings. Sometimes I deliberately put myself in its path - which is often the same way my father's fist is swinging - in a bid to keep it from touching my siblings, even when they deserve it. It's not much, but it's the best that I can do.

And sometimes, though rarely, I find myself stuck in that moment when you realize that you’re currently happy - and consciously trying to savor the feeling - which prompts your intellect to identify it, pick it apart and put it in context, where it slowly dissolves until it’s little more than an aftertaste. What people don't understand - and I often forget - is that happiness doesn’t come and go from somewhere else. Happiness happens inside of you and you can always throw your first in the air, yelling that everything will be alright. Because it will be. And you know that. I guess you could say I'm the person that's constantly trying to remind people of that, even though I have trouble remembering it for myself.

Maybe one day I'll find happiness, though I don't know in what way, shape, or form. Perhaps it'll be a person, like Prince Charming in all the fairy tales. Someone asked me if I was gay once, and I feel like it's gotten cliche to say, but I don't know. I never really defined it for myself. I'd like to think that I'm equally capable of falling in love with anyone, regardless of gender. Like, I often find myself thinking about boys, though the attraction to girls is still there. Obviously not in the “typical” way, as I don't really get excited by seeing a girls breasts, and guys are just being really pretentious. I'm much more enthralled by elegant necks, long legs or big hands…I don’t know. I can’t describe it, but I’ll just say that I do not know with whom I will fall in love with, and I really don't want to know. That's the beauty of it.

This time tomorrow where will we be
On a spaceship somewhere sailing across an empty sea
This time tomorrow what will we know
Will we still be here watching an in-flight movie show

★ { h i s t o r y }

As far as punching bags go, I seem to be one of my dad's favorites. Or maybe I'm just the one that's always standing too close. Either way, the patchwork bruises along the thin stretch of my skin are a painful testament to Alfred Sairsurrow's addiction to alcohol and the violence and anger that often creeps its way into the sad, empty cavern within his ribcage during his many drunken nights. He's always been the odd one out in the family, the only one to conform to District Nine's peculiar ways of dull, crisp clothing and crazy gizmos and gadgets, of which are not allowed into the simplicity of our home - much to his obvious chagrin. After so many years of sucking up all the sadness such episodes bring to my family and filling myself to the brim with it, I suppose I've sort of become numb to his hurtful words, each blow to my frail body more of a hollow echo of pain rather than an agony-filled beating. And I guess if it makes my dad happy, I won't object. After all, we're all entitled to our own delusions.

At least, that's what my mother always says about the people - the beautiful, wonderful strangers - outside the elegantly carved, wooden confines of our home. It's a beautiful building, all high-vaulted ceilings and large, open windows and exquisite furnishings. You could say that we're a wealthy family, but a lot of our earnings are spent on cloth for the outfits our mother hand-sews for us, and the rest is used to keep up my father's supply of alcohol. Not much is used for personal accouterments, but we don't really need much.

It's really a lovely place, my house, but you'd think we all have the plague by the way people tend to steer clear of it. We're the delusional ones to the people outside, the strange family with the odd clothes and the bizarre way of speaking. If only they could see how beautiful we are, from the incredible intellect of James' mind to the masterpieces that dance from Violet's fingertips on chipped ivory keys to the clear, magical beauty of dear Winifred's angelic voice. People would rather throw rocks at us than know us, though, and that kind of makes me sad.

This time tomorrow where will we be
On a spaceship somewhere sailing across any empty sea
This time tomorrow, this time tomorrow
Where will we be

★ { o t h e r } ★

★ { f a c e } philip ellis
★ { p l o t s } sairsurrow rabbits plot
★ { s o n g } this time tomorrow by the kinks
★ { c o d e } oDair