Time Is Nothing (John Frusciante)

Chapter 34

January 1992

"Hello?"

"Hey," John gently smiled to the phone, "I got your package."

"Yeah? Do you like it?"

"I love it," he softly breathed and let his fingers slide over the framed smiling image of him and Cecilia, a photo that could easily count as their official wedding photograph as it was taken by the lovely tourist couple they had encountered minutes after getting married on a certain August afternoon, now already months ago.

"I really needed that, and that note was so sweet," he continued, "I just miss you so much. I'm so sick of this."

"Only a few weeks left until your break, yeah? Only a little bit to handle."

"I know, but having you here would make it a lot easier. I just feel like I'm disappearing more and more every single day."

"Have you and Anthony talked since yesterday?"

"No," John shook his head as if there was a person in the hotel room, who could see his expression of denial, "We only argue when we speak. So we just don't until we really have to."

"Baby, you know that it can't go on like this.."

Cecilia's attempt to start a yet another session of reasoning on the other side of the telephone line was met with a few seconds of silence, and then of course, John's dismissal.

"How was today?" he instead inquired, feeling like he was a lot more interested in hearing about his wife's day than discussing his practically non-existent desire to find any common ground with his rather estranged bandmate.

"It was good. Gibby and River came by the studio for whatever reason, so that was fun. River wanted to have one of your paintings, but I told him no, because the ones at the studio are strictly mine to have. He was disappointed, but accepted it."

"Yeah?" John laughed, "He'll get over it."

"Oh, uh," he then quickly stuttered, "Those orange plaid pants that you sent. What do you wear them with?"

"Uh.. Usually just a t-shirt."

"As always, huh?"

"Pretty much," he heard Cecilia chuckle on the other side of the line.

"Well, alright. It's getting late. I suppose we'll talk tomorrow, yeah? I love you, sweetie."

"And I love you. Remember, only a little bit left."

"I will. Bye, baby!"

"Bye!"

John placed the telephone he was gently holding in his hand back on the tab and continued staring at the photograph that brought him so much joy in a situation that he felt rather hopeless in. He read through the sweet note written in Cecilia's beautiful handwriting over and over again, the note saying how much she missed him and expected him home and how Cecilia couldn't wait to kiss his lips and just have him light up her day as he always did. Words like that made John smile, because he felt that if anything, the people he was spending most of his time with at the moment definitely didn't view him as a person they really cared to be around.

Every time he stepped into a room, he could just see everybody's face fall and he felt like he was a prisoner of this tour of absolute torture. He used to love playing his music, but now he just felt that he got nothing out of it, absolutely nothing. Everything around him distracted him from his true self and what he believed to be his true mission in life, because he never asked for any of this. He didn't ask for the number 1 single, the ticket sales, the record sales, playing arenas instead of theaters and clubs. He didn't want it and he didn't understand why the universe was giving it to him. He almost felt as if his commitment to art and music was being tested by the spirit realm in some sick and twisted rite of passage to see what he was really made of, to see if he was really true to himself and committed. And the spirits that were doing that to him were definitely not the friendly kind, John was sure of that.