"Evan once said"

Evan once said he was undefinable. But he said a lot of things, and most of them didn't make much sense in a traditional way, so I'm going to try to explain Evan anyway.

Hardly eighteen and he already had the world at his feet. Teenage boy, skinniest body I ever saw. Androgynous to say the least. Had me confused at first, he was far too pretty to be a boy. But he claimed he was. So I took his word for it. Gender doesn't have to be such a pre-defined thing as we make of it, he once said.

Took very good care of himself, he did. He had extremely good taste and an eye for fashion. He wore mostly tight dark clothes that went with his black raven longish hair cut and his deep eye make-up. And his nail polish. He kept his nails long, but not too much. Long enough so it wasn't an affectation, and still not boyish at all. He once said they bled whenever he tried to cut them shorter.

Very chitty chatty, he would go on and on about nothing for hours. And I would listen. He had this caught-in-the-middle melodious voice that just hooked you and drawed all of your attention to it. He once said his mother was of merpeople ascendant.

He had these weird out-of-nowhere mood changes, and after a three hour monologue he could suddenly fall quiet for another good couple of hours. I daren't say anything to break his silences, I learned to respect and accept them as he did mine.

These silences broke themselves. Out of the blue, he would say something apparently senseless, answering a question I never made in the first place. He once said the wind kept making far too personal questions and sometimes he had to answer one or two, just to keep it quiet for a while.

Like that one time, when we were sitting on the window jamb facing the roof, out legs hanging towards it. Ironically, as my mind was busy rambling about time, I had lost track of it and he could very well have been dead silent for an hour, when he replied to some question the wind had made into his ear:

"My birthday? Don't have one. I wasn't born, have no age". He once said to me this was strictly true.

I turned my head to face him, as his answers to unasked questions usually led to some random speech. To my surprise, I found him looking attentively at me.

"A dollar for your thoughts", he said.

"They're not even worth a dime, Evan", I replied. He didn't add anything or insist verbally, he just continued to look at me and so I gave in, blurting everything out without even thinking.

"I was just... I don't know, I'm so scared I won't be able to make things on time. That I won't finish my studies on time, that I won't meet my someone on time. Like there's an specific time or a top age for that. I feel like I'm wasting my time not having everything I'm supposed to be having by now or that I think I'm supposed to. Like I should start building my future already. Whatever that means".

Evan tilted back his head, his eyes now concentrating on the big nothingness of that night's sky.

"You know, being honest with your own feelings is hard", he started saying, "and not always the best thing to do".

"That's far too cryptic for me, E. What do you mean?"

"Misery loves company".

Evan once said that he had a rare medical condition which at times prevented him from keeping a normal conversation.

Before I could even open my mouth to ask what the hell he meant by that, he finished climbing his way out the window and to the roof. He standed there, with his arms stretched up, chin down, eyes closed.

A flock of crows appeared and started flying in circles just above Evan. He then open his eyes and smiled at me mischievously, his arms still up in the air.

He beckoned me up, extending one hand towards me, and helped me stand beside him. His lips parted and a loud, clear croak came out. The crows croaked back and he kept croaking his way into a song. Nothing I ever heard before, no recognizable tune. But I clearly remember thinking it was the most bizarre, most rawly beautiful music I would probably ever listen to.

Evan once said to me that day never happened. But he said a lot of things.