I’d often wondered how it would feel to be just like Elvis Hunt. Of course, at these times of wonderment I didn’t know who Hunt was or what he did; I merely wished to know what it would be like to feel nothing. To care about nobody but yourself, to be detached from anything remotely emotional and to relish in the fact that you were immune from any hurt or malaise because of your indifference to the world.

So naturally, when I met Leon- whose full name was Leonardo, but he despised his Italian influence with a passion- I knew that I would finally know. I was in military school at the time, dating a pretty little student called Haley. She was small and looked harmless, but she was the feistiest girl I’ve ever met. Do wrong by her and she would hurt you- physically and emotionally.

The day was July 4th, independence day. The military were of course one hundred percent serious about the day and its celebrations, so we were to attend and partake in a compulsory concert in which we would play in the brass band to a crowd of mildly interested onlookers. Following this, we would get to relax in front of a solo musician who would play some feel-good anthems for this feel-good day.

I never liked the brass band performances- it wasn’t my style, and as the least talented member of the group I was placed on the big drum. Bang it every other beat, I was told with such condescension by the commander. We sat down in the uncomfortable, grey chairs in front of the stage and were introduced to the musician they had hired for the day; a local singer/songwriter by the name of Leon. No surname, just ‘Leon’. I figured it was a sell-out move by the record company for effect, so I sighed and rolled my eyes.

He walked on stage with a swagger. It wasn’t a swagger that showed arrogance, but a swagger that told us of his indifference. His overgrown stubble, combined with the lit cigarette hanging loosely out of his mouth, seemed to suggest a tired longing. His wilted, unwashed hair that straggled down the sides of his head untidily did not receive much attention, but everything about him suggested he had thrown his life into the waste. Nevertheless, it was an image the audience loved. The broken man still believing in the American dream.

Without a word said, he grabbed his guitar from beside his leg and started strumming the chords to American Land. I remember being confused as to why such an emotionless looking man was picked to play such an inspirational song, but within moments my question was answered before I had even been given the chance to ask it. The moment he started singing, the audience fell hushed. His raspy, powerful voice reverberated around the open air. Everybody I looked at had a glint of inspiration in his or her eyes, but I knew there was no hint of such a thing in mine.

In my eyes, there was simply pity. I looked at him and, though he sang a rousing song, his eyes spoke of nothing but malaise. Sat next to me, however, was Haley. She loved him from the moment she first laid eyes on him walking so carelessly onto the stage. As the song finished, she whispered into my ear that she wanted to go backstage after the concert and meet him. It was strange, I thought, that she was so desperate to meet somebody not even famous.

Nonetheless, I agreed to keep her happy. We got up out of our chairs at the same time as he responded to the wild applause with a shrug of the shoulders and an ever-blank expression on his face. We walked to the back of the stage as he exited from the view of the crowd, and came face to face with Leon. Up close he looked like even more of a disaster, I thought. His eyes looked tainted. Haley disagreed, and her face lit up the moment they began to talk. Leon’s security guard eventually pushed Leon into his dressing room and, once the door was closed, turned to face us.

“One at a time.”

I didn’t particularly care to see the non-superstar, so I instantly ushered Haley towards the door. She was strangely apprehensive, almost as if she was staring death right in the eyes. She stepped into his dressing room, and I waited around for her. Minutes passed, but seemed like hours. As time went on, it seemed to stretch into an elongated moment. Time wasn’t stretching as it is now while I wait for Revolution; it was more that time was stretching through unimaginable boredom. I was strangely tense, but she exited his room a while later with a disappointed, bored expression on her face.

“What a miserable bastard!”

Her nostrils flared with a surprising anger, as though she was expecting a bouncing, excitable man to greet her and shower her with interesting stories and compliments. She walked straight past me and told me to meet her later, which confused me because I had intended to leave with her. Things were made clear as daylight moments later, however, when the bodyguard called out for me to go in. Haley had naively thought that I wanted to speak to him too, and told them this.

I went to turn away, but the guard grabbed me shoulder and practically pulled me into the guy’s room. As soon as I entered, my desire to leave increased ten fold. Surrounding me within the air was a misty smoke that could only have been created by excessive chain smoking, and for the first ten seconds I couldn’t see him. Apart from the mirror on the wall and the dirty, beige sofa in the centre, the room seemed empty. And then I saw him.

He was sat on a dining chair in the corner of the room, his head buried in his hands. His hair looked even more matted and unwashed than it had done from a distance while he was playing on stage, and he looked different…distant. On stage he had carried his cigarette in his mouth with an ease that seemed comfortable, but now it was held in his hand like a bomb he knew would explode at any moment. He eventually looked up, and as his eyes met mine I noticed a glimpse of something.

Fear.

I couldn’t dwell on this because he tried to hide it straight away. He stood up in a panic and tried to straighten his tie out as though there was still time to make a lasting good impression. He shook my hand.

“Hey man, you enjoy the show?”

He was at ease, but slightly shaking. He was a strange man, I remember thinking, but I wanted to be polite at the same time.

“Yeah, it was awesome. You’ve got a talent with that voice you know…”

I accidentally said this in a fairly condescending manner, but I don’t think he noticed. He ruffled his jacket some more and sat down again. Looking away, he chuckled depressingly as he continued to talk.

“It’s always good to hear from the fan…”

He bowed his head in something that looked to me like a solemn acceptance of discontent. As though he was willing to admit defeat to no opponent in particular. The strange thing was, he put himself back into the same hunched, cradled position he was in when I entered the room. It was almost as if I wasn’t there.

“What’s up?”

I pulled the sofa up to his chair and sat on it; I felt like a psychologist lining up his next patient. After I spoke, he looked at me with wide, vulnerable eyes. He opened up to me, right there and then. I still don’t know why he did it; maybe he was looking for somebody who he could talk to every time somebody went backstage to see him. Maybe he decided I was good enough.

“What isn’t up, man…I’ve got music and it’s just not enough for me. I’ve got plenty of fans but there just aren’t enough of them. I had parents but they weren’t good enough. None of it is.”

I sympathised with him; he was obviously spiralling towards a bad place, but I didn’t know why.

“Leon…people actually like you-”

He didn’t let me finish.

“That’s just the problem, man. People like me but they want to know me. I don’t want them to know me! I’m narcissistic and I know it, but I can’t stop it. I want to love the people who love me but I hate them. I really do hate them. Now the hate is surrounding me, I just can’t get away from it. I’m a lost cause. I’ve got everything but it’s nothing to me, man…”

I left as soon as I realised the truth; as soon as I realised that there was nothing I could do.

It was hate.

It was hate that caused people like Leon and Elvis Hunt to care about nobody but themselves. Behind the front of emotionless detachment they put up, hate conquered them and forced them to separate themselves from the rest of society. It wasn’t a misguided android conundrum whereby you want to feel but simply can’t; it was a hatred of everything they saw.

Elvis Hunt will soon go down this path.

As he continues to alienate everything that tries to reach him in the name of separation, the lonely feeling in the pit of his stomach will overcome him. Elvis claims to chase everybody away through arrogance, but it is fear. Fear of exposing himself to the world.

Elvis Hunt decided long ago that hate is safer than love. He decided to hide. To Elvis Hunt, the world is a malaise; a tearing away of his being.

Unfortunately, Revolution will be one more.