Two Sentence Tuesday #47

Owen relished those special moments when he could put on a set of headphones and shut out the rest of the world. The Beatles were always a particularly lush vacation from the ambient clutter that usually made his eardrums bleed. 

The Song of Owen's Lament

           Owen was a brilliant singer/songwriter, struggling to make a name for himself. On weekday evenings, he had refined his craft as the house musician at a grimy, after-hours dive, playing to the same six or seven drunken patrons who had permanently reserved their stools at the bar. It was hardly glamourous; he had no delusions that any of the drunkards were actually cognizant of his performances, but their ignorance hardly bothered him because Owen was sure of at least one true fan in the crowd. Every penetrating note Owen had plucked on his guitar strings and the beautiful honesty of each lyric were at least enough to keep Emma, the bartender, entranced, night after night. Owen was more than okay with that.

Offstage, things were adorably awkward between the pair. For weeks, they made uncomfortable attempts at playful banter and when things had finally clicked, they had decided that perhaps they might expand their relationship beyond the confines of that dingy little bar. They went out on a first date, which had led to second date, and that brought them to their third, and with every meeting, they became increasingly enamored with each other until they were all but joined at the soul. After a matter of months, the fiercely passionate couple had grown almost recklessly certain that they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together and it had come as a shock to everyone when a positively glowing Emma had turned up at the bar, one day, with a modest ring adorning her finger.

            Yet even as Emma had given Owen her heart, she was almost equally as in love with her own volatile lifestyle. Somehow, Owen failed to notice the visitors who happened by at odd times of the day or the hours when Emma would inexplicably disappear. However, who could miss her mercurial turns when she, looking pale and deathly, would show up, acting strangely manic and irrationally shouting at Owen through shivering blue lips? He was hardly without worry when she would then lock herself in the bathroom for an hour, only to walk back out as though nothing had happened. And then there were the phone calls, all from the same person… Viper. Emma practically jumped at the mysterious Viper’s frequent calls. Who could that person have been to have had such unrelenting sway over Owen’s bride to be?

Emma’s erratic ways had come to a disastrous head when she had gone out with her bridesmaids for her bachelorette party. Late in the party, the maid of honor had found Emma in the stall of a nightclub bathroom, unconscious and choking on the foam dripping from her lips; a needle clung to her arm and a half-empty bag of heroin was lying at her feet. She barely survived the overdose and her parents had wasted no time in sending her into an involuntary rehabilitation program. Owen met with Emma’s doctor, Hayden Parkinson, about her recovery and while Owen wanted nothing more in the world than to see his fiancée be healthy and happy, he was unable to conceal his broken heart upon learning that the doctor’s treatment plans had prohibited Emma from having any contact with the outside world… not even her fiancé.

            “We, at the Underhill Institute, believe it essential to prevent our patients from being swayed by toxic influences into falling back into their destructive habits,” the doctor explained. “It is, therefore, essential that they be properly sheltered until they’ve built up a resistance to their unhealthy chemical dependencies.”

            Owen had trusted to the wisdom of the doctors to see Emma safely through her addiction but as the weeks had passed, Owen’s pangs of longing for his absent beloved had grown unbearable. The only salve he could manage was to take his longing and his heartache and let them spill out of him in the form of a song, though even that had failed to ease his pain but instead brought it inexorably into stark relief. It was like a constant kick in the stomach, beating him down until, in sheer desperation, he climbed the walls of the Underhill institute, armed only with his guitar, and played his song on the lawn of the facility:

“If sunrise never came, you’d be my candle in the dark,

And when my world drops out, you give me wings that I may fly,

I offer you my everything to heal your wounded heart,

And take away the heavy pains that tear you up, inside…

Emma… the goddess of my dreams,

Forgive my missing all your cries for help into the night,

I’ll breathe again, once you’ve come back to me,

And when your world’s gone wrong, believe I’ll help you make it right…”

Owen envisioned that his words and melodies might somehow reach Emma behind the institute’s hermetic walls and remind her of how much she was loved. He had no idea what might happen from there, but what he absolutely didn’t expect was that the universe would suddenly become fair and find Doctor Parkinson inexplicably moved by Owen’s heartfelt display of devotion. The doctor had decided that Emma was far enough through the woods that someone as willing and able as Owen would be more than capable of helping her find her way. With that, he had magnanimously offered Emma an early release into Owen’s custody and soon, the pair was on their way home with the Underhill Institute shrinking in their rearview. As Emma sat nestled in the passenger seat, Owen was delirious with joy and he knew that everything was going to be alright.

“I’ve missed the hell out of you,” Owen said, glancing over to take in her smile.

“OWEN, LOOK OUT!” Emma suddenly called.

Owen had only taken his eyes off the road for the briefest of moments but it was long enough to miss the changing lights. A rumbling garbage truck had oozed across their path and the world became a dreadful cacophony of crying tires, distorting metal, shattering glass, and piercing screams. A sudden spell of darkness had consumed Owen, during which he knew only emptiness, but then the world was quickly wrenched back to his senses as the blinding flare of an electric torch pierced his confused eyes.

“Sir, are you okay?” The paramedic asked. “Can you tell me your name? What’s your name, sir?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Owen mumbled, blood and tears stinging his eyes as his mind embraced his surroundings.

Next to the hectic flashing of lights, the triage on the street, and the excited chatter of gathering bystanders, Owen’s name had seemed utterly insignificant in his own shell-shocked mind. Likewise, the agony of his two seemingly broken hands and the notion that he might never again play his guitar had landed upon his head with all the devastation of a single raindrop, when compared to the unfathomable carnage of his nearly flattened car, embedded within the side of the mangled steel behemoth that was unnaturally parked in the middle of the intersection. And he was as far removed from okay as was humanly possible, because the all that meant anything to him was lying still and silent upon a shrouded gurney at his right… how could he ever be okay again? 

Two Sentence Tuesday #29

            Alone on the stage, under the bleary gaze of inebriated eyes, his fingers plucked the strings as he began a slow, sorrowful lament in the key of F minor. He found a familiar woman in a green dress, sitting in solitude across the room, and as the pair made an invisible connection, she understood that the song was about them.  

Before the Curtains Opened

Before the Curtains Opened

My god, she looked uncomfortable…

Marooned on a solitary crimson island,

Waiting for the rest of her band to arrive,

With her shimmering trumpet trembling

Like a child on her disquieted knee.

Who could honestly blame her?

Left alone, I’d have cased my trumpet

With hasty contempt and slunk away,

Leaving spectators to watch the dust fall…

Yet she minded the store like a pro.

She waited with dutiful resolve,

And when a march of musicians

Filed in and filled their vacant seats,

When they sounded thunderous greatness,

Her trumpet bellowed, bold and proud.

Heading to a Gig

Heading to a Gig

He stands beneath a stop sign…

            …waiting for his ride.

He tugs his jacket tighter…

            …to leave the cold denied.

He left one gig behind him…

            …with one left on the side.

A six-string in his hand, now…

            …some music in his head.

Just waiting for a bus, now…

            …until he walks, instead.

And when the sun lies low, now…

            …he’ll know the day is dead.

Put one foot on the sidewalk…

            …and now it’s time to roam.

Playing blues inside a gin joint…

            …beneath a neon dome.

And when the clock strikes 3AM…

            …he’ll finally make it home.

Untitled

Untitled (For Now)

She sits by the windowsill,

Watching the water drops

Pool in the place

Where his footsteps last fell;

Gazing intently at memories

Drifting through cracks in the trees…

Never come home,

Oh he’ll never come home,

The tears drown her eyes

Since he left her alone;

He went off to fight in the war

Leaving more

Than his wife at the door;

Left his life on the empty shores.

Days spent…

Crying…

Lost to the dark

Of her own broken heart;

Heavy breaths;

Lightheaded groans

As she moans

“Why’d you leave me alone?”

Flips through the channels,

Looking for nothing,

Lands on the tracks

Of a slow funeral train;

Swallowed by black and by gray

On the cold, cloudy day

As she follows

The somber parade.

Walking down monochrome streets,

She is constantly greeted

With staring and pointing;

The chatter of birds;

Hears their words

And keeps walking on by

With her hands in her pockets

And face to the sky.

Nights spent…

Dying…

Grasping at chains

While they ring with his name;

Breathless sobs,

Unbearable groans

While she moans

“Please don’t leave me alone.”

“Please don’t go,”

She cries in her home, all alone…

“Please don’t go,”

She cries, all alone…

So alone…

The Chanteuse

Chanteuse

Awash in the dim light of fading red candles,

I sat ‘round the rickety table,

Dizzy from the thick aroma of stale whiskey

Caked on the walls of the dingy speakeasy.

“Bum-buh-Bum-Bum” thumped from a towering upright bass

To the percussive “CRASH-BOOM-BOOM-CRASH-CRASH,”

Accompanying the jangling ebony and ivory “Chunk-a-Chunk”

That shook the audience from their shimmying stools.

But I only had ears for her… the chanteuse.

Her soulfully raspy voice, full of enchanted possibilities,

Electrified the midnight hour;

Delicately vulnerable… powerfully commanding.

I listened raptly… in love from the very first note.

Her trembling timbre rocked me;

Her quavering moans of passionate longing

Sent shivers through my hungrily stirring soul.

Our eyes met for an infinitesimal heartbeat

And I dreamt a little dream;

We both were alone in that smoky club

And she sung her serenades just for me.

Associative Memory

Associative Memory

By Brandon Palzkill

Strange, how a simple song

Can trigger

A rush of vivid memories

Two or more minutes long,

I figure,

Yet everything comes back to me.

Such a joyous affair,

honoring

the vows of those who came before.

Happiness everywhere,

and we’d sing

for an hour or three or four.

Lost are those distant days,

when I hit

those strings with jubilant fingers,

Quickly, they went away,

and I sit,

here and now, while the past lingers.

Storm Season

Storm Season

By Brandon Palzkill

The day is changing;

charcoal clouds glide gracefully in,

as sudden chills blanket the ground;

a storm has swept over us…

the symphony is about to begin.

The percussion section starts it off;

rolling thunder, resounding; reverberating;

a pounding timpani to shake the earth.

And then a crash, the lightning’s flash;

a steely cymbal, stealing our breaths away.

Rain… the booming snare drum,

showering down in chaotic cadences ,

rapidly rat-a-tat-tating

at millions of beats per minute;

it raucously raps, ringing in our ears.

And, finally… the melody;

a hauntingly beautiful and primal chorus,

sung by the howling winds;

trees shiver with the raw power

of their voices; the leaves dance, wildly.

I, a captivated audience member,

quiver with terrified excitement.

I hear the echoing chorus through my walls,

the bass notes shaking my bones,

as my heartbeat flutters to the furious fugue.

Inevitably, the clouds will pass on

and the curtains will fall.

The conductor takes his final bow

and the orchestra packs up…

on to the next performance.