Seth tugged on the strand of skin fraying off of his fingernail, and hissed through his teeth as it bit into the quick. The newly torn fissure yielded a trickle of blood. Seth popped the finger into his mouth and wished he would have just left it alone.
The first six notes of "The Star Spangled Banner" tore from Annie's guitar like bullets from a revolver. The crowd caught fire; Seth looked up with worry lines on his forehead. This wasn't on the setlist. He didn't know the bass line. The audience was already into it. What was he supposed to do?
"Just kidding," Annie laughed into the mic, and dropped the impromptu Hendrix homage. Seth's shoulders rose and fell with an unburdening sigh. He chuckled at himself. What a free spirit that girl was, he thought. There was no one like her.
The songs went on as scheduled, and Seth's hands, programmed by obsessive sessions of practice, plodded along on autopilot. He was proud of his consistency. Note for note, he played precisely what was written, with no deviation whatsoever. Not that anyone noticed.
Annie seemed never to repeat herself exactly. Seth had an ear for this and he would notice the spatchcock revision of a score, especially careful to discern improvisational adaptations from mere mistakes. As he would point out, Annie did not make mistakes. She seemed possessed by a force that made her fingers fly, spewing riffs humbucker-hot when necessary. Sometimes she'd put the tempo just where it felt perfect and find, somewhere in those strings, scales that made harmonies with key changes that would break your heart, break it exactly right. Seth couldn't believe the enormity of the music in those hands. Her arms were so thin.
The highway lights made the tour bus interior a carousel of warm orange glows. They overlapped and faded away. The singer, reclined and serene, looked like her skin was the colour of caramel, then of milk. "Annie?"
"Yeah? Oh, hey Seth."
"That show, it was a great show. You were great, you're always great."
"Yeah, thanks."
"No, I mean it, you're really something else. Something special."
"Mm, thanks for the compliment. And you're a great bassist, you are." She yawned. "Yeah, really... great, Seth. But look, I don't like too many compliments on my playing, you know? They just stop meaning anything. It starts to be just a sound people make. You know what I mean?" She shifted her shoulders, settling back into the seat.
Seth took this for humility. He fought the urge to kneel. "I mean, more than just music." Looking for the right words, the road noise filled the cabin.
Annie opened her eyes and turned. Seth, leaning so far forwards that he barely made contact with his seat, picked at his fingers. She wondered what she should say to him, what she could say.
"You know, Seth," she said, looking up to the roof, "for a bass player, you're very high strung." She smiled in a good-natured way and looked over. Passing lights from outside made shadows spin across Seth's features like a sundial in time-lapse. He looked at his hands, fingers all working over each other, probing irregularities.
"Sss," he muttered, and put a bleeding finger in his mouth.
Showing posts with label anxiety. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anxiety. Show all posts
10.15.2009
9.13.2009
10. Nancy
Nancy microwaved the coffee left over from the day before, fed the cats, fished her keys out of the crumpled receipts and subway transfers piled in her purse, and left for work.
"Fuck fuck FUCK," she shouted through gritted teeth as the traffic light went from yellow to red. She stood on the brake and reached for the mirror, turning it towards herself while reaching for the tube of lipstick in the cupholder.
She was only fifteen minutes late. She stormed towards the corner office without acknowledging her intern, Laura. The first thing she noticed was that, reflected in the immaculately dustless glass frame of her niece's graduation photo, she could see the blinking light of her desk phone. She'd missed a call already; there was a voicemail waiting. Nancy did a one-eighty. "Hell," she grumbled, setting down her half-finished grande vanilla chai frappuccino on a filing cabinet.
"Looks like I'll have to call you back," Laura said as the thumping heels came back around the corner. "Yeah, more parakeeting. Thanks, hun."
"Laura!" The screech drowned out completely the sound of the cellphone clicking shut.
Laura swiveled in her chair. "Yes?"
"I hired you to take my messages! Tell me why there's a call waiting -- do you expect somebody else to be minding the phones? Have you got something more important to do than your job? It shouldn't be too hard to find someone to perform this simple task..."
As her boss continued the tirade, Laura subtly twisted the ring on the third finger of her left hand, ensuring that the light from the diamond sparkled all the more belligerently.
"Fuck fuck FUCK," she shouted through gritted teeth as the traffic light went from yellow to red. She stood on the brake and reached for the mirror, turning it towards herself while reaching for the tube of lipstick in the cupholder.
She was only fifteen minutes late. She stormed towards the corner office without acknowledging her intern, Laura. The first thing she noticed was that, reflected in the immaculately dustless glass frame of her niece's graduation photo, she could see the blinking light of her desk phone. She'd missed a call already; there was a voicemail waiting. Nancy did a one-eighty. "Hell," she grumbled, setting down her half-finished grande vanilla chai frappuccino on a filing cabinet.
"Looks like I'll have to call you back," Laura said as the thumping heels came back around the corner. "Yeah, more parakeeting. Thanks, hun."
"Laura!" The screech drowned out completely the sound of the cellphone clicking shut.
Laura swiveled in her chair. "Yes?"
"I hired you to take my messages! Tell me why there's a call waiting -- do you expect somebody else to be minding the phones? Have you got something more important to do than your job? It shouldn't be too hard to find someone to perform this simple task..."
As her boss continued the tirade, Laura subtly twisted the ring on the third finger of her left hand, ensuring that the light from the diamond sparkled all the more belligerently.
9.11.2009
6. Tasha
Tasha liked Hayden as soon as she set eyes upon him. He always appeared disheveled, and yet composed, as though careless attractiveness were a quality he could not suppress through sheer lack of effort. His manners matched. Tasha could tell Hayden's attention was valuable by how sparingly he laid it out. Eventually she worked up the nerve to approach him, and was relieved to find herself accepted in his presence, not the target of the mysterious, sarcastic scoff he doled out frequently. She had met his unfathomable standards. She felt unique; Hayden was so often alone.
She asked him to have coffee with her and he laconically agreed. They went out. She told him all about herself and he laconically approved, of everything. She told him she found him handsome, and they returned to her dorm room where he laconically made love to her. Afterwards, he began to get dressed. She asked him why. He said something which, though he didn't know it, completely and irrevocably changed the way she perceived him. He might as well have torn off his face.
Once he'd gone, Tasha went out by herself and walked in the snow, inventing obscenities so potent that no words existed with which to express them.
She asked him to have coffee with her and he laconically agreed. They went out. She told him all about herself and he laconically approved, of everything. She told him she found him handsome, and they returned to her dorm room where he laconically made love to her. Afterwards, he began to get dressed. She asked him why. He said something which, though he didn't know it, completely and irrevocably changed the way she perceived him. He might as well have torn off his face.
Once he'd gone, Tasha went out by herself and walked in the snow, inventing obscenities so potent that no words existed with which to express them.
4. Russel
Russel was small by any measure of a man except personality. Whether the fault of genetics or just a lean diet during his youth, he'd never grown taller than five foot one, or heavier than one hundred twenty five pounds. He didn't blame anyone for his being short. That was just facts. For feeling small, though, he blamed the whole world.
When he happened upon the bike at an automotive trade show, Russel knew he had to have it. Russ wasn't much of an enginehead -- he went to the trade show mostly just to look and to try a few pick-up lines on booth girls, worth the price of admission in his mind -- but the bike looked exactly what he'd waited his life for. The cowling was sleek, sharp in places like an ancient weapon, contoured exactly as a body lying supine waiting for his to fill the space on top and complete them both. It promised to dissolve him. "Lethal," he mouthed, tracing the shape of the bike with a hand an inch above its sacred surface. He spread a down payment over two credit cards and a post-dated check.
He fell in love with the anonymity of the helmet, relished the impunity with which he snaked around slower vehicles. He could thread a needle at one hundred miles per. Nothing could touch him. Even the expensive sports cars were clumsy by comparison. They were all too big.
A pickup truck with a broken tailgate got the better of Russ as he tried to blaze past it. When it left him behind, the bike sped on riderless for over three hundred yards, as though it had never really needed him after all.
When he happened upon the bike at an automotive trade show, Russel knew he had to have it. Russ wasn't much of an enginehead -- he went to the trade show mostly just to look and to try a few pick-up lines on booth girls, worth the price of admission in his mind -- but the bike looked exactly what he'd waited his life for. The cowling was sleek, sharp in places like an ancient weapon, contoured exactly as a body lying supine waiting for his to fill the space on top and complete them both. It promised to dissolve him. "Lethal," he mouthed, tracing the shape of the bike with a hand an inch above its sacred surface. He spread a down payment over two credit cards and a post-dated check.
He fell in love with the anonymity of the helmet, relished the impunity with which he snaked around slower vehicles. He could thread a needle at one hundred miles per. Nothing could touch him. Even the expensive sports cars were clumsy by comparison. They were all too big.
A pickup truck with a broken tailgate got the better of Russ as he tried to blaze past it. When it left him behind, the bike sped on riderless for over three hundred yards, as though it had never really needed him after all.
0. Self-portrait.
He stood by the window. Rain fell.
He removed his forehead from the back of his hand and allowed his eyes to focus on the wet glass. Had it really been so long since he'd written anything? Though his internal narrative had not lost its grandiloquence in fabricating the usual sequences of self-aggrandizement and self-beration, he'd committed nothing to paper.
"Fuckles," he uttered. The word was to be his last.
On the floor below, in three adjacent apartments, circumstances convened such that the following events occurred almost simultaneously with the author's minced oath. Konstantin Philalopolous was making an unauthorized renovation to his bedroom wall in an effort to accommodate the Murphy bed he'd purchased after his live-in girlfriend saw one in a rerun of an old sitcom and caught on to the fad thirty years late. Two doors down, Jeffrey "Meatsteak" Flynn and Doyle "Sack-Dog" Saks, football enthusiasts and latent homosexuals with a combined body-mass index testifying to the unbalanced spectator/participant ratio of their involvement with sporting events, were vicariously celebrating the success of their team in a meaningless preseason game by re-enacting a recent tackle with enough physical force to mask the sensuality of the experience. Both side walls of the olfactorily-disabled Mrs. Ethyl Dorplaster's lonesome apartment crashed in simultaneously, ventilating the space that had previously lacked a favourable oxygen-to-gas ratio just as the widow was attempting to re-light the pilot on her stove and wondering why the match wouldn't strike.
He removed his forehead from the back of his hand and allowed his eyes to focus on the wet glass. Had it really been so long since he'd written anything? Though his internal narrative had not lost its grandiloquence in fabricating the usual sequences of self-aggrandizement and self-beration, he'd committed nothing to paper.
"Fuckles," he uttered. The word was to be his last.
On the floor below, in three adjacent apartments, circumstances convened such that the following events occurred almost simultaneously with the author's minced oath. Konstantin Philalopolous was making an unauthorized renovation to his bedroom wall in an effort to accommodate the Murphy bed he'd purchased after his live-in girlfriend saw one in a rerun of an old sitcom and caught on to the fad thirty years late. Two doors down, Jeffrey "Meatsteak" Flynn and Doyle "Sack-Dog" Saks, football enthusiasts and latent homosexuals with a combined body-mass index testifying to the unbalanced spectator/participant ratio of their involvement with sporting events, were vicariously celebrating the success of their team in a meaningless preseason game by re-enacting a recent tackle with enough physical force to mask the sensuality of the experience. Both side walls of the olfactorily-disabled Mrs. Ethyl Dorplaster's lonesome apartment crashed in simultaneously, ventilating the space that had previously lacked a favourable oxygen-to-gas ratio just as the widow was attempting to re-light the pilot on her stove and wondering why the match wouldn't strike.
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