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Saturday 13 September 2014

Fading



The lyrics were by now burned deep into my psyche, an integral part of my very being, an essential component at the very core of my existence.

“I can't see my reflection in the water.
I can't speak the sounds to show no pain.
I can't hear the echo of my footsteps.
Or remember the sound of my own name.”


I must have dozed off with exhaustion, for I awoke to the weight of the guitar still on my knee, it had been there for a very long time.

My whole body jerked and shuddered as the strange energy flooded through me one more time.

My left hand automatically sliding the length of the neck, fingers positioning to form the opening chord. My right hand hung loosely above the sound hole. The fingers twitched, spasmed, then began to pick at the strings.

I opened my mouth involuntarily, and began to sing.

“I can't see my reflection in the water.....”

And as I sang the tears came. The words were discordant, barely distinguishable through the sobs and racking cries.

How it came to this I can't recall. When the pleasure turned into obsession, and that obsession turned into... something else.

I absolutely loved the song. I use the past tense because what I have now become makes it impossible for me to love anything any more.

In the days gone by I practised the song over and over, savouring every lyric, absorbing the vibration of every note. I wished I could just play and sing forever.

Those thoughts came back to haunt me with a vengeance I could not have foreseen.

I now play constantly. The same song, over and over and over again. I feel like a marionnette, my strings being manipulated by unseen hands, an unseen power.

I have been sat here so long my body has started to diminish. Where once was muscle there is now sagging skin, the bones easily visible, joints angular and protruding.

In places I have disappeared completely. A small gap has appeared in my left forearm, yet still the fingers continue to flow from chord to chord, the neuro responses from brain to hand somehow able to bridge the gap.

Both my right index and ring finger are missing completely, and still the rhythm is perfectly picked.

The song came to an end with a final six string strum on the G chord and I slumped forward onto the guitar, hoping, praying that something would change now.

Please, just end this nightmare. Let me die, or let me live, just please don't make me play any more.

I glanced at my right hand, only the thumb remained now. I Thank god I couldn't get to a mirror, I don't think my mind could take whatever sight would stare back at me.

I felt the frisson again, the pulse jerking my body upright, my left hand once more found the opening chord. My fingerless right hand began picking at the strings with invisible digits.

And the hell began all over again...

“I can't see my reflection in the water...”

In my heart I know beyond any shred of doubt that this curse will go on forever, until the guitar has rotted away, until the strings have rusted into nothingness...

Until I am just a memory.

And still the song will remain.


©2014 Stephen. J. Green.

Author's note:- The words at the top of the page are the lyrics of the second verse from a Bob Dylan song entitled “Tomorrow is a long time”. This is one of my all-time favourite Bob Dylan songs, one I learned many years ago, and still enjoy playing to this day, unlike the unfortunate character in this story.

And the song will of course always remain, as it should, a beautiful gift from a very gifted man.

P.S. The "Walking Dead" Theme on the video link has no connections to the story, but the version of the song played on the link is the one that I am familiar with.

Thank you for reading.
Steve Green.

21 comments:

  1. I love Dylan. This story to me is symbolic of when love becomes obsession, something positive into something dangerous. I enjoyed it.

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    1. Thank you Richard.
      It is a beautiful song too, isn't it? I learned it over thirty years ago, and it still remains one of my favourite songs to play on those (now rare) occasions when I dust my guitar off.

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  2. I was thinking he couldn't see his reflection in the water because he'd sold his soul to the devil a la Robert Johnson for the gift of music & composition. But it is absolutely a study in obsession

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    1. Although I didn't have it in mind when writing this, Selling his soul would certainly be one scenario that could explain why he ended up this way.

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  3. Oh so creepy it reminds me of a story I wrote called With Strings Attached - a cursed violin that one played until they died - your story is a little more macabre in that he is rotting away with the guitar - I feel I want to rescue your character poor man!

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    1. I think he is beyond rescue, Helen. There is definitely the taste of "Be careful what you wish for" in this story.

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  4. The theme of this story got me thinking back to Lovecraft's "The Music of Erich Zann". Those maddening tunes seem to whirl in and out of some deep dark corner of a man's soul, obsessing him till he rots away, a process you pictured vividly.

    I get frustrated when an unknown song with lyrics I've not heard of creeps into my dream and lingers those few first seconds after waking up, then torments me throughout the day, because it doesn't exist and I keep searching for it, not really remembering the music or the words. Eesh! Creepy...

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    1. Thanks Cindy.

      I can sympathize with you about the snatch of song "Ear worm" too. I usually find when it happens to me it's one of those songs that I don't really like that get stuck in my head too.

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  5. I'm sorry I'm late to the party, Steve. This is one dark piece, that hits close to home some days—days when I feel like I'm just going through the motions. At least there are no strings attached to me. ;-)

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    1. Hi Stephen, yes it is rather a dark, and somewhat surreal piece, isn't it? I did wonder what readers would make of it, as like many of my flashes it doesn't go into too much explanatory detail.

      I hope you don't get to feel like this character too often, and I'm glad to hear there are no strings attached either, especially the kind he has. :-)

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  6. Sad and scary, but with remembrances of joy, too -- great piece.

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    1. Thank you, Katherine. Strange thing is, I wrote this story around the lyrics of a song that I absolutely love.

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  7. Let's just hope he's not using nylon strings or he'll be playing that for a while!

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    1. heheh! Yeah. I reckon the way it's going the guitar will outlast his body anyway. :-)

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  8. It reminded me both of Greg Bear's "Blood Music" and the Twilight Zone episode where a food critic is condemned to a Hell in which he is forever hungry. Well done!

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    1. Thank you Paul, glad that you enjoyed it. :-)

      I had to google Greg Bear's "Blood Music". It seems like a book that I would very much enjoy reading.

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  9. Where does artist begin and art end? Or maybe it is a vicious chain where a new artist will pick up the chord at some point and feed himself to the beast of music.

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    1. I would hope it's not like a virus, Jon. Imagine it spreading to a drummer, the poor neighbours would probably go through more hell than he would. :-)

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  10. Well done transferring the hollow sound of this haunting fading. Truly, the songs will remain, the performers merely transient vehicles that perpetuate them.
    Funny thing about Dylan, I had to learn to appreciate him and his music. Tom Petty, who was greatly influenced by Dylan was the beginning of it. And finally, in the early days of my blog, I wrote an ode of sorts to Dylan called the johanna vignettes, and I’ll be darned if it didn’t get 2375 hits the day Suze Rotolo died.

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    1. Thank you, Miss A.
      I remember the tune "Visions of Johanna" A haunting song of his, beautiful.
      I can't profess to liking all of Dylan's songs, but certainly a great deal of them, especially the slower ones.I think that whether a person does or does not like Dylan's work, they can never deny his legacy in the song-writing world, or his influence on so many people.

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    2. Oh absolutely! Dylan's insights/lyrics are brilliant; his delivery, trademark. It's the latter that put me off: those nasal tones lilting and surging.
      Similar problem with Tom Waits. Stellar lyrics in each noir tune, creating in me a desire to bite them, swish them around in my mouth, they are so good, but the voice!
      I've made my peace with both of them out of necessity : )

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