Post by Sparks on Jan 2, 2005 15:43:42 GMT -8
This isn't really a short story. It's short, but I don't know what to call it, since there doesn't seem to be much of a story about it.
There's a lot in this. It's more than just what it says. Read into it, please.
Anyways, it's called A Blackout On Union, and I think that pretty much covers it.
--
The music was getting too loud. My ears were ringing in between sets, and the speakers were breaking up.
The room was getting too dark. I could barely make out shapes, let alone recognize people, and every tap on my shoulder was just a faceless shadow wandering by.
I knew I was exhausted. I shouldn’t have come.
The lights flickered on and off as the kids meandered past me. Into me. The stage was set to burn apart every other noise in the room. The amps were massive and powerful, turned up high. Ready to shatter eardrums. Ready to tell the instruments’ secrets.
What’s the answer? I wondered, extending my vision to the other side of the room, the outlined doorway. There was no simple answer to why I even came tonight. I wasn’t in a town I trusted. I wasn’t in a venue I trusted. The people around me were murderers, on the lookout for others like them, smoking and taking part in illegal acts that I never cared for.
The quiet music up front was dancing around the room while the next band tied their ropes. They were hanging themselves on the stage, ready-set-go expressions taking over their youthful faces like shadows in a dim room.
I felt too old, all of a sudden. Nobody would ever notice, but I didn’t fit into this scene. With my messenger bag and love for everything here, they would never give me a second look. But I knew the entire time that I was a lost cause.
The floor beneath me was cold. My thin shoes weren’t holding in the heat, and I was reluctant about venturing into the minus-three degree weather outside.
I had to get out.
The obscurity was seeping into my skin. My unpainted nails were going purple, and I figured, with time, they’d soon disappear.
The air outside was still. There were a bunch of people gathered around the entrance to the venue, but I passed them without taking notice. There were chemicals in the snow. My shoes absorbed them, and my feet were poisoned.
The winding downtown streets were quiet. It was New Year’s Day. Approximately 12:30 in the morning, and completely silent, as the sounds of my favourite place filtered into the scenery that I was leaving behind.
I wanted to take pictures of the black streets, but they would never turn out the way I was seeing them. The houses that lined them were broken and ghostly, muted by the snow that was beginning to fall. The chemical snow.
Fireworks lit the horizon like colourful mountain ranges. They cracked, and the snow fractured under my toes. I wasn’t so different from my surroundings.
Wire fences surrounded the vacant lot across from me. Stillness let me become one with the air, and I took in the emptiness of the neighborhood Every light was off except for several streetlamps, but they were dim, and soon they would be out as well.
I reached into my makeshift messenger bag and pulled out a handgun.
How does one get a hold of a handgun in a town like mine?
It didn’t matter. The streets were quiet, the parked cars comatose like corpses on silver trays.
The seasons stopped turning.
The metal was cool on my hands, like the snow that I picked up and threw across the street. A dog barked. A fourteen year old far behind me, in a place I would return to later that night, lost in the crowd and drowned by the music, drank himself into a coma. He died at 4:03 AM, the same time as his late mother.
He had a single father, who heard the news and killed himself a week later in a trashed apartment.
The kid’s friends lived in the headlines for a while, and then fell apart, like shortened episodes of a bad storyline.
They all led miserable lives. There was never a future for any of them.
His girlfriend, Janie, became an alcoholic.
She checked into rehab four times in her life. It would have been five, but the last crash took her all the way down.
I raised my right arm and aimed carefully.
I wasn’t worried about missing. I was more worried about not keeping a steady rhythm.
One, two, three. The shots rang out like popcorn in a candy stand. I moved down the street a couple of meters. One, two, three. Again. One, two, three.
There was a blackout on Union Street, in an old part of town most people tried to avoid.
Every street light was shattered on the pavement far below, like broken porcelain dolls.
A day later, the glass cut the feet of a barefoot four-year-old, as he ran outside to buy a snow cone from the ice cream truck, driven by a highschool friend of the man that would kill himself in less than a week.
There's a lot in this. It's more than just what it says. Read into it, please.
Anyways, it's called A Blackout On Union, and I think that pretty much covers it.
--
The music was getting too loud. My ears were ringing in between sets, and the speakers were breaking up.
The room was getting too dark. I could barely make out shapes, let alone recognize people, and every tap on my shoulder was just a faceless shadow wandering by.
I knew I was exhausted. I shouldn’t have come.
The lights flickered on and off as the kids meandered past me. Into me. The stage was set to burn apart every other noise in the room. The amps were massive and powerful, turned up high. Ready to shatter eardrums. Ready to tell the instruments’ secrets.
What’s the answer? I wondered, extending my vision to the other side of the room, the outlined doorway. There was no simple answer to why I even came tonight. I wasn’t in a town I trusted. I wasn’t in a venue I trusted. The people around me were murderers, on the lookout for others like them, smoking and taking part in illegal acts that I never cared for.
The quiet music up front was dancing around the room while the next band tied their ropes. They were hanging themselves on the stage, ready-set-go expressions taking over their youthful faces like shadows in a dim room.
I felt too old, all of a sudden. Nobody would ever notice, but I didn’t fit into this scene. With my messenger bag and love for everything here, they would never give me a second look. But I knew the entire time that I was a lost cause.
The floor beneath me was cold. My thin shoes weren’t holding in the heat, and I was reluctant about venturing into the minus-three degree weather outside.
I had to get out.
The obscurity was seeping into my skin. My unpainted nails were going purple, and I figured, with time, they’d soon disappear.
The air outside was still. There were a bunch of people gathered around the entrance to the venue, but I passed them without taking notice. There were chemicals in the snow. My shoes absorbed them, and my feet were poisoned.
The winding downtown streets were quiet. It was New Year’s Day. Approximately 12:30 in the morning, and completely silent, as the sounds of my favourite place filtered into the scenery that I was leaving behind.
I wanted to take pictures of the black streets, but they would never turn out the way I was seeing them. The houses that lined them were broken and ghostly, muted by the snow that was beginning to fall. The chemical snow.
Fireworks lit the horizon like colourful mountain ranges. They cracked, and the snow fractured under my toes. I wasn’t so different from my surroundings.
Wire fences surrounded the vacant lot across from me. Stillness let me become one with the air, and I took in the emptiness of the neighborhood Every light was off except for several streetlamps, but they were dim, and soon they would be out as well.
I reached into my makeshift messenger bag and pulled out a handgun.
How does one get a hold of a handgun in a town like mine?
It didn’t matter. The streets were quiet, the parked cars comatose like corpses on silver trays.
The seasons stopped turning.
The metal was cool on my hands, like the snow that I picked up and threw across the street. A dog barked. A fourteen year old far behind me, in a place I would return to later that night, lost in the crowd and drowned by the music, drank himself into a coma. He died at 4:03 AM, the same time as his late mother.
He had a single father, who heard the news and killed himself a week later in a trashed apartment.
The kid’s friends lived in the headlines for a while, and then fell apart, like shortened episodes of a bad storyline.
They all led miserable lives. There was never a future for any of them.
His girlfriend, Janie, became an alcoholic.
She checked into rehab four times in her life. It would have been five, but the last crash took her all the way down.
I raised my right arm and aimed carefully.
I wasn’t worried about missing. I was more worried about not keeping a steady rhythm.
One, two, three. The shots rang out like popcorn in a candy stand. I moved down the street a couple of meters. One, two, three. Again. One, two, three.
There was a blackout on Union Street, in an old part of town most people tried to avoid.
Every street light was shattered on the pavement far below, like broken porcelain dolls.
A day later, the glass cut the feet of a barefoot four-year-old, as he ran outside to buy a snow cone from the ice cream truck, driven by a highschool friend of the man that would kill himself in less than a week.
