#Sweeping Promises Good Living Is coming for You LP | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ayankun · 9 years ago

Text

Los Angeles When It Sizzles

Fandom: La La Land Type: unabashed schmaltz (you know that’s all I’m good for) Characters: Mia/Sebastian Warnings: you probably want to see the movie first Word Count: 2277 Tag: Summertime and the livin' is easy

Note: You can listen to the cut of the album as referenced here.

Los Angeles When It Sizzles

His sweaty palm squeaks on the knob when he grips it, the metal warm to the touch even in the false-twilight of his apartment, the windows thrown wide and the curtains shut tight. Sebastian opens his front door without bothering with the peephole, mildly curious and vaguely alarmed and slightly annoyed: not too many people have this address, could be somebody coming to collect on a debt, and they've woken him from a joyless midday nap to do it.

He doesn't catch who it is at first because he's squinting against the hyper-fluorescent LA sun and yawning like a lion. Eyes watering, he blinks the sleep away and giddily comes to realize that the vision before him is anything but a dream.

Sebastian leans his head against the cracking paint of his door and smiles, stepping back to allow Mia room to enter.

That's all the invitation she needs. "Before you say anything," she starts, whisking her way through the kitchen to the shadowed corner that is his dining nook, "These coffees were iced when I left work, I promise."

Sebastian quietly closes the door after her, meanders across the bare living room floor towards the sound of her voice. She meets him on the far side by putting a sweating plastic cup into his hand, its contents murky and ice-less. He looks at it and then back to her, but she's turning away, shrugging her clutch off her shoulder and onto his table; taking her hair down and then incomprehensibly putting it up again; talking all the while at a mile a minute, the endearing whisper of her lisp stronger than he's ever heard it.

"I thought, he goes five miles out of his way for samba/tapas coffee, so, first, he drinks coffee. Second, this time of day, traffic's not usually that bad, right? It can be, but it's not normally, you know, awful, but lucky me, there was an accident on the 134, of course, so I sat there staring at the Universal building for like, twenty solid minutes, I mean at a dead stop." She winces, "That's an unfortunate choice of words because actually I think somebody might have died? I'm not sure. The one car was pretty much under another car, it was sort of impressive, really. Impressive and really, really unfortunate and horrible. Oh, and in case you hadn't noticed, it's at least a million degrees out there. So. That was my hour in hell."

Lip bitten and eyes wide with comical frustration, Mia's head shakes with minute, manic twitches like a Small World puppet with a haywire servo in its neck. Reflexively, she swipes her own cup off his counter where she'd left it to puddle a ring onto the formica, taking a drag off the straw with habitual ease. Her face scrunches, contorts, her shoulders rising against an invisible foe.

"That's -- disgusting, don't even--" she says, trying not to choke on a mouthful of watery, lukewarm coffee. "Here, give it."

She reaches for the cup he's still holding wordlessly, and wordlessly he gives it up. Still shaking her head, Mia disappears into the thin kitchen with the de-iced coffees. He hears the refrigerator open and close, its incandescence briefly sending shadows across the walls in the dim half-light.

"Digging the outfit, by the way," she calls from behind the wall, "Though I must admit it kinda makes a girl feel overdressed."

Sebastian glances down as if he's forgotten his own attire. White A-shirt. White shorts. No holes, minimal stains. When he looks back up, she's grinning at him from the dining nook, arms crossed over the sensible blouse she wears on the job. What grin -- try smirk.

Off his blasé shrug, she tips her head back and her eyes narrow to conspiratorial slits. "I bet you answer the door in your underwear for all the girls."

Sebastian scrubs a hand through his hair, a trivial concession to appearing presentable. He changes the subject. "I thought you worked last night?"

It's not a deflection but a welcome segue, and she visibly melts against the kitchen counter at the reminder of her never-ending toil.

"Arthur's boyfriend locked him out ("Again?" - Sebastian, incredulous) -- again, so they called me at, what, four-thirty to open." Mia's face falls into a sideways, downward twist of regret and self-pity. There's red in her eyes and black underneath. "I've made it this far on nearly-lethal doses of caffeine."

Sebastian sighs, holds out his arms to her.

"Mia, Mia, Mia."

He meets her halfway, tucking her head into his shoulder, pressing a hand to the small of her back. Her shirt's damp from the hour spent stewing in the driver's seat of her Prius, but his isn't in any better condition. The last time he attempted to run the AC, it shorted half the units on the ground floor.

In fact, the comfort of the embrace is only bearable for so long in this stuffy heat. Mia pulls back after a moment and he leans to kiss her forehead before she can get too far out of reach. She compromises by turning to put herself at his side, her arm around his waist and his over her shoulder.

"Make yourself at home," he welcomes, sweeping his hand around at … the inexcusable mess of unpacked boxes and precariously stacked jazz memorabilia that haunts his living room. He scratches at the scruff under his jaw, squinting at the clutter. "I'm pretty sure there's a couch under there somewhere."

Mia's arm ghosts from around him, fingers digging into his side before she disengages fully. "I've seen worse in my day," she assures him, "And I'm not above sitting on the floor."

She's making good on her claim as she speaks and he hastily bends to catch her by her elbows to stand her upright again. "No, no, no, Mia, no. I can't let you think I'm some uncivilized churl who makes his guests sit on the floor."

"You? Uncivilized?" She snakes a hand forward lightning-quick and snaps the band of his boxers. "How could anyone come by such an outrageous notion?"

Sebastian squirms back a step, nearly crashing into the corner of the piano, hands raised in supplication. "Okay, fair, I understand where you're coming from -- Give me two minutes to move some of this out of the way. And then, if you'd like, you're invited to sit on furniture that was invented for sitting on."

"Aw, you're sweet," she says, with something of a playful bite. "Regular knight in shining armor." She advances as he retreats, until she's draped over the near end of the piano top and he's considering the logistics of the Jenga-esque situation with a weary eye.

Mia catcalls when he squats to heft one of the non-load-bearing boxes. "And I'm the uncivilized one," he grunts as he stands. He gives her his best stink-eye as he passes, which is, in all honestly, more of a sly grin than anything else. Dropping the box gently onto a flat-enough pile of unopened mail on the table, Sebastian turns to see Mia rifling through the open tops of the remaining boxes.

He freezes. "Ah--" The hands he's raised with the instinctive intent to pry her off the goods are recalled, wringing together apprehensively as he comes up behind her. Mia blinks around at his chewed-off sentence, a plastic-sleeved 10-inch LP in her hands. His eyes go to it, fingers curling tight around air with a restrained possessiveness.

"Oh, geez, I'm sorry," she sputters, holding out the record to him like it's a baby bear and he's the mama. "You don't want me digging around in your stuff, I'm sure some of this must be priceless, right? Here, I'll just…."

He doesn't take it from her. Sebastian's chest swells and sinks with a quick, deep breath. He licks his lips and a twitch of a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. He nods towards the turntable sitting beside the piano. "Put it on."

She stalls, thumbing the protective plastic and studying the bold mustard-and-ketchup color scheme of the album art underneath it. Sebastian puts a hand on her shoulder and ducks down to catch her eye.

"Or I can, if you want. Either way, I think you'll like it. It's a little different, but it's quality stuff."

Her eyes roll up to his and an impish grin unfurls across her face. He straightens out of her way as she pushes boldly past him to the turntable, carefully sliding the record from the sleeve as she goes. "I resent the implication that I may not know how to work a record player," she tells him, shooting a look over her shoulder. "My aunt's collection included every original Broadway cast recording ever printed."

"Fair enough," Sebastian acknowledges. Still, he watches the way she handles the vinyl disc by its edges, settling it over the spindle and flicking the switch to get it spinning, dropping the needle delicately on the outside rim.

Sonic scratching fills the room for the merest of seconds; then, the golden notes of a harp drop through the speaker into the room, landing on an dreamcloud of soft, angelic violins. Mia's brow furrows, her head cocked, the thin press of her lips asking "where's the jazz?" Sebastian meets her expectant eye and jogs his own eyebrows skyward in the same beat as the orchestra's sudden climb, and there, like a cloudburst -- she laughs as a flurry of brassy notes tumble over each other, cutting through the saccharine strings with a candid, confident bluster.

"Charlie Parker," Sebastian explains, "A dream of his come true, recording with a string section."

"Ah!" Mia's quick to catch on, holding up the album cover and indicating the title with a flourish. "Charlie Parker with Strings."

"He loved his heroin and he loved his chicken, good old Charlie Parker." Sebastian sighs, hands on his hips, one foot on land and the other in a sea of nostalgia as the attention shifts from the alto sax to the strings and back again. "That's how he got his nickname, you know. Yardbird, Bird."

She purses her lips and blinks over at him, skeptical. "They called him 'Bird' just because he loved chicken?"

"Well. Yeah." He shrugs. "I think 'Black Tar' would have been too on-the-nose."

"Okay, well that sounds slightly made up, but I can't judge. Reminds me a little of the stories about how Bogie got his scar, and how they were probably all invented by the studio purely for drama's sake. You know Bogie's infamous scar, don't you?" She taps her lip as a reference point and he surprises a hiccup of laughter out of her when he slinks forward and kisses her on the spot.

"That's all people are, isn't it?" Sebastian asks, eyes bright. "Stories that become myths that become legends."

She smiles up at him. "I suppose so."

Mia puts her arms over his shoulders and entices him into a gentle sway in time to the music. There's an oboe in the mix, and a piano, and Sebastian's fingers dance up and down her sides mimicking the pianist's flighty runs. It's just the two of them, hidden away in the secret, shadowed den of his apartment, adrift from the strident rush of life that carries on without them beyond these four walls.

They drift together through the second track, a suitably dreamy ballad that ferries them back across the ages. At the start of the third, a number with a touch more pep to it, Sebastian drops a kiss to her temple and takes her hand to spin her in place.

"I think I was supposed to be excavating a long-lost sofa," he says. They both look over at the remaining tower of boxes and wince.

"It's really not that big of a deal," Mia starts to say, but the last half of her sentence is somewhat obfuscated by the swell of a sudden yawn.

He offers her a look of condolence. "Caffeine's finally wearing off, eh?"

"Yikes," she gets out before another yawn stops her in her tracks. "I'm crashing for sure. Maybe I should just head ("No" - Sebastian, gently pulling on her hand) -- home?"

"No," he says again, sliding his other hand over hers and stepping backwards until the slight tension draws her forward. "You're gonna drive how far in your condition just to hit the hay? I have a bed right here."

She squints her eyes shut in amenable grin, shuffling after him towards the little bedroom off the little hall. "Not that I want to argue with that logic," she says, "but now doesn't this make me the uncivilized … what word did you use?"

"Churl, I believe," he supplies helpfully, rounding the corner into his bedroom.

"The uncivilized churl who shows up out of the blue to make demands on your time only to immediately fall asleep and in your own bed no less? Surely I was raised better than that."

Sebastian climbs backwards onto his unmade bed and she follows him down. Settling together as near as can be comfortable in the airless swelter of the enclosed space, a moment passes where their world narrows to rustling fabric and creaking bedsprings and the unattended strains of Charlie Parker filtering in from the living room.

"What about old Yardbird?" Mia asks, snuggling into his pillow like it were her own. Her eyes have already closed and they don't seem likely to open any time soon.

"Ah," Sebastian waves off any concern, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear once she's sufficiently nestled. "He'll be here when you wake up. And so will I."

#La La Land #fanfiction #Mia Dolan #Sebastian #words

2 notes · View notes

theliterateape · 6 years ago

Text

The Throwing Muse

By Dana Jerman

ERIC AND MARIE, MARRIED FOR ALMOST A YEAR, are sitting docile in their second floor apartment, in front of the TV on a Thursday night in very late September. A freakishly warm sixty-four degrees in the Minnesota town, as perfect accompaniment came the light breeze down the well-lit residential street where they live on a corner above a low-ceilinged garage. Tall, slim pines can be seen through every window, and they give Eric and Marie the illusion of living isolated in a forest.

At about 9:30 p.m., the two are sitting in separate chairs staring passively toward the talking box. The couple had chosen for the evenings viewing a documentary, and the pale flickering purple-blue thrown from the television bathed them while they sat in the dark. The lights in the room reflect off of their stale glares representing respective moodiness.

Here’s what’s wrong with Eric and Marie: Eric is a twenty-eight-year-old writer. He’s alright at it and lives off of it when it pays well, which is most of the time, and he’s made a comfortable space for he and Marie in their marriage in the world. But as of the past two months, and for no particular reason, Eric has the unfortunate luck to be experiencing what writers sometimes call a "block," which some claim does not really exist and others claim can be all but deadly. This is Eric’s problem.

Marie, twenty-three years old and quite bright, has recently graduated from a university where she received her bachelors degree in both biochemistry and bioengineering, two things that come very naturally to her, yet she lacks a true passion for the subjects and can’t see a career involving them that would give her the promising future she ostensibly deserves. Therefore, she is having a great bit of difficulty choosing a graduate program that will suit her, and while she deliberates on her position in this land of opportunity spread out before her, she has taken up drinking alcohol to pass the time.

Eric and Marie love each other. They are close and spend a great deal of their time together, and happily. Somehow though, they are in separate places; a cloud has descended.

So here they sit — a near empty bottle of citrus vodka beside Marie. Her face like a blank page in the open notebook on the lap and favorite black in pen in the left hand of Eric. During commercial, Eric swings his head to look at his wife. Her gaze smoothed over, she blinks a few times and turns to meet his glance, delivering a glazed smile.

Here’s what’s wrong with Eric and Marie: Eric is a twenty-eight-year-old writer.

“You look a little tipsy baby.” Audible exhaustion in his voice. She leans toward him and shakes her head smiling bigger, brighter. Looking at him through sleepy slats for eyes, her head tilts back with the weight of itself. A large hiccup-belch comes out of her that makes him laugh and her cover her mouth and blush. Her other hand goes to her belly as she grimaces.

“Are you… are you going to puke?” Eric asks, cautiously. She nods throwing a concerned look in his direction. He rises slowly out of his chair and eases her up out of hers by her back and arms. “You’re gonna make it,” he says, and worries about her for a moment as he flicks on the bathroom light. Had she thrown up in front of him before? He can’t recall. He supposes it’s no big deal, people vomit all the time. But perhaps this means that she is drinking more often or consuming harder liquor. His head feels fuzzy as he sits down on the rim of the tub beside her, kneeling on the wide blue mat in front of the toilet and hovering — a state of panic painted on her profile. He smooths her long mousy hair and moves to hold it back as she lets go of the drink and what little she had eaten that day. Eric makes a cool compress of a washcloth and places it on the back of her neck while he helps her up. She sighs thankfully toward him as he escorts her into the bedroom and gently down onto the bed. He turns on the bedside lamps turns off the TV and returns to the bathroom, realizing he'd forgotten to flush the toilet.

And then, there it is.

For some reason not even God might ever know, Eric sees something.

Whatever that sweeping genius is that Eric sees there in the toilet — in the tan gray swirling particle mass of his wife’s puke — it sends him careening back into the living room to snatch up the empty notebook. Not a moment spared, he opens the ream of paper and begins to write on the blank back of the cover. No time to be stunned or even reflect for a moment on how he'd spent hours just within the past week staring down empty lined pages, he furiously draws the pen across sheet after sheet, repositioning himself only when his ass becomes numb. Completely unaware of the not-so-pleasant smell that rises up out of the bowl in the other room and sat stale in the air, Eric writes and writes and writes and writes until eight that morning, filling the entire notebook and well into another.

✶

NOT LONG BEFORE NOON, MARIE WANDERS IN TO FIND HER HUSBAND sleeping in the fetal position on the floor with a bathroom towel for a pillow. Open notebook beside him, toilet still full. She shakes her head and crumples her nose at the smell, and reaches over her sleeping husband to flush the bowl. He doesn’t even budge as she leans up again to rummage through the medicine cabinet for aspirin. Marie washes her hands, smoothes her hair, rubs at the sleep in her eyes in the mirror. She turns back to him as he snores lightly, looking peaceful. She smiles as she shuts the light off and the door behind her, leaving him to rest.

When Eric wakes again late afternoon, he emerges from the dark bathroom and stands a moment. Dazed, he shakes out his writing hand and massages his neck. He glances thru his new work, bringing it close to him, looking at the shapes of words he is almost astonished he'd written. His brain alive with euphoria over the wrinkled texture of the pages. The slashes of ink. It isn’t finished though, his new story. And as he moves, in white socks soundless on the brown gray of the soft bedroom carpet, he puzzles over how the new complications can be resolved. The notebook and pen hit the floor together beside the bed as Eric crawls in under the covers and goes back to sleep.

It is around this very moment that Marie settles down on the living room floor, filling out applications and sipping on her first vodka of the evening while also casually skimming through brochures. As the late evening arrives, Eric wakes to the sound of the hi-fi floating into the bedroom, invading dreams that cling to his newly manifested characters. Rising groggily, the true volume of the stereo hits him.

Marie is dancing, drink in hand, and bumping into the furniture. The poor girl is on her fifth at this point, considerably well on her way to getting sick. Eric comes up behind her and with a gentle gesture removes the drink from her hand. She turns and smiles, wobbling, before she falls into his arms in an attempt to kiss him. He sets the drink on the coffee table and chastises her as he holds her. She only hums and laughs as they keep dancing. Eric moves to turn the LP over and pick up Marie’s school papers off of the floor when Marie, leaning dizzily, pulls on Eric and motions toward the bathroom.

“Okay, okay. You really have to watch how much you consume next time, honey.” They go together into the lavatory and Eric thinks only of purging his wife into betterment.

But then again, the very same thing happens. Staring into the bowl, Eric discovers ecstatic revelation.

Rummaging quickly for a new notebook in his desk, he begins to write just where he left off. Pausing only to place a cold compress on Marie’s hot neck and supply her with a fresh glass of water as she rests. Eric pulls another all-nighter in the bathroom, searching for the complexities and their answers in the offering given to him by his new throwing muse.

As his wife sleeps into the morning, Eric drives out to see his agent with his four completed notebooks.

“You didn’t even call? What’s the rush?”

“Put down whatever you’re doing. I need these perused by tomorrow. Man, I think it’s some of the best work I’ve ever done.” Eric tries to sound nonchalant.

“Wow, you didn’t tell me you were working on anything past that novella series.” The agent fingers the thickness of the notebooks.

“I completed the first one the night before and this one last night. I’ve been up since yesterday. Look, you really have to give me an advance on this. I know just where I’m going with it and it could be huge,” he lies.

“How much of an advance are we talking?”

“A grand. I'll come for it late tomorrow when you finish these manuscripts.”

“No kidding!? Okay, okay, by tomorrow. I trust you, Eric. I have a notion you may actually know what you’re doing with something this big. Good luck.”

Eric goes on his way, stopping before home to pick up groceries. He even, perhaps not entirely on a whim, picks up a bottle of alcohol and arrives to meet Marie who is diligently watching a science special on television. After Eric puts the groceries away and retreats to his desk to open a fresh notebook in an attempt to write on where he'd left off. He entertains a few ideas, but they are mediocre. He can’t seem to resolve the parts of the plot he needs to move the narrative along. It is at this time that he becomes almost absurdly discouraged at the fact that he’d flushed the toilet that morning. Marie’s well-placed hurling was serving up brilliance left and right for him, but as he tries to recreate or further it, everything begins to blur together.

Eric puts his pen down and joins Marie in the living room. He sits down on the floor beside her in the big chair and puts his head in her lap. She smiles at him and pats his hair. She isn’t drinking tonight and Eric sighs, feeling torn about this and conflicted further about feeling so conflicted! As they let the television glow escort them into the quiet evening, Eric mulls over what he might do. He would go see his agent and pick up his advance and read back over his work — all those magnificent words that had rushed out to meet him. The sweet brilliance, now etched there. He possesses a terrible confidence that he might re-write the whole thing again, right now, if he wanted. He just can’t go past the last point. He’ll have to wait and see…

✶

THE FOLLOWING DAY, ERIC SLEEPS IN WITH MARIE UNTIL LATE. The recent activity has exhausted them both. In a way, it is strange to be in bed together. Their different lives pausing here on the same schedule. Evening comes, and with the return of the manuscripts followed by much praise from his agent, he drives home thinking again of the great story developing within. It practically makes his mouth water. He stops in town to mail an application for Marie and joins her at home where she is cleaning out the pantry and flatware cabinets. Wiping down the surfaces and moving with a quiet diligence, applying herself as best she can to the task.

It is here that Eric begins to propose his insidious experiment. He sets to cleaning up the kitchen with Marie and then plops her down at the tiny round breakfast table. He presents the thousand-dollar check as proof of his work. She gazes in wonder at the thing, distracted while her husband pours two drinks for them.

“Let's celebrate this work and what it could mean for us! Finally a book deal and we can get a house and say goodbye to this cramped apartment! I can help you with school expenses, things will be better!” He raises his glass with aplomb and she moves to clink hers against his. He takes a sip and watches carefully as the potent drink fills her nose and throat; she winces a bit, coughs, coming away from the swallow. “Guess I made them a little strong, huh?” Oh well!”

He moves to throw back another big swig. Marie, too, gulps again. His wide smile comes down at her timid gaze while he encourages her to consume more and faster. If she can just toss her cookies again, just once more, for the sake of art, he can finally finish this grand opus that his pen itches to put down, so he thinks. Over these last few days it became a fantastic yearning. An exciting ache to want to finish and finish well this work; to complete it perfectly and wholly with no loose ends. Is it now possible?

Marie’s well-placed hurling was serving up brilliance left and right for him, but as he tries to recreate or further it, everything begins to blur together.

He smirks as the recesses of his brain contemplate just how it came to this, how to begin and finish a piece of such magnitude, the kind he’d never even fathomed before — stuff of epic proportions — and to do this he has to ogle at the regurgitations of his wife’s belly and bowels floating in a porcelain bucket? He takes another gulp and observes Marie’s confused countenance.

“Oh, it’s nothing, I’m just thinking about the story,” he placates. Looking down, he sees her glass is empty and it makes his eyes pop. What swift finesse with which she consumed the large cocktail! “Want another?” he eagerly suggests. She stares into the bottom of the glass in one hand, her chin resting on her other palm. She shrugs and smirks, offering the glass over to Eric in affirmative as he gets up from the table.

Marie accepts the invitation unwittingly to again become her lover’s throwing muse. Her weakened stomach and liver move her, three drinks later near midnight, to place offering in careful increments to the white water waste tank. Without fail, illumination descends on Eric, quickening his mind and pen into action. It is almost as if all of Eric’s words are there already; why hadn’t he thought of them before? He frantically copies his thoughts. Marie stumbles out clutching her ravaged midsection. Eric fails to notice, so immersed is he in the work he longs to finish.

Deep into the morning, he completes his sixth notebook. His body had begun to ache with yearning for rest when he hears a desperate sound. A sinister gurgle and heave emerges from the throat of Marie as she lay in the bedroom, poisoned by the liquor she had consumed. She begins exacting the last breaths of her dying consciousness on the mattress. The sound alarms Eric immediately. He realizes he doesn’t even check on her or care for her before she collapses. He rises instantly and switches on the bedside lamp. Her face is pale, her lips a twinge of blue, her body unresponsive. Hurried and near panic, Eric dials for an ambulance, which arrives shortly carrying paramedics who attempt for a number of minutes to revive Eric’s dead spouse to no avail.

At the hospital, Eric grasps the graveness of the situation for some time among the ringing white walls and humming fluorescent lights. Forgetting himself, he contemplates a cab home to retrieve his manuscript, to begin to edit and revise. The writing he has produced has begun to mean more to him than his glorious wife and muse herself in her broken state! For shame! Eric catches himself, damns himself for his shallowness and distractions. He begins to cry out, stomping down the bloodless hallway he grows increasingly despondent. Confused, disheartened, and extremely anxious, Eric shivers as a doctor invites him back to see Marie one last time before she will be sent to the morgue. After a moment in the eerily silent ER, Eric begins to softly recite his apologies over and over, and he climbs up to lay beside Marie. What had just happened? His whole soul aches for her to come alive, to be returned. For clocks to reverse and time to be kinder.

✶

HE LEAVES THE HOSPITAL NUMB, waltzing slow into the streets fresh with rain, and walking down sidewalks and gutters soaking with puddles. The cold wet world awakening his flesh to goosebumps under socks and slacks. The sky sinks from creamy blue to the color of a rock as Eric finds himself standing in front of the liquor store on the heaviest afternoon of his life. He stands staring, knowing intrinsically his responsibility to his writing. Now more than ever with his muse gone, Eric has to make a choice and it seems the only clear solution is to work for himself, as he’d always done in the time before Marie... can he remember how?

Marie’s favorite was vodka. With four handles of the cheapest brand, two in each hand, Eric carries them and himself up steps back into the cold apartment. The foreign footprints of the paramedics’ boot treads still visible on the sandy carpet. Eric realizes again how he will be alone in this place — truly alone — for he knows he can usher no one in who will inspire him. No one can be as true and faithful to him as his beloved late wife. He stands in the open doorway until the draft from the hall sends a chill over his neck.

He enters then, and finds he can not stop moving. He switches on all the lights and plays records over the muted TV. He pours the alcohol over ice and takes his first gulp — squinting out tears not only for to ease the burning taste. He cleans up the bedroom, vacuuming and restoring the bedclothes, and moves into the bathroom. The toilet remains unflushed. It serves to be the most shocking remnant of Marie. Eric chokes back the salty tears in his eyes and throat grotesquely, while he reaches for the flusher to say goodbye. Gathering himself from the floor as he weeps, he hugs close to him his latest companion — the sixth notebook.

Shutting off the lights, he moves back into the living room. He turns up the stereo, grabs his drink and sits down at the kitchen table to review his continued manuscript. On his third vodka, he stumbles back to retrieve his first two notebooks and begins to read from the beginning on. The story keeps getting better and better to him, more intense with each read. Over half of the first opened bottle in his belly, he now wants desperately to finish what his deceased muse had helped him thoughtlessly begin. Discovering in his desk a recently purchased oversized notebook, it is with an almost perverse determination that Eric keeps on, through the alcohol and the tears, when his stomach jumps and what he is hoping for finally manifests itself.

Feeling the adrenaline fuel the certainty of his muscle’s push, the pain in his gut begs the acid and the drink burns their way back up and out of his throat and mouth. He wretches and spits and whimpers over the bowl. Thinking of his wife in the same position, burning and enduring in the same way — a way that now Eric promotes and induces for the both of them. It had begun — Eric’s last chance for validation. The kind of closure he longs for is the kind that will move him to visualize on his own that generous expulsion of the fabulous world of interconnected and compelling tales that dear Marie had given him through her secret disclosure. Wit of a kind so pure it killed her. His intellectual translation of it is no good. He’ll have to adopt it — to perform the ritual in its original form.

He catches his breath and leans up over the edge of the porcelain altar, eyes filling with the sight of only translucent swimming bubbles and a few tiny half-digested shapes of particle matter. Leaning back, gasping against the tub, Eric expells his sighs of despair and relief.

He focuses and sees nothing there. He can not be reconciled.

He is not his own muse, and never can hope to be.

He flushes the toilet without even taking a second look. This last swirling mass without message is gulped and kept down. The commode did the thing that Eric could not.

Silence surrounds him as he moves back into the living room. The recording is over, the TV remains muted. Eric switches off light after light until it is just him and the TV and his new notebook in his lap — empty pages he longs to fill with almost anything other than the beautiful story that robbed him of another kind of beauty.

Night progresses until almost morning. The slanted colors from the glinting box and the chair what held him sees his words only half as well as he himself can. Catatonically, Eric finally drops the notebook to the floor. He has officially abandoned the belief that a writer's path can make him immortal. Now he believes only in the power of a cold reality. The kind which delivers a muse at the expense of a life.

#Roberto Nickson #barf #the written word #nothingness #wellspring #muse #corrupted #damage #caregiving #wasted #television

0 notes

tune-collective · 8 years ago

Text

25 K-Pop Love Songs for Valentine's Day

Chocolates and flowers are great, but Valentine’s Day is all about love — and what better to relay heartfelt feelings than a good pop song? Korean pop, in this case. Korea is flooded with songs that address the ups and downs of relationships while trying to understand the emotion that makes people do crazy things.

For Valentine’s 2017 we’ve picked 25 K-pop songs that depict all sorts of romances: Happy ones, sad ones, lustful ones, innocent ones, and even one or two quirky ones. The whole range of the phenomena that we call love is included in this playlist, so take a listen:

“Some” by Soyou & Junggigo

With this 2014 megahit, Soyou and Junggigo solidified the word “some” into K-pop fans’ vocabulary to describe the tricky in-between of a relationship that isn’t official, but has potential to grow into something more. Musically, the duet takes on that same sentiment as the duo trade off verses and varying feelings in a track that never gets too fast or too slow, but stays somewhere right in the middle. It’s undoubtedly a situation many may find themselves in on Valentine’s Day with this charming track relatable on so many levels.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-FhDScM_2w

“Symptoms” by SHINee

With high-flying vocals, the SHINee boys are lovesick and are trying to cope with all the dangerous signs that come from falling hard for someone. In fact, the guys’ love goes so deep, they end the moving R&B cut declaring: “I can’t live if I lose you.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH2M9yuvI2o

“Eat” by Zion.T Korean R&B crooner Zion.T touches on what people really love the most in this snappy tune: food. “Take this song out and eat it like chocolate,” he sings, offering this jazzy song’s heartfelt lyrics up like the perfect Valentine’s Day gift, even if it’s not wrapped in a red heart-shaped box.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ibb5RhoKfzE

“My Love” by Lee Seung Chul

One of Korea’s best live performers, Lee Seung Chul broke his four-year hiatus away from the music scene in 2013 with this heartbreaking-yet-uplifting rock-pop tune to detail love torn apart and a situation where it’s too painful to even say “I love you,” much less goodbye.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXiCB6SZp4U

“Gold” by Hyomin

The warm embrace of the hazy synths and layered strings paired with the T-ara member’s breathy cooing sounds a bit more like British pop or something Sia would try than K-pop, but it works incredibly well with “Gold.” As Hyomin earnestly expresses how love improves her, or makes her golden, it’s hard not to feel the power of love.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzqUtUd5UjY

“Eyes, Nose, Lips” by Taeyang

Love may be over, but the BIGBANG member mournfully reflects on the beauty of an ex in this tender R&B ballad. His emotions overflow on this romantic track, surpassing its melancholic nature to become one of the most beautiful Korean love songs ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwuAPyOImoI

“Heaven” by Ailee

From her debut single, Ailee proved that she had an ability beyond her years to communicate the deeper experiences one feels in love. In this dedication track, Ailee’s partner protected her and “taught her how to love in a harsh world.” Or, as she describes it, it’s simply “Heaven.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9ro1KjkJMg

“Wild Flower” by Park Hyo Shin

It may be about getting over the past and moving forward, but there are few rock ballads more beautifully poignant than “Wild Flower.” Park’s tender vocals soar over the accompanying instruments, rising and falling to match the building strings as he wails in anguish to match the pain of a longing heart. Despite the intensity, the song crescendos then lands gently, with the promise of renewal hummed along by Park’s mellow “la la la” melody.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hsrsmwHv0A

“Airplane” by f(x)

This standout album cut on their adored Pink Tape LP sees f(x) using an “Airplane” as a metaphor to a potentially dangerous yet important adventure in romance. It’s all done over a fascinating blend of soaring harmonies and melancholy electro-pop production to paint a picture both lyrically and sonically.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1d3gvMQpps

“Love In The Ice” by TVXQ

Although it’s nearly a decade old, the operatic “Love In The Ice” is still a chilling-inducing ballad. The sweeping melody and earnest, soaring vocals are filled with such overwhelming passion as to induce a visceral response from the performance’s intensity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4HvwZ_7RtQ

“Touch Love” by Yoonmirae

With quivering vocals, the veteran rapper-singer describes how a love can create a true sense of warmth — even without touching — on this moving, piano-driven soundtrack ballad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH8BYNwmR5Q

“Pretty U” by Seventeen

If you’re looking for some sweet encouragement on Valentine’s Day, here you are. Beginning with an a capella harmony and propulsive rap before launching into a sweet pop sound, “Pretty U” is an upbeat, light-hearted song perfect for the start of new love. The song’s staccatoed pacing between singing styles reflects the bafflement that accompanies the beginning of a relationship and the lyrics ask all the big questions, like when should you tell someone you love them and what should you wear when you do so. It’s pure, saccharine bubblegum love.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX__yzzLGCw

“Friday” by IU feat. Jang Yi-Jeong

For this acoustic duet, the pair realistically describe the anticipation of counting down the hours to see a new beau again. IU decides “Friday” is the perfect day to reunite with her new love — more or less because she says so — and croons alongside History’s Jang Yi-Jeong while the duo ponder what makes the other so irresistible. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiVmQZwJhsA

“Let’s Not Fall In Love” by BIGBANG

Less of a break up song and more of the beginning of a tentative relationship, “Let’s Not Fall In Love” encompasses the scary moments that accompany the start of a relationship. The sentimental electropop track depicts the pressures and worries of starting a new relationship and committing to a person, and the potential pain that accompanies the risk of opening up to someone. But the song ends with the idea that if you like someone you still will want them to stay despite the fears.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jTo6hTZmiQ

“Closer” by Oh My Girl

The dreamy trance-pop single is an artistic approach to the longing feelings of love, when getting “Closer” to someone is all you can think about. The hazy melody and the powerful vocals relate the type of yearning of epic proportions, and is an impressive feat from a young K-pop act like Oh My Girl.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isUudT58Xfk

“I Need You” by K.Will

One of Korea’s king balladeers, K.Will appropriately released “I Need You” on a past Valentine’s Day and the track undoubtedly inspired a slew of lovers to reunite with the one that got away. The sweeping pop track sees the singer and past love admitting they miss one another, and K.Will taking things a step further by making a promise to always be the same person who will adore said ex. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpOau9ZxQNY

“This Is Love” by Super Junior

The soulful “This Is Love” offers up a more mature approach to romance, diverging from the infatuation seen in many Korean love songs. (And fitting for a boy band whose youngest member is 29.) Rapidfire synths shoot through the sleek chorus and a speak-rap verse courtesy of Heechul update the otherwise timeless sound of men singing about the person they love. The song’s layered instrumentals, especially the funky bass, are laidback and nostalgia-inducing but ultimately “This Is Love” thrives on the tender warmth of the seductive vocals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utmykx9RUEw

“200%” by Akdong Musician

The sweet harmonies of this upbeat R&B melody, with a few hip hop moments courtesy of Chanhyuk’s playful raps, is a song great for those celebrating their first Valentine’s together. “200%” is quirky and lighthearted in its earnestness of knowing that this is “L.O.V.E.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Oi8jDMvd_w

“Shampoo” by After School

Perhaps one of K-pop’s most fascinating metaphors for love, the girl group relate their presence in a relationship to that of a common shower item. Not only will the ladies be the lovely fragrance that stays with you throughout the day, but if you do them wrong, they’ll sting your eyes and you still won’t be able to wash away what happened. The message hits that much harder with a rush of gorgeous synthesizers and girl-group chants.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OSmITtaX3o

“Don’t By Shy” by Primary feat. Choa and Iron

Choa’s sultry vocals combined with producer Primary’s hazy tropical beat and Iron’s laidback flow does a K-pop double take with its overtly sexual nature: “White drawing paper body, I squeeze my paints on that” raps Iron to counter Choa’s coyish pleas. It’s less ballad and more reggae, but the impassioned delivery and mellow rhythm is lush with temptation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9zL-A78oRg

“Home” by Roy Kim

On this inspiring tune, the singer-songwriter softly croons to a distressed person to come to him and just be. What’s great about “Home” is how it’s never totally clear if Roy is singing explicitly to a lover making this track potentially one you dedicate to a friend (Galentine’s Day, anyone?), parent, co-worker, or anyone else — its universal message makes it all the more special.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czdxV99r89Y

“Lucky” by EXO

The EXO boys take the simple things in love — speaking the same language, being in the same area — and build them up sky-high for this exuberant pop track that undoubtedly had fans hearts fluttering on first listen. It’s the kind of song you forever attach to a first love when you’re just discovering these strong, unfathomable kind of feelings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcfunXTt6yA

“You Are Me, I Am You” by Zico

The overwhelming calm of “You Are Me, I Am You” belies the intensity of the love professed on this groovy hip hop track from the Block B frontman. The low-key bop is an unlikely love song, but Zico’s lyrics are all about how romance changes a person (“I only ever listened to hip hop/ Now I’ve turned acoustic”) and filled with devotion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewjucLierFc

“Only U” by miss A

The swaggering, taunting lyrics of “Only U” make it the perfect anthem for 21st century women (and men!) who know what they want and aren’t going to sit this Valentine’s Day out because a potential lover doesn’t have what it takes to ask you out. The sassy song layers swirling synths and snares over a hip hop beat to propel its take-charge message.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO9RzrhYR-I

“Save Me” by BTS

The BTS guys may be young, but a song like “Save Me” indicates intense romantic experiences as the septet declare, “Save me, save me/ I need your love before I fall.” The song’s intense perspective is met by a melancholy, synth-driven dance breakdown on the hook to make this song as lovelorn as it is an undeniable jam.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZjt_sA2eso

Source: Billboard

http://tunecollective.com/2017/02/20/25-k-pop-love-songs-for-valentines-day/

0 notes