old music –
memories of
young love
Tag: music
haiku 363
grocery store –
playing the harmonica
on his break
#quikfic 120
Patty sat out back and quietly played her guitar. By the third time through Brahms’ “Lullabye,” the baby next door went to sleep.
#quikfic 72
When I opened my new CD, I found a note inside: “Help! I’m being held an artistic prisoner by my label and my teenage fan base.”
#quikfic 15
From my prison cell, I can hear the whistle as the train passes by. It was more romantic to hear Johnny Cash sing about it.
Fiction: Taking Notes
Sy Retton made a leisurely lap of the New Year’s Eve party in his suburban Los Angeles home. The bartenders at all four stations were busy. All the right people had showed up – radio people, movie people, TV people, other music people – and were mingling nicely.
The fireplace was crackling along both for atmosphere and warmth as the evening started to get a little nippy. But Sy smiled, thinking about the frigid Wisconsin winters he grew up with. He had left the snow and the cold behind him, along with his birth name of Sylvester Rothahn and the slate of increasingly serious misdemeanors attached to that name. But hey! More than half the people in the room had pasts, many of them even more unglamorous and ill-spent than his.
Sy had found his new life writing music and had worked his way to the top of his profession. Movie producers, record producers, bandleaders – they all called him when they needed something new and special. He had always delivered, and that was why they were gathered in his beautiful home to ring in 1962.
Fiction: Play the Game
As they walked from the car toward the restaurant, David hummed a few notes and fondly patted Laura’s right back pocket a few times.
“Got a song in your head?” she asked.
“One of Queen’s.” Before he could tell her which song, Laura spoke.
“If it’s Fat Bottomed Girls, you are a dead man.”
They stopped and he looked at her. The silence continued seven seconds longer than it should have before he replied, “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.”
“That’s nice.”
They walked on to the restaurant. David opened the door for Laura and switched his mental soundtrack to We Are the Champions.
Fiction: Angels We Have Heard While High
Erik knocked lightly on Craig’s front door and walked in.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi. How was Christmas dinner with the family?”
“About like always. Lots of food. My sister’s kids running around like maniacs. Everyone asking me when I’m going to get married and have kids. When I’m going to get a better job, a better place to live, some get up and go.”
“Grim,” Craig said. “I just got off work. People sure can be bitchy on Christmas. Want a beer?”
“Sure.”
Craig provided each of them with a bottle of beer.
“And,” he said, “I’ve got something else that will put the mellow back into the holiday for both of us.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“I got a nice little Christmas present in the mail yesterday from my brother.”
“Your brother the big-city cop? What is it?”
Fiction: Pioneer Stock
Lara was held spellbound by the young man who was spinning visions of wide-open spaces and new opportunities. Her eyes were lit with a fervor Stephen hadn’t seen in a long while, and it grated on his nerves.
“Friends,” the fellow said, “I’m sure you agree the price to buy into this particular wagon train is perfectly reasonable. It includes your transportation, all the necessary equipment for homesteading, and the deeds to your parcels. Now let’s hear it: Who wants to go settle this new land?”
“I do!” overlapped with “We do!” as the individuals and couples cried out their eagerness to go.
Stephen heard Lara shout, “We do!” and then she looked to her husband for confirmation. His sullen glare shocked her.
Fiction: Living on the Air
Lorraine didn’t believe in astrology. Nor did she, as so many people do, open a book, point to a sentence and use that as a guide for the day. Further, she had no truck with runes or tarot or any other fortune-telling schemes.
She had something much better than all those petty and discredited oracles.
On Monday morning, Lorraine bopped the alarm clock and sat up in bed. As always, she felt the sense of the day’s mystery both surrounding and permeating her. She got out of bed, made it carefully, and went in to shower.
After drying her hair, she poured her usual bowl of bran flakes and made two pieces of toast with elderberry jam, which reminded her of her father. Just before eating, she reached into a drawer. Inside were a little transistor radio, a pair of scissors, and fifty-four unopened packages of AA batteries, two to a package. She drew out the radio, the scissors, and a package of batteries. She cut open the package of batteries and opened the radio’s battery compartment. After placing the scissors back in the drawer Lorraine put the batteries in the radio.