They beam things into your head

Author’s Note: Listen to Matthew Good Band’s “Running for Home” while reading for the full effect.

They beam things into your head
the ghosts of your pleasure and contempt
when we were liars things were seamless
when we were wired the world was like a secret
i close my eyes now and i scream
i turn the light on and there's nothing left redeeming
i saw your face before it changed
the gun it makes you look nicer in a bad way

so low for how high?

well it's too late tonight
and i'm sure you're right
so low for how high

and after this there's just the circus
and every morning you carnie heart stops workin
it gets tight in there sometimes
looking for the defects, talking like it's a reflex
i close my mouth now and i scream
i open the door and there's nothing left redeeming
i saw your face before the rough
you should wait around awhile cause your body's bound to turn up

so low for how high?
well it's too late tonight
and i'm sure you're right
so low for how high

Bathed in blue shadows, hands pressed down on ivory keys, producing a staccato but fluid melody. Its sweet, but sad tune filled the small club. He never had to write music beforehand, and that was one thing he was grateful for. Tonight, though, he found himself unable to appreciate this gift, much less anything else. His hands wandered around the keyboard at their own will, telling the story he kept so secret. Each note explaining an intimate detail, blending together into one unmistakable autobiography.

He closed his eyes as this haunting melody washed over him. He felt like a pilling in the tide, waves gently ebbing toward the beach, sometimes completely consuming it. He was not sure that he liked it. Fixed in place, no allowance for freedom or motion. Bound to the sea, victim to the tide. As much as he tried to believe that he was in control, he knew that was the farthest thing from the truth. He knew because he was still sitting here, playing the piano, living out of a motel in the cheap side of town with the ghost of someone he had once loved.

A discordant, but not unpleasant crescendo sounded unexpectedly as his previous train of thought hit a nerve. He hated to think about it, about what would happen when he left for the night. . . or rather, what wouldn’t happen. He’d take the long way home again, walking as slowly as he could, almost as if avoiding it – which he was. He would push the door open and find the passed out form collapsed in bed, if he’d even made it that far. He would shake his head and sigh in the doorway before brokenheartedly picking the other off the floor and into bed, or check for something as simple as a pulse. Sallow skin and dark ringed eyes would serve as a reminder of this imminent degeneration and he would turn away, sickened. He would remember a time when they were happy... oh, how miserable they had thought they were. In juxtaposition, there was no contest. The bad days now looked beautiful. They had been scared, but they had each other. There was friendship and so much more. There was strength. Now there was nothing. Nothing but decay and misfortune and death. Death had been such a game to them. In a way, it still was. He watched as the other tempted it every day. What made him sick was that sometimes, he caught himself wishing that maybe, just maybe he would lose.

Eyes still closed, he wanted to scream. For so many reasons, he wanted to bellow at the top of his lungs until his throat ruptured. Instead, he closed his mouth and kept silent, allowing the music to scream for him as melodically as it would.

The house lights went down, leaving in the darkness a very confused, tormented young man. He sat in the darkness for what could have been hours, crying through music and tears until his fingers gave out and so did his heart. Slumping forward on the pianist’s bench, he held his head in his hands and realized the sheer hopelessness of it all.

Opening the door, he shook his head with a sigh at the sight of the dark-haired man lying passed out on the motel floor. His heart sank as he entered the room, shutting it behind him and carefully lifting the other off the floor and into the bed. He caught sight of the pistol on the nightstand, wondering why it was out of the drawer. He realized that he didn’t care so much... it kind of seemed appropriate. He observed the scene and noted that the gun really did make Clark look nicer... and he hated it.

“I’m fine, Kenny, I swear.”

“Just forget it. You’re right. Sorry I asked.”

“C’mon. Don’t you trust me?”

“... Of course I do.”

With one last glance at his friend, Kenny knew he had lied.

Author’s Note Part II:

Ironically, I’d pulled some lyrics from this to use later in the story and never heard the song. I heard the song and thought “holy crap! This is Kenny/Clark angst-drabble material! So I ended up with this little sidepiece or whatever you want to call it. May make it into “Darker Shades…” though at this point anything can happen. Except for the appearance of a giant half-chicken-half-squirrel with a mild understanding of algebra. I can pretty much assure you that. I have a pretty good idea as to the rest of the plot, as diagramed on the back of sales receipts from Amoco and the Sunset Diner, but this story writes itself so it could go somewhere completely off the map.