"Under the rocks and stones I'll find you,
Beneath the bottom of below,
Under the rocks and stones I'm waiting."
-Jill Tracy
I lie on my back in the near darkness of my bedroom, the only light in the apartment coming from the dim screen of the computer sitting on my desk, staring up at the dirty white of my bedroom ceiling. The only sound comes from the same computer, the slow echo of a piano working itself through a touchingly melancholy blues number which I have never heard before, and will probably never hear again after this. I close my eyes and let the sound of it soak into me like good gin, allowing myself to love it wholly and intensely for this single moment. And in this moment there is no world outside of each reverberating note, no spinning universe or burning suns other than these humming chords, no spanning vacuum but the space between each keystroke. It all falls away, until there is only the song. The music begins to swell, each note growing more powerful and yet melancholy than the last, and in that instant I give myself to it entirely, losing myself in the black waves of this boundless nighttime sea. And then, just like that, it is over. The radio automatically shuffles to something new, something with more of a jazz feel about it, and my anonymous song is lost to me, most probably forever. But I prefer it that way, truth be told- once I had listened to it a fourth or fifth time I might have noticed some imperfections in the timing or some notes that didn’t feel quite correctly placed to me. After twenty times, I might have grown somewhat tired of hearing it, might have found it simply didn’t stir me as it once had. After fifty I might have grown altogether sick of hearing it. This moment, that brief instant that I was adrift on that sea, was beautiful to me, and so I will keep that and it will have to be enough.
The riot of sounds that is some very decent jazz is interrupted by the sudden persistent chirping of my phone alerting me of a text message, and I go on lying there with my eyes closed, debating on whether or not I really want to read it. The chances that this message will be from someone I actually want to hear from is a likelihood that seems to be growing slimmer with each passing day- the chance that it will be news of either an interesting or positive slant are somehow even less promising. I couple this with the fact that every inch of my body is still sore from my trip to the gym earlier that day, and I find myself doubting that the effort it will take to retrieve my phone and read the damned thing would even be worth it. The moments crawl by as I try to decide, weighing a few possibilities, and the jazzy bit comes to an end only to be replaced by a familiar tune by an artist named Jill Tracy. I smile in the near darkness, forgetting the phone and letting my mind wander back, remembering the night I met with her after a concert and how we had sat in her hotel room afterwards until two in the morning, talking about the Twilight Zone, the world, the human condition.
That conversation had very nearly led me to packing up everything and leaving behind my hole in the wall for the shiny lights and dim basement clubs of distant San Francisco, but I had wound up staying, mostly due to being tragically broke. I had regretted that choice for quite some time once I had made it, at having not at least taken a stab at that whimsical bastard, at not having rolled the dice to see if that faraway city might choose to either make or break me. I have always felt that this is one of the most fundamental differences between myself and most of the people I have come to know- they have always seemed to regret mosty the things which they have done in their lives, trying to create reasons and rationales to justify why they did what they did. As for me, it is a rare thing that I actually regret anything that I have done, and the only reasons I usually give for why I’ve done them are either because it seemed like a good idea at the time, or fuck you that’s why. It’s the things that I haven’t done, the risks I’ve avoided or the chances I’ve shied away from that keep me up at night, my mind running in circles like a dog with mange, desperate for explanations to prop them up with. Shaky, shoddy things like I didn’t have the money, I didn’t have the time, or it was just too much of a risk. And they worked fine for me at the times when I needed them, or at the very least well enough for me to talk myself out of whatever it was I needed talking out of. But when I’m here now and the opportunities are dead and gone, lying alone in the darkness, I can’t deny that they were little more than my own personal brand of bullshit. My own flavor of cheap cowardice. And the world today has very little need of either- the market is already flooded enough as it is without my contributions.I force those thoughts away for the time being as I realize that I haven’t had anything to drink since my morning coffee and that my mouth is beginning to resemble sandpaper, and that my bastard of a kitchen won’t be getting any closer no matter how much I yell at it. I attempt it anyhow, but find no more luck than any time before. With a groan I force myself out of the warm comfort of my bed and away from the blend of fond memories, bleak thoughts, and drifting music, making my way towards the shadowy doorway. The forgotten phone chirps again to remind me of my message and I snatch it up from the dresser as I walk past, more as an afterthought than anything, wincing momentarily at the brightness of the screen as I flick the thing open. I scroll through it as I walk into the dark living room and drift towards the kitchen, sighing as I stare down at the little rectangle of light, reading what it says.
“Damn it, it’s someone I actually like.”
