Your life had a
soundtrack. Not an especially good one like one from a movie, but it was the
sounds of your life. It was uniquely yours, and it went to the album you called
Bland. Whether it was going to be
your only album was up for debater, but Bland
was not going to win a Grammy. But you did always wonder why someone would
want a trophy in the shape of outdated tech anyway. You’d sometimes ponder
similar situations. Oh, here’s your math trophy in the shape of an abacus. Oh,
here’s your surgeon trophy in the shape of a bottle of whisky.
Your album had four distinct tracks to a slow and boring
tempo. The first track was a constant low like one a printer did when it
finished printing. It was a precursor to predetermined destiny, because in the
end things played out exactly how they were supposed to. Seldom had you grabbed
a piece of paper that a printer had inked up that was supposed to have homework
on it and found that in bold and italic uppercase letters the words: FUCK
YOU. To start the track you had to force yourself to give eye contact
to people who thought they deserved it.
The second track was the simple utterance, “Would you
like…” set on indefinite loop. It hardly mattered what was said after the
phrase as long as somewhere in its confines it contained the word, ‘but’. In
practice it sounded like a robot gurgling gravy saying something such as,
“Would you like to go to a great school, but to do so you have to get stupidly good
grades.” Even if what you said didn’t contain ‘but’ you were still the butt of
the joke.
The third track was the sound of rubber or plastic being
opened. It sounded just as much like a doctor opening a glove for a prostate
exam as it did a bag of lucky charms being opened, but it contained none of the
excitement of either.
The
last track, though the shortest was the reminder that the album had a
definitive ending. For you, hearing it was like smelling bacon or hearing and
ice cream truck jingle A microgasm for one of your senses. The track was
satisfying like the sound of two quarters being rubbed together.
The
worst part about the album was the once it started playing, you didn’t really
have a choice other than to continue to listen to it 200 times. You had to
listen to it, because you were living it. You were making music to the slow
boring beat of your own drumlike sequence of tones.
Until
one day, while working at your shitty retail job, a woman walked up to your
register. She was wearing a bright blue blazer and a white blouse. He shoulder
length brown hair was nearly ruined by two cowlicks at either side of her head.
“Did you find everything all right?” You asked as though you cared.
“Seemed
easy enough to me,” she said back. With one hand she set some small items onto
the counter, and you organized them so that they were all facing upwards. Then
it slow succession, you scanned them all. He head twisted until it was
perpendicular to her shoulder. Though her eyes were firmly planted on your
hand, she seemed to be looking through you.
Taking
advantage of her distant look, you decided to ask, “Would you like to sign up
for our credit card?”
“No.”
“But
you would save 10% off if you were approved.” This time instead of dignifying
your comment with a response, she waved your voice away like an insect. You
noticed finally that her skin was thoroughly sunburnt giving her eyes and
almost sunken look. It had been hard for you as a cashier to tell if people
were genuinely weird or just tweaking.
You
slipped your fingers into the plastic bag and slid her items in with minimum
resistance. Her head turned again almost impossibly as it began to pass her
shoulder. “Your total is $43.11.”
Still
quiet, she flipped open her wallet and handed you three crinkled twenties. Then
as she continued to stare through you, she spoke. “I like your soundtrack very
much.” If she was talking about your metaphorical sound trach, then she was
definitely on drugs. She reached back into her wallet, attempting to grab
something with her long talons. From it she yanked and old piece of parchment,
and she slammed it onto the counter.
“What
is this?” You asked.
“A
music contract. I want to buy your soundtrack.”
You
decided to play along. “But it is boring.”
“Perhaps,
but I can give you anything for it. Anything.”
“What
do you get out of this?” You asked.
“I
get all of the music you make for a very long time.”
You
heard rumblings of a fifth track appearing on your album. The sound of thunder
before a heavy rain. If you took the deal, you could make less bland music. You
could do anything.
Was
it in your best interest to take the deal? The woman flicked her lips with her
fork tongue. You got the impression that she was getting impatient. Your
options presented themselves as if answers to a multiple choice question.
A. “Are you the
Devil?” You asked her. She laughed.
“No,
I’m just a music agent. What gave you the impression that I was the Devil?”
Looking
back you did think it was kind of stupid. Her skin wasn’t even that red. “I
just had a weird feeling about it is all.”
“Well,
how about you channel all of that energy into a brand new song.” She handed you
a pen, and you signed the contract. In five months you released a new album
called, The Devil in My Mind. It
became the number one song overnight, and you became the first artist to go
double diamond in a week. You had all of the money you could always ask for, and
only a shred of memory of what once had been. Your life couldn’t be better.
For
one of your albums in your later career, you went back to the shambles of the
store you had once worked at. You dug through infinite boxes of crap in the
dilapidated stock room. Until you found the register that had once been yours.
Remarkably it still had two quarters in the drawer.
You
took it to your enormous penthouse, and you fixed it up. In the last song you
produced before you retired from the music business, you made sure the last
note was the sweet sound of the drawer of your cash register opening. This way
you could remind people that from just two quarters, you can become something.
No comments:
Post a Comment