musing
flash-fiction
My pen runs out of ink, and this is just one of those moments I wish I could telephone my muse.
‘Hello?’ she’d answer at the other end.
‘Hiya Mel, it’s me.’
At this she’d cut off the drag she’d been sucking and rather Oh-how-are-you? the smoke out.
‘Look, sorry to bother you — ’
‘Oh, no,’ she’d interrupt with fervour. ‘Not at all.’
‘Well, I just had a question.’
Then I’d probably hear a glass hit the tabletop on her end, portending, given the length of the pause, the shot glass she’d just emptied.
‘Erm — was that?’ I’d inquire politely.
‘Dammit — sorry — that? That was nothing. Nothing.’ She’d clear her throat. ‘What were you saying? What did you want?’
I’d feel the pit of my stomach contract slightly.
‘Well, I’ve got a question.’
Then, on the other end, I’d hear a crash and an angry meow. ‘Oh for lympussake, Hermes — get out of there!’ a rattling of escaped paperclips and a shuffling of papers, ‘I’m so sorry. Just the effing cat. Anyhow, the question. Shoot.’
I’d think, at this point, how I hate doing this.
‘You know, Mel, I don’t like putting you on the spot like this — ’ I’d sigh, ‘ — it’s just that, well, it’s hard times. You know how it is. I — I can’t get anything down. I can’t get anything out of my head. You know how it is. And I know you don’t like this — you know I don’t like to you put you on the spot like this…’
Silence.
Then, as predicted, I’d hear it. I’d hear what I’d heard a million times.
‘Oh, don’t be silly,’ she’d hiss. ‘Why can’t I just sing you a little ditty? Oh, I’m sure it isn’t anything. You know I love to sing. It’s what I live for, isn’t it? Absolutely my passion. I don’t worry about my — ’ she’d break up into a fit of terrifying coughs. ‘Zuesdammit,’ she’d gasp, and subsequently cough a little more.
‘Look, Mel, I really hate bothering you like this. But it’s been, what, about five months now — five months — and I just can’t… I’m sorry. I would have come in person, but I know you don’t like that. It was just that I wanted to bother you as little as possible. So I was wondering if you could sing — or, or even just hum something for me. You don’t know how grateful — ’
‘Oh, you’d be so grateful, wouldn’t you? Would you send me flowers? Like last time? I still have them, you know. I kept them. All this time.’
I’d be caught by surprise. ‘Really?’
‘I adore flowers, you must know. But they’ve all wilted. They’re all dead now. Yes, I suppose I’d better sing you something so that you can send me fresh ones. Then I can set them in the windowsill and watch them die, too.’
I’d take a deep breath, try to interrupt, but she’d go on.
‘That’s the wonder of life, isn’t it? All the pretty little things about us, youth and beauty, felicity and fascinations, like playing in the pools of Salmakis or clipping along like Pegasus as Helios pulls his little chariot over the horizon… but even wingèd horses lie down eventually, and puddles dry up, don’t they?’
‘Yes,’ I’d quietly answer. ‘I suppose so.’
Across the wire there’d be the chink of glass against ashtray, a pause, and a cough.
‘D’you know what?’ she’d say suddenly. ‘I will sing you something. I’ll sing you something brilliant. I’ll sing you something absolutely beautiful and, just because I care, I’ll sing you something like no one has ever heard.’
And before I could think to say anything to this, I’d hear a horrible, horrible grating noise as she cleared her throat and began to sing.
For a moment I’d cringe, her throat shearing into the telephone. But after a few notes, if they’d be notes, I’d begin to hear something else. Words would surface — like some ancient ship that’d long since lost its buoyancy arising from the depths and cresting the surf — words that I had never known and that I had known from my childhood. Words by name and deed and trait. A cottage thatched with golden grain, a vacuum salesman, several charming oysters, a little girl leading a revolution, a pirate queen unelected, a prince forgotten, a nymph, and two rancorous foes — like the breaking of a storm, and too, its gathering — I’d feel the images, those flitful knights of dream, pressed against my palm, my mind, my memory.
But then her voice would crack, thunderously shifting from the splendour of the melody. She’d give over to coughs. She’d hack as someone deathly ill, till coughs at last gave way to sobs, and aching sobs to silence.
My hand trembles on the telephone, my unsure breath a whisper.
Ryan DeWolf is a poet, essayist, and fiction-writer born in 1985 in Seattle, Washington.
