The Fan
A short story
“Oh my God! It’s you! I’m such a big fan!”
The man didn’t notice the young woman speaking to him.
He was staring out the window at the Half Moon Café, watching the rain come down, bathing him in negative thoughts.
Noise, barely disguised as some type of music, spewed out of the speakers like aural vomit. The man wished it would stop.
An old woman babbled on the phone in Spanish or something Spanish-adjacent, her voice competing with the noise from the speakers, daring to be more irritating.
A homeless man, his teeth missing, his clothes torn, stood outside, oblivious to the rain, picking through a trash bag with grim determination.
Repulsed, the man tried to look away. But he could swear the smell made its way inside, refusing to allow his revulsion to fade.
He took a sip of his lukewarm coffee, and took a bite of a too-sweet muffin. They mixed uneasily in his mouth.
I should go home, he thought. But he didn’t move. Perhaps it was the rain that made him hesitate, as it continued to fall, taunting him with its indifference to his growing discontentment. Or perhaps it was just inertia.
He wished for something good, something new.
That was when he finally noticed the woman speaking to him, her voice cutting through the bad music and the Spanish/Spanish-adjacent yammering, her figure blocking his view of the homeless man sifting through garbage like a deliberate act of mercy.
He looked her up and down. She had bright gray eyes and a ponytail. He was pleased. Was it just his imagination, or was the sun coming out?
“It’s you, it’s really you!” The woman said.
The man hadn’t been recognized since — well, had he ever been recognized? He was just a working musician, after all. But surely it must have happened before.
“Well, hello,” the man said. “Always nice to meet a fan.” Like this happened to him every day.
“It’s exciting to meet you. I love your music. You’re so talented, and even more handsome in person than you look on YouTube.”
Tell me more about that. “Careful. You’re going to give me a big head.”
“Which one? Haha.”
“Good question. But seriously, let me ask you something, what’s your favorite song?”
“Oh, I just love ‘Ghost of Love.’ It’s so heartfelt, so lovely. It breaks my heart every time I hear it.”
He frowned. “How do you know ‘Ghost of Love?’” Meant for his new album, which had yet to find a record label, “Ghost of Love” hadn’t been released. Maybe there was some version of it on YouTube?
“Oh, I know all your songs. Do you mind if I ask, who is the song about?”
He thought about writing the song. The girl he was dating at the time, Mary, had said to him, “Write a song about me.” So he wrote “Ghost of Love,” the lyrics opaque enough to pass for a love song — if you didn’t listen too closely.
And Mary wasn’t the type of girl who listened closely.
So he told Mary the song was about her. But it wasn’t about her at all.
The man didn’t tell his newfound fan all of this. “It’s about a girl I knew. Her name was Mary. She wanted me to write a song about her.”
“That’s so cool. She must have meant a lot to you.”
No, not really. “Yes she did.”
Soon, the man and the fan were dating.
One day, they were having lunch at the Half Moon Café when she said to him, “Write a song for me. My very own ‘Ghost of Love.’ About how much you love me. How much you need me. How I’m the only one. How you can’t live without me.”
The man took a bite of his tuna sandwich, marveling at its mediocrity, and wondered if she had ever heard, truly heard “Ghost of Love.” The song wasn’t about any such sentiments.
“Um, yeah, sure,” the man said. Just play along and maybe she’ll forget about it.
But the girl smiled and part of him wanted to write that song for her.
He picked up the guitar the next day and strummed a few chords, searching for a melody, an evocative turn of phrase.
Something you could feel without needing to understand.
For a moment, he sensed it there, yet it remained just beyond his grasp, like a memory so hazy you weren’t sure if it was real.
He put down the guitar.
He wasn’t going to write a song for her. He wasn’t even going to write a song and pretend it was for her.
But that’s not what he told her.
“I’m writing your song,” he said to her one day over burnt, bitter coffee at the Half Moon Café.
“That’s exciting. I’m your muse now.”
You’re no muse. You’re just a fan. “Sure you are.”
“So will I hear it soon?”
“As soon as it’s done.”
“How will you know when it’s done?”
“I’ll know. A new song is like a small part of your soul that splinters off. You polish it and nurture it, but it’ll always be flawed and incomplete. And then a moment comes when you accept that it won’t get any better, and you let it go. And that’s when it’s done.”
“Yes of course.”
“It’ll be a special song, I promise. A special song, just for you.”
She smiled again, and he looked into her gray eyes, but they didn’t seem as bright as before.
She didn’t ask about the song again for a while. Until one night, when, as they were lying in bed, he heard a familiar song playing from the laptop she had with her. It was “Ghost of Love.”
“Oh, this song,” the girl said, and started to hum the melody.
“Yes, this song.”
“Are you thinking about Mary? Do you miss her?”
The man sighed. “Listen, ‘Ghost of Love,’ it’s not what you think. It’s not about Mary. It’s not even a love song.”
“But, you said — ”
“Yeah, I know, I said. It doesn’t matter what I said. It doesn’t change the song. Nothing can change the song.”
“And what about me? What about my song? Where is my song? Where is my song that you promised?”
“I don’t have a song for you. Not one note. Not one word.”
She looked at him. The only sound was “Ghost of Love” playing on the laptop. The girl was no longer humming along.
As the final chorus played, the man put on his clothes and walked outside, leaving the girl behind. It was cold, and the wind blew. A storm was coming.
