|
|
Joined:
September 2009
Posts: 61
Location: on the web | All for you, AlanM.
WARNING: Long, and slighty purple, prose.
It was a lazy, drizzly Saturday afternoon when I first saw her, the kind of late-Autumn day most people avoid by curling up with a good book by the fire. Low, pregnant clouds sending just enough mist to make you look stupid carrying an open umbrella, but enough to make you miserably damp without. The trees had already lost their red, orange and yellow bursts, and now waited bare, shorn of their last richness as they prepared for the coming bitter cold.
I walked the lonely streets, the few people out and about ignoring me, intent on their errands, heads bowed and faces obscured by their brightly colored rain gear, as though shaking a fist of defiance at the grayness, eager to finish whatever business forced them out of their comfort on such a miserable day. I was fidgety, unsatisfied by a gnawing hunger, not of the belly but of the mind. I couldn’t quite hold onto whatever it was that was tickling my desire, but like an itch under a cast I couldn’t quite reach it to satisfy the restlessness.
In my aimless wandering I turned down an unfamiliar street. Before I’d gone 20 steps I saw her: standing in the window of a shop I didn’t know existed, even though I’d lived in this old section of the city for the better part of a decade, her glow cut through the gloom like a beacon. And as the familiar lighthouse marking the inlet home brings a sense of reprieve to a sailor on storm-tossed seas, I knew: This was it! This is what I’d been itching for! This was the release from my dark musings!
The door to my salvation beckoned. I approached the ornate carvings in the rich wood and gently tugged on the handle. The squeak of the rusty hinges snapped my reverie for a moment, but once inside (and allowing a moment for my eyes to adjust to the even greater dimness) I regained my eager anticipation. A faint aroma impressed itself on my nose, a complex and not unpleasant mix of old wood and mustiness, of long-ago fires in the fireplace, of brusque men smoking their cigars and arguing politics, of perfumed ladies in their jewelry and petticoats – how much this space must have seen and heard in all its incarnations over the past century-and-a-half!
Now, in its declining years, a grey, wizened gnome of a man presided over this space, looking almost as forlorn as his surroundings. Hunched with arthritis and the other plagues of age, he greeted me with his rheumy eyes. The dusty shelves and display cases, some with cracks running crazily at angles across the glass, were mostly empty. The old man, in a voice abused by decades of cigarettes, a voice most at home on the Mississippi delta backing the plaintive wail of a sharecropper’s blues slide, told me how his late brother had owned this music store. It had been a magical place, he told me. Musicians from far and wide would gather here on weekends and tell tales of the road, drink heartily and make merry, all the while playing the most wonderful music. Now, as the last member of his family left, he was just waiting to sell the few remaining items before closing the door forever, before this entire building was razed to make way for some redevelopment scheme cooked up by out-of-town developers and the local crooked politicos.
Finally, I strode to the window to get my first close look at her. I couldn’t believe what I saw: a 1939 Martin D28 in all her faded glory! She was scarred and road-worn; some might say, “rode hard and put up wet,” but to me she was the most beautiful, perfect creature I’d ever beheld. I didn’t dare pick her up yet, even though my head was swimming with the music we would make. I wanted to wait for that first magical touch so we wouldn’t be interrupted. I asked the gnome to pack her in a case for me, gave the man everything I had, even though it meant eating mac-and-cheese from a box for the next month, wished him well and rushed home.
As I carried her still in her case over the threshold of my apartment, I could almost feel her twitching inside, eager for release. She must have sensed, as did I, that we were meant for one another. All of those lonely years finally culminating in treasure found. I’d never been sentimental, never believed in all of that “love at first sight” twaddle until now. Now I knew, now I understood. Alas for the myriad of humanity too poor to ever feel this certainty! I laid her down gently on the only furniture in my studio apartment, my bed, and opened the case. There she was, resplendent in repose! “One more moment, my darling,” I cooed, “then we’ll be together.”
I rummaged through the drawers of my sparse kitchen until I found what I needed: 2 scented candles left behind by one of my many previous failed relationships. Fortunately, seeing them didn’t jog any memory of who might have left them there. I placed the lit candles on either side of the bed – no bare bulb hanging from the ceiling fan like a condemned man from a red and black noose! The mood had to be perfect. Finally I was ready.
Gently, lovingly, I placed my large, rough, workingman’s hand under her smooth neck and lifted her softly onto my lap, her hard round bottom resting on my thigh. For a while I just gazed at her, wanting to know every inch, mapping every blemish and scar, searing her unique individuality into my brain. As eager as we both were I wanted this moment to last – there is ever only one first time.
I ran my thumb along the back of her neck, feeling the impressions she’d gathered in a long and fruitful life giving pleasure to many. I wrapped my fingers around and caressed the strings, making the D chord that instantly lets one know how any guitar will respond. I kept my hand in that position and stoked up and down the neck a few times. I could tell she liked it by the soft squeals she let out. Finally, I was ready. With my right hand I caressed the strings just above her hole and strummed. What started with a throaty bass moan continued up until it reached the sweetest soprano cry, a sound so beautiful, so intricate, so full of mystery and longing and fulfillment that the greatest songbird would be green with envy!
I played her, oh did I play her!, slowly at first, starting with a few scales and arpeggios just to warm her up, and then building little by little. It was wonderful, incongruous, both unexpected and expected at the same time, nothing and everything in my experience prepared me for how good we were together. I tried everything I knew, and she responded lustily and with abandon. Reaching unimaginable crescendos, and then falling back to a slow and soft tempo, time and again, we were inseparable for hours. I was like a man possessed, a man who’d sold his soul to Beelzebub himself on some dusty southern crossroad, able to do things I’d never so much as contemplated. No matter the genre, no matter the style, we could do it all! Finally, when we could stand it no more, after what seemed both an eternity of bliss and a fleeting moment of longing, we were spent.
After a few moments of delicious exhaustion I slid over, grabbed a cigarette from my nightstand, and kicked her arse out the door for the dirty slut she is. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
November 2004
Posts: 4413
| That is some of the finest typing I ever saw on this site. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
January 2009
Posts: 4536
Location: Flahdaw | Ohhh, Ohhhhh, Ohhhhhhhhh, OOOOOVATION!!!
(damn, screamed out the wrong name at the wrong time again) |
|
| |
|
Joined:
November 2005
Posts: 4833
Location: Campbell River, British Columbia | Reads like a National Lampoon parody.
It's got a "Bored Of The Rings" feel.
No heart, all intellect.
But pretty good typing none the less. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
March 2008
Posts: 2683
Location: Hot Springs, S.D. | It was a dark and stormy night... |
|
| |
|
Joined:
January 2009
Posts: 379
Location: Alagoas, Brazil | Hey, it looks almost but not quite unlike Dashiell Hammet.
Very nice reading indeed. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
May 2006
Posts: 4239
Location: Steeler Nation, Hudson Valley Contingent | This post is drivel without pics.  |
|
| |
|
Joined:
April 2008
Posts: 1851
Location: Newington, CT | Lollllllllll! Ok, ok, ok...That's some MIGHTY steamy tripe, Suspects.!
And, as promised, I acknowledge that you CAN put two coherent sentences together. You don't write as well as I do when I'm trying, but you plainly can write. It takes a fine writer to be able to write bad prose well, and that's some of the finest bad prose I've ever read. Right down to the great awful twist at the end.
My story has the advantage of being true. And of not exaggerating.
So, now, I have to ask: When, it's obvious that you CAN write, what's the point of the other inane posts? |
|
| |
|
Joined:
March 2005
Posts: 5567
Location: Blue Ridge Mountains | RD version:
Found original D-28 Bone; played original D-28 Bone; Kicked original D-28 Bone out of the door...
'Could-a sold her and pocketed the cash...what were you thinking?
"It has a good beat and you can dance to it": American Bandstand |
|
| |
|
Joined:
December 2006
Posts: 6268
Location: Florida Central Gulf Coast | Originally posted by The Usual Suspects:
WARNING: Long, and slighty purple, prose. Reader's Digest Cliff Notes version:
"Why am I so unhappy and lonely?"
 |
|
| |
|
Joined:
March 2008
Posts: 2683
Location: Hot Springs, S.D. | Good one Iffy! I was thinking more along the lines of a Heathcliff. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
March 2005
Posts: 2793
Location: Atlanta, GA. | At times it's difficult to distinguish if you're lamenting over a guitar or ...
YOUR MAMA!!! :p |
|
| |
|
Joined:
March 2005
Posts: 12761
Location: Boise, Idaho | Not sappy enough. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
November 2006
Posts: 2241
Location: Simpsonville, SC | My heart is broken. I sincerely take back all of the BAD that I have said about you TUS! :rolleyes: |
|
| |
|
Joined:
January 2006
Posts: 1132
Location: NW Washington State | Originally posted by AlanM:
...You don't write as well as I do when I'm trying... And we thought Alan had no sense of humor! |
|
| |
|
Joined:
August 2007
Posts: 494
Location: Location Location Location | You're someone who likes directness. You've got too much imagery and not enough content. This is about 90% description vs. 10% substance. It should be the other way around. Your story is ok, but it's too flowery. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
March 2005
Posts: 5567
Location: Blue Ridge Mountains | AlanM wrote: So, now, I have to ask: When, it's obvious that you CAN write, what's the point of the other inane posts? Point taken! |
|
| |
|
Joined:
January 2006
Posts: 5881
Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | Eliminate 99% of the words, set it to 12-bar blues progression, and you'll have a hit! |
|
| |
|
Joined:
March 2005
Posts: 12761
Location: Boise, Idaho | Originally posted by AlanM:
what's the point of the other inane posts? OK, Alan. Although my vocabulary wasn't good enough to know what "mash" meant, until you told us, I do know that "inane" means pointless, so if US could tell you what his point was, his post wouldn't be inane. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
May 2008
Posts: 4996
Location: Phoenix AZ | Point, Set and Match, Mr. Usual.
AMAZINGLY WELL DONE. I thought I had insiders knowledge into your true identity. Now I ain't so sure. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
April 2008
Posts: 1851
Location: Newington, CT | Originally posted by Gallerinski:
Point, Set and Match, Mr. Usual.
AMAZINGLY WELL DONE. I thought I had insiders knowledge into your true identity. Now I ain't so sure. Hey, hey, hey! Slooooooooooow down thar hombre! Ah wasn't a-competin' when Ah wrote mine! Jest tellin' a story. If'n Ah wuz ta go inta whuppin'-his-buhAHND mode, Ah'd take his scrawny li'l ol' backside down!
Got it?
Gud. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
October 2005
Posts: 5332
Location: Bluffton, SC | More like The Unusual Suspects, eh?
Touche', TUS. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
April 2008
Posts: 1851
Location: Newington, CT | Originally posted by Gallerinski:
Point, Set and Match, Mr. Usual.
AMAZINGLY WELL DONE. I thought I had insiders knowledge into your true identity. Now I ain't so sure. Oh...and 'nuther thing: Ah smoked his yella-bellied hide outen thuh underbrush whar he wuz a-hidin' out...'N Ah made him show his colors!
Y'all're welcome. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
March 2005
Posts: 12761
Location: Boise, Idaho | I don't know what you guys are talking about. I just look at the pictures. |
|
| |
|
Joined:
December 2003
Posts: 13997
Location: Upper Left USA | It's all in art of writing one-handed Novels. Never made it past the one-liners myself before loosing interest. Is that something shiny... |
|
| |
Glove Thrown, Challenge Accepted
Members Forums -> General Posting
