/yesod

Tag: music

  • nemesis

    Talking with my wife today about recent events, particularly those involving our daughter. Making plans for when the exorcism should be performed, discussing when she might be able take our daughter out of the house for an hour or two. So I can work.

    She remarks that we should time it with the next full moon phase. Personally, I don’t necessarily see that as a requirement for this particular sort of entity but we’re in this together, she knows what she’s talking about, and it can’t hurt to check when the moon will be full next.

    Eight days away.

    So we have to keep it tamped down for about a week. A few simple cleansing rituals, push it back into the corners and make sure not to give it anything to gain strength from — no negativity, fear, stress.

    Fair enough.

    Starting in on some work at the office, Spotify’s “Your Discover Weekly” playlist queues up a song I haven’t heard (or even thought about) in almost two decades. Shriekback’s “Nemesis”.

    I have a faint memory of seeing the video for this song on MTV, recalling a vague sense of unease and dread that it instilled in me — the feeling that something dark was being invoked.

    “No one move muscle as the dead come home.”

    Okay then. Thanks Spotify but if you’re going to be like that I think I’ll just go with Sirius XM for the rest fo the afternoon.

    The song playing on Sirius XM is, you guessed it, Shriekback’s “Nemesis”.

    That’s… odd, I think to myself.

    And then the next song is Depeche Mode’s “Blasphemous Rumors”.

    After that, it’s INXS “Devil Inside”.

    Makes you wonder, wonder, wonder…

  • David

     My assignment for the magazine put me into his inner circle, where I could sit and observe first-hand what his life was like. I had five days with him.

    It was fascinating. 

    He was remarkably laid back and kind. He answered my questions thoughtfully and, to my eyes, didn’t try to hide any of himself behind a facade.

    I particularly remember his delight when “Satellite of Love” came on, he sang along for a bit.

    “That’s one of my all time favorite songs,” I told him.

    Smiling, he said “Well, I didn’t write it..”

    The biggest surprise were the young, cynical and utterly ordinary guys who made up his inner circle. I could tell they resented my presence there and caught one of them sneering, weasel like, on more than one occasion.

    …when I woke up today, I felt a lingering sense of wonder and gratitude for having the opportunity to spend that personal time with him.

    And then, looking at my phone, I saw the news.

      

    I don’t know why I dreamt of him.

    I puzzle over it.

  • daylight come and me wanna go home

    Sitting alone in the couch tonight, I slowly realize that I can hear someone singing. 

    Somewhere in the house, a man is singing.

    It has a muted quality, as though it is coming from very far away.

    I stand for a moment and listen. 

    I recognize it. The clear voice, the calypso intonation is unmistakeable.

    Someone is listening to Harry Belafonte, somewhere.

    But, of course, no one in the house is listening to Harry Belafonte, not tonight.

    And yet, there it is.

    After a few minutes, the music fades.

      

  • music again

    In my office tonight, getting ready to sit down and write… I stop.

    Music. Unmistakeable.

    Somewhere, someone is playing music.

    The house is asleep. I’m the only one awake. 

    Yet there it is. Unmistakeable.

    I go out and stand on the front porch, just in case it’s a neighbor.

    Nothing.

    Back inside, the house is quiet. 

    I stand in my office, head cocked… waiting.

  • echo | the recursive old woman

    Another entry from one of my old journals, this time from 1996.

    It begins simply enough…

    I’m standing in front of a shelf full of journals and books in the dead man’s rooms.

    You can read the rest here.

  • again

    The voices again tonight.

    No music this time, no men.

    One or two women, I can’t quite be sure. Possibly a child.

    I told my wife about the voices a few days ago. She could tell tonight that I was hearing them again. And, of course, she cannot.

    We keep a fan going at night, even in cold weather. White noise.

    She suggested I turn it off, just to see if that helped.

    She might be right. I honestly can’t say for sure.

    Maybe it’s a trick of the sound in the room, the combination of the fan and the hiss of the baby monitor.

    With the fan off, we sat there in the dark and waited.

    There. Not as loud, not as much. But there.

    And again.

    “I don’t hear anything,” she told me.

    I apologized, turned the fan back on so she could sleep and came downstairs to wait it out.

    Down here it’s the usual creaks and hums of the house by night. The fridge ticks over from time to time. The radiators gurgle. The cats snore, dozing. The baby monitor sounds a bit like running water.

    And, sometimes, I think I catch a brief murmur underneath it all. Somewhere.

    I honestly don’t know. Maybe it’s all just paradoelia.

    But . . . I have a vague memory of something similar when I was a child. This would have been when I was maybe six or seven years old.

    I remember my two older brothers got to stay up later than me, I remember thinking that it wasn’t fair they got to watch Hawaii 5.0 and I didn’t.

    I remember lying there in bed, listening to the pulse of drums and what sounded like singing or chanting –faint and very far away.

    I got up to complain that the TV was too loud.

    My mother told me that the set was off. It was later than i realized, my brothers had gone to bed, She asked me what I heard. When I told her, she gave my father an odd look.

    I would get to know that gesture very well in the coming years — the sidelong glance, lips compressed, a knot of worry in between her eyes.

  • limbo

    So I have received a dose of poison and I am slowly dying. My body is slowing down and seizing up. I can feel my muscles and joints hardening… Dying.

    As I’m going, my father is holding me and I’m crying. I’m asking him questions. “Will I go to heaven? Tell [REDACTED] I’ll miss her.”

    I can feel my body going, my vision fading. It’s all darkness.

    I’m crying and I say “Oh Daddy…”

    Then I die.

    Complete blackness.

    The next moment there is light and music. I can hear “Oscillate Wildly” by The Smiths. I look down at my feet. I’m standing on a tile floor. I look around.

    The Grim reaper strolls by and says “Welcome to Hell… er, I mean Limbo. Sorry.”

    I am in Hell. And Hell is a grocery store.

    Shelves. Produce. Boxes. Sterile Muzak.

    Instead of a shopping cart, I push a gurney. My body is stretched out on it.

    I push the gurney up and down the aisles and the dream loses form…

    [Note: Where I feel it is appropriate or relevant, I’ll include the names of people who show up in my dreams. In some cases, however, it may be prudent to redact these — as I’ve done here.]

  • the three old men

    Three old men. Drunken and cheaply dressed sit in a library and make vulgar innuendos to every girl who walks by. In the background a brass ensemble plays Cab Calloway tunes.