Post by Emily on Nov 12, 2015 18:17:25 GMT -8
CAST: William "Will" Byrne (anyothertale@aol.com)
SUMMARY: Just another night on the job for Will.
TW:
Welcome to the planet
Welcome to existence
Everyone's here, everyone's here
The first third of the long fingers on his right hand were a stadium wave of black block letters that spelled out E Y O U, each lifting less than a second after the previous from first to fourth while the tips on the ends of them plucked a quiet series of notes only intended to determine tuning at the strings of an old acoustic guitar. They weren't strings; not really. They were wires, so textured as to have long ago abraded and bled skin that was now tougher and more callous.
Maybe E Y O U didn't make sense all by itself, but further up the fret of Will's guitar were curled the letters that were supposed to come before it: I D A R. Each letter's edge bore the telltale pink glow of recent irritation -- needle versus flesh -- and each letter's whole wore a thin coat of shiny Aquaphor. I D A R E Y O U. The statement must have still been fresh in the pit of him.
Welcome to the fall-out
Welcome to resistance
The tension is here, the tension is here
Between who you are and who you could be
Between how it is and how it should be, yeah
Tuning became playing for the tall, burgundy-sweatered busker who wandered the Promenade. A light London rain made a crown of the dark, wild curl atop his head, leaving watery jewels there that came alive with light under the city's ornate lamp posts. He wiped the stuff out of his beard with the pull of his left hand, then pushed the palm of that off on the side seam of loose fitting blue jeans that looked like they'd seen better days. It forced an un-composed pause into a piece that still spoke to him from beyond the pop culture grave.
He picked it back up just before the chorus. The bottom dropped out of the sweet, sentimental four quarter time strum he'd been toying with, punctuated by a thick, blues player slap against hollow mahogany. With it, the bottom dropped out of Will.
Tenor. In a society that glorified the baritone, he sang tenor, only he sang it like it had been ripped up and shredded by everything that had ever ripped up and shredded him. There was no choirboy in it. The power that brought it up from his gut reverberated in his chest; the ever-ready fighting spirit, the passion and the piss-off he hid under what probably seemed like layers of unaffected snark and vulgarity made themselves plain in the aggressive keep-time bounce of his hot pink, starred and sneakered heel and the strain of what muscle kept his jaw level, kept his head from falling back like a lone wolf's, howling at the moon.
I dare you to move
I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
I dare you to move
I dare you to move
I dare you to move like today never happened, before
These were his shut-eyed, nostril-flared secrets, and only this way did he understand how to share them with anyone. The regular passers-by who dropped small denominations of cash into the black beanie on the concrete in front of him on their way home from 'real jobs' had no idea that they knew him better than anyone who actually knew him. He found comfort in that. He found security in it.
So, Will played. Will bounced, damn near danced sometimes; Will sang, damn near screamed sometimes; Will sold his secrets to sidewalk strangers who didn't know what they were worth until his throat was raw six nights a week.
Maybe redemption has stories to tell
Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell
Where can you run to escape from yourself?
Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna go?
And that was how he made his money. His money, not Alistair Byrne's. It was also the only thing that made him without doubt, without hesitation, without reservation or suspicion or condition... happy. Free. Alive. It was the only thing that ever had. Maybe it was the only thing that ever would.
Salvation is here
SUMMARY: Just another night on the job for Will.
TW:
Welcome to the planet
Welcome to existence
Everyone's here, everyone's here
The first third of the long fingers on his right hand were a stadium wave of black block letters that spelled out E Y O U, each lifting less than a second after the previous from first to fourth while the tips on the ends of them plucked a quiet series of notes only intended to determine tuning at the strings of an old acoustic guitar. They weren't strings; not really. They were wires, so textured as to have long ago abraded and bled skin that was now tougher and more callous.
Maybe E Y O U didn't make sense all by itself, but further up the fret of Will's guitar were curled the letters that were supposed to come before it: I D A R. Each letter's edge bore the telltale pink glow of recent irritation -- needle versus flesh -- and each letter's whole wore a thin coat of shiny Aquaphor. I D A R E Y O U. The statement must have still been fresh in the pit of him.
Welcome to the fall-out
Welcome to resistance
The tension is here, the tension is here
Between who you are and who you could be
Between how it is and how it should be, yeah
Tuning became playing for the tall, burgundy-sweatered busker who wandered the Promenade. A light London rain made a crown of the dark, wild curl atop his head, leaving watery jewels there that came alive with light under the city's ornate lamp posts. He wiped the stuff out of his beard with the pull of his left hand, then pushed the palm of that off on the side seam of loose fitting blue jeans that looked like they'd seen better days. It forced an un-composed pause into a piece that still spoke to him from beyond the pop culture grave.
He picked it back up just before the chorus. The bottom dropped out of the sweet, sentimental four quarter time strum he'd been toying with, punctuated by a thick, blues player slap against hollow mahogany. With it, the bottom dropped out of Will.
Tenor. In a society that glorified the baritone, he sang tenor, only he sang it like it had been ripped up and shredded by everything that had ever ripped up and shredded him. There was no choirboy in it. The power that brought it up from his gut reverberated in his chest; the ever-ready fighting spirit, the passion and the piss-off he hid under what probably seemed like layers of unaffected snark and vulgarity made themselves plain in the aggressive keep-time bounce of his hot pink, starred and sneakered heel and the strain of what muscle kept his jaw level, kept his head from falling back like a lone wolf's, howling at the moon.
I dare you to move
I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
I dare you to move
I dare you to move
I dare you to move like today never happened, before
These were his shut-eyed, nostril-flared secrets, and only this way did he understand how to share them with anyone. The regular passers-by who dropped small denominations of cash into the black beanie on the concrete in front of him on their way home from 'real jobs' had no idea that they knew him better than anyone who actually knew him. He found comfort in that. He found security in it.
So, Will played. Will bounced, damn near danced sometimes; Will sang, damn near screamed sometimes; Will sold his secrets to sidewalk strangers who didn't know what they were worth until his throat was raw six nights a week.
Maybe redemption has stories to tell
Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell
Where can you run to escape from yourself?
Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna go?
And that was how he made his money. His money, not Alistair Byrne's. It was also the only thing that made him without doubt, without hesitation, without reservation or suspicion or condition... happy. Free. Alive. It was the only thing that ever had. Maybe it was the only thing that ever would.
Salvation is here