Somebody’s tapping a beat on the table and my ears perk up. I follow it through the noise and although it is not quite consistent, it doesn’t bother me. All the cacophony of a club, the sounds I can’t make straight into the line, and it bothers me a little if I keep thinking about it. But tonight my mind drifts, working on several levels, and I find myself catching the fleeting thoughts of remembering what was the last mark I made on the note sheet, what Colin wore in the morning during the practice, that I have to stop by the shop to buy some strings, that the alcohol felt warm in my stomach. Thoughts of Thom slither underneath like a snake, glistening at the turns and showing the curves of their silver bodies, thoughts I follow lazily as if carried by the current, thoughts that drift without stopping as a slow and wide river.
Somebody touches my hand with their warm fingers, leaving two warm spots. I imagine two perfect fingerprints on my skin and look up curiously to the face looking into mine, warm eyes and clear skin, soft features shaped by milky shadows.
“Where are you?” a tentative voice asks and I dive back into my head without quite coming up to the surface. “Where are you?” repeats in my head and I find myself standing next to Thom somewhere in the field, in the warm yellows with the trees shouting far away, and he smiles up at me. The thought makes my stomach tighten delightfully and I feel my lips stretch a little in a smile. Strangely, I’m well-aware of every pore on my body, of every heartbeat and exhale, of the way my hair moves slightly and soundlessly in this slow-motion atmosphere.
I walk home in the warm night smelling of spring, and my shoes don’t make a sound against the pavement, as if each of my steps is sunken into the soft grass. Inside my head, years stretch out as molasses, 80s into the 90s, and onto the millennium, and behind all of them I feel Thom, his essence drifting about and into me.
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