In the attempt to regain my belief in my own writing, I set myself a challenge to produce something. Anything. In one evening. This is it. Raw and unedited.
If you have time to give me feedback, I would appreciate it (constructive criticism/ suggestions for improvement is welcome - drop me a message if you would like to do it privately).
This is a cyberpunk songfic, inspired by the immortal Leonard Cohen’s Closing Time and by Stephen King’s short story Willa, from his collection Just After Sunset (you are thinking WTF already, right? :) )
It’s Karedevil, of course :)
Rated: Teen and Up
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He drifted through the beat of music, perforated and pulled by it to the synthetic leather of a booth seat. The high dance notes of a fiddle, dragged into this nanoelectronic age from its century-old resting place, were twisted into a merry bow and grafted onto the refraction of an electric guitar. He came from an era when such things were played by rock and roll gods, pouring their creation from his dad’s old record player, but, today, skill was subsidised by the band’s AI, hidden on the belt of the singer. Yet the beat was steady and he felt the taste of whiskey on his tongue.
His hearing was not what it used to be, but he was thankful for the muffling of the notes’ artificial clarity. It gave him the illusion that the people crowding this bar were no different to those he rubbed shoulders with on Saturday nights at Josie’s. The rest of his senses chipped into this fantasy by refusing to sort the scents of alcohol from perfume, ozone from dry ice, combining all into a miasma of bright freefall and life, of his best moments defined.
And so he smiled and waited for his ancient ears to adjust, for his nose to return to its duty. The touch – well, he couldn’t have everything.
The crowd undulated before him, popping and sparking, gradually breaking up into chatting dancing swapping groups. Bodies semi-naked and fur-covered and skin-lit, titanium-lined tattoos and appendages, lips whispering messages into eardrums across the floor that he would not have been able to decipher even in his prime. Yet these artificial receptacles put his accidental ones to shame.
He smelled the acid-laced cider bottles, the coke-lined martini glasses, the smoke of heroin over laudanum cocktails – these scourges of his streets, their teeth pulled and turned to party favours for the young and the lucky, the crooks turning their hands to illicit cybernetics made for legitimate corporations and the Fisks sitting at the tops of their mountains. His unremarkable hearing caught the conversation behind him… ‘How do I tell her I got busted by the Columbia’s CentreNet … ’ … The words twined with voices across from him … ‘year ends, we catch the shuttle up. Just us three and fuck’em all …’
He moved on, looking for other words, other sentences, seeking from habit the plague among this feast. But the crowd revolved, and he lost the trail, if ever he had one, in the swish of the microfibre lamé that should’ve prickled his skin with its evershifting heat, and would’ve made him blush at the smell of sex wafting from beneath.
Johnny Walker in his mouth morphed with his thoughts, and now he tasted skin and silk-smeared sweat and dew, hidden for his tongue to find; a voice rich with God’s promise of bliss eternal humming out his name. His sigh mingled with her laughter as she slid in next to him, and, now, he felt her fingers brushing his temple, smelled the notes of mint and lime and, always, the rich coffee and darker bullets.
“I thought I’d catch you here,” she murmured, fingers still sliding through his hair.
“I am allowed to be predictable. At my age.”
He felt her smile, “Have you found what you were looking for?”
He snorted, “OK, maybe I don’t like being that predictable.”
“You said it. We are too old for bullshit.”
“Touché,” he felt his own grin threatening to spill over his face, “And… no. Nothing that they can’t deal with.”
“They don’t need you anymore,” her hand slotted itself with his and her merriment vibrated through his ephemeral body, joining with his laughter.
“True. Maybe they never did.”
“But you did. You needed them, my love.”
Her head was tilted as she looked at him, hair’s silk brushing her dress’ cotton, her bare arms. The taste of whiskey was back, and, mingled with it, came the taste of Bengal curry and pad thai and homecooked lasagne.
When was it that he stopped wishing that he could see her and became content with all he knew of her?
‘It’s closing time,’ and he no longer needed enhanced hearing to catch her thoughts.
‘The music hasn’t stopped yet. Care to dance, Miss Page?’
And, God, he loved it when she smiled with no restraint of shyness or shame.
“Well, maybe one dance, Mr Murdock,” her voice lilted in-between the musical notes.
“Two. You know what they say. Once for the Devil…”
“… and once for Christ,” she finished for him and then pulled him with her, as she always had, drifting through the crowd in the pump of music, moulding and entwining and swaying with the fiddle, carried by the guitar and the steady remembered beat of their eternal hearts.
ceterisparibus116