Rev stared at the untitled icon like a beacon at the bottom of his laptop’s streaked screen. He realized the file had never been opened. With a sigh, he double-clicked.
A quick shot of himself strutting out on stage in ridiculous leathers made him grin.
He was then immediately blindsided by a raging wall of sound encrusted with crashing cymbals molded to twanging, edgy bass. With monstrous speed and tightness, the captured blaring crunched and ran like a stopwatch beneath a heavier version of the same dreamy flimflam Rev had spent his childhood, adolescence, and now adulthood doodling with at the edge of his bed.
It sounded great.
As his band’s final failed attempt at rock superstardom played on, Rev fondly relived each nearly missed cue and silly line of drugged-out banter with the crowd. And for each song, along with the screaming cheers and amplification, he could so plainly hear the very same magic he and Dale had never failed to stumble upon whenever out just wherever messing around on their guitars.
He punched a button to off the video, hoisted his instrument up to its home across his lap, and eased his way through the first verse and chorus of an old song called Desperate Connection. It was fun to feel his real voice sitting right at the edge of his music now . . . no longer apart from, above, or blaring through, but vibrating on its own beside the clean and nuanced crying of the strings.
He could almost hear Dale in the room with him deftly plucking or strumming along, giving grace to fumbled changes and sudden dynamic shifts.
It was nice to think of Dale now and their songs.
Rev found himself questioning music again (or still). But the questions weren’t the same anymore at all. Could an artist be honest and willing enough to strip their work down to its most basic form instead of hiding behind notions of costly fuzz and clamor? Rev had really always known his easy little tunes were best when given to serve as simple backdrops…
But to what?
He laughed, and played new chords, and sang . . . and paused every few moments to jot down words to a blank open page in a brand new notebook. It was easy.
And even despite his lifelong quest to unearth the treasure now permeating the air, Rev heard with un-phased delight that same female, foreign voice sliding up and away as he strummed steadily on in a continuous rolling pattern. He listened, his grin beaming even wider, and wrote down something a little like what she might be singing.
Eventually the rolling quieted.
What were those questions again? But this time Rev forgot to ask.
I don't know anything 