LOCATION: Seattle
RECORDS: 122
LATEST RECORD: 7 months ago
JOINED: May 22, 2007
sarahalyse's Featured RECords
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"How about you? Have anyone special?" "I...I'm not sure." "How do you mean?" "Well, definitely on the 'special.' I'm just not so sure on the 'have.'" |
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[I am in the process of self-publishing a collection of short stories. I'm still in the editing phase, so please, if you have suggestions or any feedback, share it in the comments below! Anyone who does so will be credited in the collection as a hitRECord Editor. Additionally, if you're inspired to create any visual art to go with any of the stories, I'd love to include a few illustrations in the collection. Compensation: two copies of the book (or we can work something out).] "Cuckoo, Bring Your Song" by Sarah Shay Anyone standing in Ravenna Park that day would have noticed a large, black bird coasting over the park in wide, swooping circles. They would have seen it settle in the branches of a large elm, tilting its head to survey the park in birdlike curiosity. They would have asked themselves what the difference was between a crow, a raven, and a blackbird, and wondered which this was. They would have noticed the bird was not completely black; in the late fall sun, jewel tones of blue, green, and purple sheened in its feathers. They would have wondered where the bird had been and where it was going, and would have kept thinking of it long after the bird had spread her wings and flown away. West of there and a bit south, an old man was sitting under an overpass. Beside him was a sleeping mutt that looked more wolf than dog, and several stuffed canvas bags of varying size and tattered disarray. A handrolled, half-smoked cigarette hung from his lips, and his hooded eyes looked mostly closed. The long gray hair that hung loosely from under his weatherbeaten leather hat stirred in an unseen breeze, and the man spoke without opening his eyes. “Been a long time since I seen you, girl.” A throaty laugh came from behind him, and a low, smoke-roughened voice said, “I used to think I’d be able to sneak up on you once I was older. Guess I was wrong.” The woman who stepped forward to take a seat on an overturned milk crate was tall and wiry, sun-browned skin and long, heavy black hair bound back in thin dreadlocks. A rough black leather jacket sat large on her shoulders, and dark, worn jeans hugged her narrow hips. She said nothing as the old man handed her the cigarette. She lit it with a single match, took one drag, and handed it back. He followed suit, exhaled slowly, and put one brown, gnarled hand on each knee. “Leyna Krow,” he said, shaking his head. “Didn’t expect to see you here again.” A smile curved her lips. “You know me, uncle. Never one for staying any place too long.” “Yes,” he said, looking not at her but at the dust between them. “Yes I do.” Across town, over two hills and down one valley, a young man was playing guitar. Unkempt black hair fell over his eyes as he focused on the instrument, picking the same three notes over and over. A woman lay with her head pillowed on his feet, her heart-shaped face framed in blonde curls. She was reading a book in the fading sunlight that still streamed through the window of their one-bedroom apartment. Setting the book down, she looked up at him. "Do you want to do anything special tomorrow?" "Why?" He didn't look up from his guitar, still playing those three chords. "Well, I just thought you --" she paused, pressing her lips together. "I thought you might want to do something nice. To take your mind off -- off what day it is." The guitar stilled. The boy didn't move as he spoke. "The idea behind not celebrating my birthday is that we don't do anything special. It's a normal day. No need to think about what day it is." The guitar began again. One minute later, she stood up and left the room. Under the overpass, the old man was looking at the woman in front of him with indifferent eyes. The tension in his voice belied him as he asked, "What you doing here, Leyna? And don't," he continued, even when she moved to speak, "Don't tell me you're here to see your boy. It's too late for that." The woman stood, kicking back the overturned milk crate as she did. "And you think it's your place to say so? Your place to tell me when I can and can't see my own kin?" She smiled now, a facade of cheerfulness. "Anyway, I haven't been gone that long. Just needed some time to wander, you know how it is. Got some itchy traveling feet, like my people always do." She nodded, convinced. The man she called uncle just stared at a point somewhere far behind her and spoke again. "Been more than ten years, Leyna. You never was good with time." The cheerful smile faltered. "Ten years ain't so much time. You've spent longer yourself just flying around, no cares at all." She nodded again, less convinced. "I just want to see my son." "What you going to say to him? What you going to do for him now? That boy needed his mama when he was a babe. He's a man now, and he's got a lot of hate in him for the mother who left on his birth day, when he was still in short pants. How you going to explain that to him now?" The thin woman in the leather jacket stalked away, but the anger that tensed her shoulders made her whip back to face the old man. "You talk like you think he's nothing but a man. But he's my son, and he's got our blood. More than half, even, though his father never knew it. It's more than past time for him to know his heritage, and who else but his mother to tell him of it?" She walked away again, stopping to speak to the old man over her shoulder. "I appreciate your concern, uncle, but this is my son. He'll understand." A moment later, she was gone. Back across town, over those hills and down that valley, the boy was still focused on his guitar. He did not notice the crow that lighted on the windowsill, nor the way it peered through the glass with unbirdlike focus. He did notice when it flew away, but only in a blur of black, barely seen at all and very soon forgotten. |
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I went to high school with a kid who was invisible. Not like, H.G. Wells invisible. Just unnoticeable. Easy to glance over and miss. The way you hear about kids in abusive homes learning the trick of not being noticed as a survival trait. Not to say that this kid had a bad home, or anything. I mean, maybe he did. I dunno, I never talked to him. But this story isn’t about him. Someone else will have to tell his story, ‘cause I don’t know it. I only brought him up because the girl was sort of like that. The Ghost Girl. I didn’t actually believe in ghosts, never having gone in for that supernatural fantasy stuff. Jilly does, though, and she’s the one who started calling her a ghost. “Been haunting the Ghost Girl?” she’d ask when we met at Mr. Spot’s for coffee on a Wednesday night. I wasn’t haunting her...except that I sort of was. So what if I went a little out of my way to cut through that vacant lot on my way to work every night? It wasn’t like I hung around waiting for her. Except that one time. The first time I saw her was on a Monday, a grey, cold evening that had been threatening rain to the point where I almost wanted it, like an old man wishing Death would just get it over with. My last class had run a little late and it was my first night at my new job tending bar at Duffy’s. Not knowing the area, I tried to take a short cut and got promptly lost. It’s one of those places where old streets crash up against modern urban planning and you end up with crooked intersections and one-ways that lead nowhere. I was somewhat frantically trying to get my bearings when I saw her, leaning against a brick wall by a wooden door that looked like it hadn’t been opened in decades. I almost didn’t see her at first, the way she almost blended in with the gray brick wall, streaked with black as if someone had tried to paint it by dripping buckets of outdoor glossy down from the roof. She had that kind of timeless look about her that I’ve never been able to resist, wrapped in a long gray coat with ash-blonde hair mostly tucked under a black beret. She was trying to light a cigarette with a match, which the cool evening wind wasn’t making easy. I imagined smoothly walking up to her, offering her a light like Bogart in some old film noir, but while I was dreaming she successfully lit the thing and took a long, smooth drag. I cursed myself silently as I hurried past, and made it to work in just enough time. I watched for her as I pulled pints all night, but I wasn’t that lucky. That’s when I started taking the not-so-shortcut on a regular basis – not every day, but enough. Eventually I did catch her at just the right time to offer her a light, but other than her soft, low “thanks” and my terribly witty and smooth “no problem,” we didn’t say anything. What could I say? “So, come here often? To this…alley?” The next time we spoke, I gave her a light again. If she suspected I’d been gripping my lighter as I walked, waiting for this opportunity, she didn’t show it. She looked as if she was waiting for something, and anything that wasn’t it barely registered. Like me. For some reason, my thoughts jumped into my throat and before I knew it I was saying, “Are you waiting for something?” She nodded slowly, looking somewhere just to the left of my eyes. “Yeah.” When she didn’t offer anything else in the silence that followed, I mumbled something to the effect of “see ya” and walked quickly away. The next time I saw her there was the last. I was coming up the street and thought for sure I could see her by the door as usual, gray and black and ash in the dwindling light of dusk, but when I looked back a minute later she was gone. I squinted, remembering how she sometimes blended in, almost invisible. But it was no good. She was gone. I didn’t see her again for a long time. It was the next quarter, and I was at the library doing some research, looking up local historical documents. I was looking at old photos and newspapers on microfiche, and there she was. Oh, you think you know the story now? That the girl was staring up at me from some yellowed photograph, maybe an obituary mentioning a tragic fire in whatever used to be on that vacant lot? Sorry, my life’s not that exciting. She was just standing in line, waiting to check out a book, her hand on the arm of a tall, muscular guy I recognized as a mechanic who worked at a nearby garage. My ghost girl was just a girl, waiting for her boyfriend to get off work. Sometimes life is like that – you notice something odd and think you’ve stumbled onto a bit of magic, but on closer inspection it’s just someone else’s boring life. That newspaper idea is good, though. Maybe I’ll try it next time I tell this story.
(I'm too proud not to brag that this story was part of one of the early collaborations on hitRECord version 2. I posted a photo [Door to Nowhere]. he-art-geek drew a picture based on it [Girl From Nowhere]. Tori combined them. I was so excited about the collaboration, I wrote this story in under two hours on the bus.) |
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Good thing that traffic cone is there to warn you.
The first time I saw this, I hoped that "beau y salo" meant something in French. I hurried home and feverishly searched online, but alas, it means nothing.
It's very nearly "the beauty of salt," but not quite.
- I'm Gonna HitRecord v2
As soon as I played this song, I started clapping and adding general hand percussion - something my brother and I both have this habit of doing with any music we hear. I was surprised to see that no one had yet added anything to this adorable song. The time to hesitate is through!
I wanted to add more (tried jingling my keys, kazoo, triangle, etc), but I decided to leave that to other hitRECorders. I tried to add some additional harmony to the end bit as well, but my voice is shot at the moment and it wasn't blending well with Metaphorest's liquid warblings. Someone else should give it a shot!
Let me know if you want to remix this and would like the isolated percussion track.
