Tag: Music

Flash fiction. by Feb 3, 20249:37 am

Prodigy by Sara Dobbie

The piano arrives in a flurry of men pushing, pulling, and shouting directions. They heave it onto a dolly and up the front steps. They guide it through the doorway, then carry and lift and shuffle all the furniture to position it as the focal point of the front room.

In the back room, Clara hides in a corner and eavesdrops. She listens to her mother say, “This is what Clara needs. A hobby. A purpose.” Her father agrees, “Yes, this might help.” Help with what, Clara scoffs. Help diminish her propensity toward solitude? Help transform her into a different girl? Nothing could help Clara fulfill her mother’s expectations.

Fiction by Jul 1, 202311:28 am

Hands Up Who Wants To Die by Sonya Vatomsky

I didn’t think anything of it when the mail arrived. Or rather I thought about the mail arriving, about the spoils of my latest shopping spree. I had, you see, a moderately popular YouTube channel and was in a perpetual state of buying and receiving perfume — samples usually, tiny vials always turning up under sofa cushions and between the pages of magazines. Mail, much like my life, could be exciting but was under no circumstances unusual. X led to y without dilly dallying; events brushed the crumbs of chance off their no-nonsense cardigans. My flat smelled of vetiver and old habits.

Fiction by Nov 5, 202210:24 am

The Tin Man by Norbert Kovacs

Every Thursday, the theatre in our small town put on a variety show. Students from the college and local people who believed they could act or sing did ample numbers for the program weekly. The audience was treated to scenes from famous plays, takes on popular songs, spoken word poetry. The acts did not bowl us over as a rule, but most people enjoyed the evenings and felt entertained. I numbered among the few who went really hoping to spot talent. Brilliance shows up even in small towns like ours I believed. And I thought seeing or hearing some great, undiscovered singer or actor perform would be a magnificent event, that everyone would admire the talent revealing itself on the stage and raise no question of the artist’s greatness. True flare could do no less.

flash fiction by May 7, 202212:28 pm

Good Vibrations by Andrew Newall

It is lifted away from the others and cradled. It is comfortable. One hand gently closes around its slender neck. Fingers press, politely adjusting the selected strings to the desired pitch, while the other hand strums once. It agrees. The hand strums more. An understanding begins.

Chords are chosen in the most workable sequences. These are the hands of one who will become a master.

flash fiction by Nov 6, 202111:57 am

Speak, Dance, Steal by Tim Frank

If you want to make it in this world you need to speak: debate the rings around Saturn, discuss the sounds of northern soul, converse about Banksy.

Then just dance. Move. Move! Flex those glutes, tear off your Tommy Hilfiger t-shirt – in the club or as you freak out to the sounds in your souped-up Hyundai.

Fiction by May 1, 202111:02 am

Guitar Girl by Cecilia Kennedy

Bathed in red light, bodies move and pulse, arms swaying like sea-anemone-tentacles, washed by waves of electric guitar and drum beats pounding out “Zombie.” Center stage, Dolores O’Riordan plays her red electric guitar, the weight of that thing strapped to her, and she just rips it—just tears up that song, and it’s the most badass thing I’ve ever seen. And I want that. I know that a badass lives deep inside of me, but I must take baby steps first. I must learn to play the electric guitar. Then, I’ll buy myself a silver-sequined mini dress. That’s the badass dream.

Also, I have no job. I don’t have a Gibson ES 335 in cherry red, either. The moving expenses my husband and I paid to get from Ohio to the suburbs of Seattle for his job were the price of one Gibson ES 335. We’ll break even, but I should find some work too, to help out with some of the extras like room and board for a child we might have someday who plans on going to college.

Fiction by Jan 2, 202112:02 pm

Love is Hard by Michael Chin

Music teaches us that love can be a lot of things. Love is a battlefield. Love is all around. Love is what I got. Love is my religion. Love is hard—but I’m getting ahead of myself.

In 2007, Rob Sheffield published a book called Love Is A Mixtape and it was the worst. It’s not that the writing was bad or the story was tough to understand, but he appropriated a concept we all knew to be true and used it in the most dismal way imaginable. Love is a mixtape, all careful ordering and appropriating other people’s words and dissonant chords to make your own Frankenstein monster of kissing-in-thunderstorms and racing-through-airports and sex-in-dimly-lit-rooms. Even truer, a mixtape is love. It’s assembling the most personal collage of sound in the world, distilling the feelings from your head into some semblance of order so they can communicate a coherent idea, and maybe even a conception of love.

flash fiction by Jan 2, 202111:58 am

A Return to Dancing by Shauna Smullen

In the middle of nowhere, a room bursts into existence. Four walls, a ceiling, and a floor. A perfect square in a void. The room is bursting with noise. The sound of feet on wood. Of jazz singing from a speaker. The room moves to the noise. Around and around.

Inside the four walls, there are people and they are dancing. Arm in arm with a partner, they swing each other around. Almost colliding with the people around them but never quite touching. Their feet doing quick exchanges of balance. One hand balled in a fist, the other waving as they sweep. The partners stare at each other as they dance. Their faces vacant, like they are somewhere else.