Music- A short story written by written by Berni Albrighton

 

                                                                     

Music. Dedicated to my family.

Father.

Your voice was deep and rich, like the leading men in the black and white musicals we would watch on a Sunday afternoon.

Nelson Eddy, Mario Lanza, Howard Keel played from 33s in the background.

The scratch of the needle on vinyl as you changed the record.

Loud hammering on the wall meant you wanted one of us to fetch something for you.

The contrast between love ballads and your unpredictable temper created a menacing air that floated throughout the house.

How we cheered as we watched you turn the corner.

Dressed in your best suit, we were free for a few hours as you drank away your earnings.

How often you told us that you were the last of the real men.

You had no idea what a real man was.

Mother.

Was it the love of music that brought you together?

‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’ ‘The Man that got away’

Your bluesy voice suited those songs so well.

In another life you could have been a famous singer, then your fantasies of stage life would have been reality.

Instead the path you walked led you to this person and this life.

Poverty, children and a loveless marriage to a violent man.

No wonder we could never know the truth from the lies you would tell us.

Only now do I see that for you, your fantasies were so much better than real life.

Ellen. Sister

You were Bowie, Jagger, Jackson, in another breath you would sing from Madam Butterfly.

Blaring, loud, the sound track in the background while you sang into your symbolic microphone.

The cramped back room was your stage, stuffed toys and dusty ornaments your loyal audience.

How different would things have been for you, for all of us, if you had been born without complications.

Your huge personality and passion for life would have opened doors that led you to fulfillment.

You would have known what it was to be a strong woman in this world.

Instead, you lost yourself in your musical performances, there you felt happy and empowered.

The joy of music gave you relief from the constraints of your handicap.

In the end you were so brave.

Our parents didn’t deserve you.

Denis. Brother.

You gave me my first album, Ben, Michael Jackson, and so began our musical journey that would keep us entwined until you died.

Your knowledge far exceeded mine and you lost me in the names of conductors and symphonies.

You reviewed operas for journals and collected 1000s of CDs that traversed the whole map of music.

We would message each other whilst listening to a song.

The words, the harmony, the performance, triggering something in each of us that drove the need to communicate it to the other.

Your presence as front man in your band Third Circle.

The energy and pain that came from you, it was inevitable wasn’t it.

The old man never loved you and you never loved yourself.