Drugs And Symphony by Wayne H. W Wolfson.

“ I want his name...”

“ God..”

“ To go to his land..”

“ You can’t, its lost, undiscovered country.”

“ I want to hear music..”

“ There’s a place down the street that used to be good.”

She smelled of earth, of the ginseng gum we would chew by the pack while walking through Chinatown.

She had secrets to tell, but the half hearted way in which she told them always made me feel doubtful.

Just to win, I hadn’t thought about her at all in ages. Even when I caught our symphony on the radio. I had a dream once that she came by, but it was my old place, the one I never let her see. Eggs and Rico were there too and for some reason I had to fix a window, feeling bad the whole time.

I woke up, as my eyes opened that earthy smell fleeing the room. We just sort of drifted apart, both of us going after our own deals.

Although neither of us would say it out loud, it must have meant something. She acknowledged this, much to Joanne’s annoyance, in the gift of a small vial containing one of her tears from the requiem. And I in a private pledge to never again combine drugs and symphony with anyone else.

Someone whose name I should know told me she was dead.

The funeral was like a dream, everyone looking vaguely familiar. She had wanted the second movement of Beethoven’s eighth to be played, possibly over and over, but someone had made a mistake and a scratchy version of the seventh was on.

I bowed my head before the faded doll that had been her. She had always wanted to be buried barefoot, saying that she couldn’t sleep with shoes on. I had no way of checking.

The seventh started up again. I walked away.

The final frustration of death, total misunderstanding.

Even if they had gotten the music right, no one would know what it meant. Only me, who had been with her during intermission behind the church puffing away until it was time to rejoin the largo. We are all in our own movies, most of them dull. I knew it would be cinematic to now go to the ocean or a mountain top and howl, but it was raining.

Hands in pocket I stop under the umbrella of a hot dog cart and get something to eat. Walking off, into the rain, head bowed, mouth full, humming Beethoven.

Wayne H. W Wolfson

© is reserved by the author. Please do not reproduce it without consent.