heads from the major networks and most of the minors covered it live from
the cemetery, wearing somber faces and black armbands.
It was a spectacular,
star-spangled sendoff. I only wish she could have seen it.
And maybe she
did.
I’m not religious. The afterlife is a mystery to me. But I knew Sherry
down to the bone. Knew her drive and her desperation.
No power in this world
or the next could have kept her away from that show. In my heart, I know she saw
that turnout, and warmed herself in the spotlight one last time.
And if you
could ask her if it was worth it?
I know exactly what she’d say.
Copyright © 2012 by Doug Allyn
Next
Article
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Article
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Article
FICTION
GYMNOPÉDIE NO. 1
by Susan Lanigan
Art by Allen Davis
The
short fiction of Irish author Susan Lanigan has appeared in a variety of
publications, including
The Stinging Fly, Southword, The Sunday
Tribune,
the
Irish Independent,
and
The Mayo News.
She has been shortlisted twice for the Hennessy New Irish Writing Award and has
won several other awards.
Nature
magazine’s science-fiction section
recently acquired two of her stories and her work is featured in the
science-fiction anthology
Music For Another
World.
Once again, the sunset. To be precise, the bit I
am allowed to see: parallel gold diagonals streaking across the edge of my bunk and
hitting the door, while the sink and privy stay in the dark and the mirror reflects
nothing. I prefer the shadow. Since they moved me here five years ago, a kindly
promotion from the cell that faced the prison’s north wall, I have seen too many
sunsets, each one leading back to the same memory: my mother, long dead now, playing
the piano.
She always became more girlish when she played; even then I
noticed the shy hesitant smile when she made the odd mistake. I was five then,
standing in the doorway of the study in a manner, Dearbhla told me afterwards, of a
child self-consciously trying to be “cute.” I have no idea whether Dearbhla told me
this out of malice—whether she already detected a resentment I could find no words
to express—or because she was genuinely amused. Anyway, she was not there to witness
it firsthand. By the time she was there on a regular basis, my mother and her orange
kaftans and hair tied back with a grubby chenille ribbon had gone, gone
forever.
My mother had few pieces in her repertoire but since I, at the age of
five, was her primary listener, it should not have mattered too much. Yet I recall,
in flashes, how her head would jerk upwards when my father pushed the creaking gate
of our little garden open. The look of strained hope that crossed her face as she
pushed the open window full out and started a few bars of the same piece. She
started
in medias res,
I believe, to fool my father into thinking that she
had been playing on for hours, unaware of his presence, in some sort of creative
trance. I don’t believe he fell for it. He would come to the door and wink at me as
she fingered the keys like alien objects, her eyes self-consciously shut.
It
was always the same piece, Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1, and she was never able to get
all the way through without making a mistake. To me now, that seems absurd; unlike
Dearbhla, I never had a great talent for music, but even I could pick my way through
something of that level with no great difficulty. But my mother’s mistakes were
always so small—a missed note when it unexpectedly changed to F minor on the second
repetition, an E instead of a D in the bass—that somehow I could always hear the
soft chords transcending the little awkwardnesses. I remember (this must have been
earlier, I must have been even younger then) hearing the muffled ripple of bass and
right-hand chords through the timber of the shivering piano as I curled myself into
a ball at my mother’s feet. I nearly fell asleep with my cheek
the cemetery, wearing somber faces and black armbands.
It was a spectacular,
star-spangled sendoff. I only wish she could have seen it.
And maybe she
did.
I’m not religious. The afterlife is a mystery to me. But I knew Sherry
down to the bone. Knew her drive and her desperation.
No power in this world
or the next could have kept her away from that show. In my heart, I know she saw
that turnout, and warmed herself in the spotlight one last time.
And if you
could ask her if it was worth it?
I know exactly what she’d say.
Copyright © 2012 by Doug Allyn
Next
Article
Previous
Article
Next
Article
FICTION
GYMNOPÉDIE NO. 1
by Susan Lanigan
Art by Allen Davis
The
short fiction of Irish author Susan Lanigan has appeared in a variety of
publications, including
The Stinging Fly, Southword, The Sunday
Tribune,
the
Irish Independent,
and
The Mayo News.
She has been shortlisted twice for the Hennessy New Irish Writing Award and has
won several other awards.
Nature
magazine’s science-fiction section
recently acquired two of her stories and her work is featured in the
science-fiction anthology
Music For Another
World.
Once again, the sunset. To be precise, the bit I
am allowed to see: parallel gold diagonals streaking across the edge of my bunk and
hitting the door, while the sink and privy stay in the dark and the mirror reflects
nothing. I prefer the shadow. Since they moved me here five years ago, a kindly
promotion from the cell that faced the prison’s north wall, I have seen too many
sunsets, each one leading back to the same memory: my mother, long dead now, playing
the piano.
She always became more girlish when she played; even then I
noticed the shy hesitant smile when she made the odd mistake. I was five then,
standing in the doorway of the study in a manner, Dearbhla told me afterwards, of a
child self-consciously trying to be “cute.” I have no idea whether Dearbhla told me
this out of malice—whether she already detected a resentment I could find no words
to express—or because she was genuinely amused. Anyway, she was not there to witness
it firsthand. By the time she was there on a regular basis, my mother and her orange
kaftans and hair tied back with a grubby chenille ribbon had gone, gone
forever.
My mother had few pieces in her repertoire but since I, at the age of
five, was her primary listener, it should not have mattered too much. Yet I recall,
in flashes, how her head would jerk upwards when my father pushed the creaking gate
of our little garden open. The look of strained hope that crossed her face as she
pushed the open window full out and started a few bars of the same piece. She
started
in medias res,
I believe, to fool my father into thinking that she
had been playing on for hours, unaware of his presence, in some sort of creative
trance. I don’t believe he fell for it. He would come to the door and wink at me as
she fingered the keys like alien objects, her eyes self-consciously shut.
It
was always the same piece, Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1, and she was never able to get
all the way through without making a mistake. To me now, that seems absurd; unlike
Dearbhla, I never had a great talent for music, but even I could pick my way through
something of that level with no great difficulty. But my mother’s mistakes were
always so small—a missed note when it unexpectedly changed to F minor on the second
repetition, an E instead of a D in the bass—that somehow I could always hear the
soft chords transcending the little awkwardnesses. I remember (this must have been
earlier, I must have been even younger then) hearing the muffled ripple of bass and
right-hand chords through the timber of the shivering piano as I curled myself into
a ball at my mother’s feet. I nearly fell asleep with my cheek
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