by DAN TREMAGLIO
| "I have a mandolin, I play it all night long, it makes me want to kill myself" -—The Magnetic Fields by Seth Tisue | Flickr |
She wanted to write a song.
She did not want to write a song.
She loved music and how it made her
feel and was born to write and play it.
feel and was born to write and play it.
She might have been tone deaf.
She never felt more alive than when
performing in front of people.
performing in front of people.
She was often terrified and never far
from bed.
from bed.
She did not own an alarm clock because
she could open her eyes at any exact
minute and more often passed the entire
night pacing the villa of her imagination
in the nude and moonlight.
she could open her eyes at any exact
minute and more often passed the entire
night pacing the villa of her imagination
in the nude and moonlight.
She kept a little black notebook by her
bedside because all little notebooks are
black and once in awhile she wrote in
hers.
bedside because all little notebooks are
black and once in awhile she wrote in
hers.
She never wrote anywhere but on the
ceiling above her bed the manic languid
lyrics that visited her during the act
of love.
ceiling above her bed the manic languid
lyrics that visited her during the act
of love.
She hadn’t touched her mandolin in
months.
months.
She did not so much ignore the
voicemails of suitors as encourage them
to knock directly on her door or better
yet to go and find her out wherever she
might be on the town or in the park or
down by the docks which is what one
should do when one has something
pressing to say to a person who needs
to hear it.
voicemails of suitors as encourage them
to knock directly on her door or better
yet to go and find her out wherever she
might be on the town or in the park or
down by the docks which is what one
should do when one has something
pressing to say to a person who needs
to hear it.
She hardly ever went out because she
didn’t want to spend the money.
didn’t want to spend the money.
She always waited a week to count the
fives and tens and twenties tossed into
her open instrument case whenever she
played in front of small but emphatic
audiences who often died at her feet of
revelry because she didn’t play for those
fives or tens or twenties but for the dead.
fives and tens and twenties tossed into
her open instrument case whenever she
played in front of small but emphatic
audiences who often died at her feet of
revelry because she didn’t play for those
fives or tens or twenties but for the dead.
Occasionally she recalled the promise of
late high school and early college.
late high school and early college.
She could charm three-headed
megafauna to their knees by strumming
an arcane cord of Pythagoras’.
megafauna to their knees by strumming
an arcane cord of Pythagoras’.
She felt like life is one big homework
assignment with death the deadline.
assignment with death the deadline.
With her mandolin in hand she could
raid the underworld unsalted, looking
wherever she pleased.
raid the underworld unsalted, looking
wherever she pleased.
She once calculated that the odds of
anything happening, anything at all,
are so long and so unlikely the
universe should not even exist.
anything happening, anything at all,
are so long and so unlikely the
universe should not even exist.
She could rhyme any word with orange.
No she could not.
| Dan Tremaglio’s work has appeared in various publications, including Gravel, Literary Orphans, decomP, and Thrice Fiction, and been named a finalist for the 2018 Calvino Prize. He teaches creative writing and literature at Bellevue College outside Seattle where he is a senior editor for the journal Belletrist |
