Swan Song

[UglyCasanova]

Something I just cooked up quickly. I was never too good at writing about conspiracies, and I didn't want to take a literal translation of the word swan. So maybe this story is stretching the theme a bit. But from someone who still doesn't full understand the theme, I'm okay with it.

 

“Get your sh*t together, Charlie.” My manager slammed me into the wall, and for a second his strength really scared me. Like, more than it has before. These types of threats were nothing new to me, and they were easily brushed off at times. He’d been doing this ever since he found us playing at The Beta Bar, showering us with praise and promises of such a shining future. Something we had an idea of, but never really expected. We just wanted to play shows and get drunk. Get laid.

 

I shoved him off me and straightened out my shirt. His face was just this fuming shade of red, and sometimes I got my rocks off just irritating so much. Just enough to push him over the edge, right before a show. Get his adrenaline pumping. Get him riled up to yell at us and maybe just once, have him break down and tackle me right onto stage. Right in front of a thousand screaming fans. Me getting my face punched in, and just watch the fans bomb rush the stage. Nothing screams devotion quite like having your fan base rush up and pulverize one guy going to town on your face. Maybe reward them with a bloody kiss and wink.

 

“Hey, f*ck off, Dennis,” Fernando came up and got right into Dennis’ hostile little face. He was always one to defend me and stick up to Dennis whenever he was being his prick self. It’s not like I couldn’t defend myself, but Fernando knew that if anything escalated, it would be the other way around and I’d be going to town on Dennis’ face on stage. Still, a thousand fans would bomb rush the stage and beat the hell out of Dennis, but no bloody kisses for them. Just a wink and high five.

 

Dennis straightened out his cornflower blue collared shirt, complete with complimentary tie, and pushed his glasses to rest on the bridge of his nose. “I’m this close to just cancelling the contract you f*cks. You think just because you’re the talent you can do whatever you want?”

 

Sean chimes in from the far back of the break room, cigarette burning in one hand and a Pacifico, dripping with condensation, in the other. “Hey, we’re rock stars. It’s what we were always meant to do.” Sean takes a long drag from the cigarette and a sip of the beer and calmly struts over, the radiating ball of cool that he is. “If you want to cancel it and get rid of us. By all means, go ahead. We’ll just go back to our college town, get drunk, get f*cked and make music. You’re just using us so you can make money. It was never in our interest to get rich. Just make enough money to get by and have some fun.” He took one last sip of the beer and threw it at the wall, the glass shattering and raining to the floor. Beer dripping down the wall and pooling at the baseboard. “So kindly f*ck off, Dennis.”

 

Dennis crossed his arms and stood there, all our eyes drawn straight on him. He had nothing to say, and we knew it. He tried to say something, but only ended up stuttering. After about a minute or so of him trying to collect his thoughts, he was finally able to muster up something. “Fine. You know what? Be rock stars. Throw beer at the wall, moan and whine and be angsty. f*ck the whores waiting in line backstage to suck each of you off. I don’t care. It’s not my problem. I’ll just leave it to the PR rep, but you listen to me. And listen to me now. You better watch yourselves. Poddox Records isn’t too keen on your haphazard styles and they’re looking to fix you college f*ck-ups. So enjoy your little moment for as long as you can.” Dennis cracked his neck and pulled out a sheet of paper from his pants pocket. “Play this damn setlist, and you better not deviate.”

 

I grabbed the setlist and read down the list of songs. The entire list was composed of the songs Poddox helped produce and write. “Whoa, what about our songs? What if we want to play some of our earlier sh*t?”

 

Dennis’ chuckle turned into a laugh turned into a cackle. “Your songs? I’m sorry, but you’re part of the big leagues now. You don’t get the freedom of that.” And with that he left, laughing so hard you’d think he watched an obese man trip while eating a hot dog. I crumpled the setlist and looked at Sean and Fernando.

 

“So.”

 

“So, what do we do now?” Fernando asked, his arms crossed and looking between Sean and I. Sean grabbed another cigarette from his pack and lit it up. A spark flickered in his eye, and whether it was a reflection from the lighter or an epiphany, I don’t know. But the next words that came out of his mouth were all we needed to hear.

 

“f*ck that noise. Let’s rock.”

 

***

 

The feedback rippled through the crowded like water ripples after a swan takes off out of a pond. The crowd was screaming, and we could see Dennis rubbing his hands together on stage right. We took up our instruments and I grabbed the microphone; a searing blast of noise echoed and bounced off the amphitheatres walls. The crowd cringed, but we stood there, radiating in the swirling colored smoke and flashing disco lights. The feedback and screeching came to a halt, and all was silent. The crowd stopped jeering, the air stood still and it was just a perfect moment.

 

“Hello San Diego. So glad you could have us here.” My voice boomed over everyone, and they all cheered and whooped and hollered. Dennis stood off, a grin plastered on his face and his hands still clasped tightly together.

 

“Our label wanted us to play this setlist…” And Dennis’ smile was wiped off.

 

“We were never ones to cave to what the industry wanted us to play…” And Dennis’ eyes were bulging.

 

“So this concert if for you…the fans…” And Dennis was on his phone.

 

“So this is it.” And I let out a chuckle. Dennis furiously screaming into his phone, the crowd screaming for us to play. It was funny how such a similar act could incite two different reactions.

 

“This is our swan song.” And Sean counted us in.

 

[Eminence]

I quite liked this, I thought it was a really interesting take on the theme. For someone who is claiming to have been left a little perplexed by it, I think you've took it in a great direction. It's your everyday stereotypical conflict, obviously, but the way you tell it still makes it interesting - I liked the line about the spark in his eyes, though I think I would've been a little more satisfied had you not spelled out its meaning. It's a similar thing with the line about the feedback rippling like a swan taking off from water - I think in any other situation I would've thought that was a great simile, but in these circumstances it kind of sticks out like a sore thumb and screams 'theme reference!'

 

The way you played the two instances of going out on the stage and the crowd charging in for a fight were great, too. That worked well I thought, as did a lot of the conversational tone you adopted.

 

There was a quick tense change in the fifth chapter though - it flicks to present tense for a couple sentences.

 

All in all I enjoyed it, and I think it was a nice play on the theme without taking either aspect of it too literally; that's always good to see. Nice job.