Pulled Me Under

Anxiety rushes in as rain calmly falls a bass drum pounding, snare rattling insistence - wind passing coarsely, strained through delicately carved holes, a frightening blockage distorting notes as increasing panic swells among the symphony. Cacophony prevails, but the audience is unmoved; absently they whisper about the weather. The woodwinds ran out of breath; the violins wheeze a strained wail. Strained, stricken the conductor sweats and his armpits itch, confused movements causing only subtle shifts in the now familiar quarrel of noise. Teeth split and veins burst from ecstatic mouths, from god-struck eyes, mess of viscera filling the orchestra pit as stomachs split from unutterable moan. Collapsing, crashing the instruments fail and the players fall, desperate for peace, wanting for life as the din dies out, pitch by pitch and note by note abruptly slain, suddenly, all at once, no crescendo or moment of triumph, only inevitable, amoral end - a silence which must come. The conductor, hunchbacked and limp, eyes half closed, spent of tears, mouth agape, deluge of drool, urine soaked pant legs, realizes clenched hand and releases control, drops the baton and sags into darkness, waiting wings of anonymous void, out of the spotlight, where the whole show started.

-Seattle