I Remember Concerts

A dry wind swirls wisps of sand across a street, plumes of it swirl around her ankles as she walks. The asphalt is cracked and worn, she can't remember a time when it wasn't. It is so hot that she can feel it through the soles of her shoes. She feels awful for Khani, whose shoes are worn uselessly thin. Khani walks in the opposite direction alongside Mitch, Marlee, and a boy who calls himself Edger. They are a burly lot and that is why Khani walks with them. They protect her.

More of her classmates exit the bus. Rene, Thomas, Phoebe, and Corina. They all head in the direction that Khani walks. They are headed for Nashville. They can walk across the rusty bridge or they can go across the Cumberland River. Back when she was seven, they hadn't a choice but to use the bridge. But ten years and several large corporations have run it nearly dry.

She looks to the Normal Coversastions cell phone company building. Blessed by the generous donations of the CEOs, it is one of the few buildings whose lights still twinkle on the skyline. Her mother used to prattle on about stimulus packages from the Council of New Normal so that they could repair the buildings around the Normal Conversations building. On her worst days she would ask when they'd lift the ban.

She wanders away from Nashville city down that desolate road. The air is particularly arid. July approaches and she can taste it in the scorching heat.

"Give me my books back, Thomas! Or I'll have Edger get them for me!" She hears Khani cry. She looks down the road and sees their silhouettes amid the heatwaves that shimmer against the horizon.

Her footsteps are lonely, they sound loud on the pavement. On occasions she accidentally sends a pebble skittering across the road. She wanders until she comes to her favorite spot. Today it provides no shade. It hasn't since humidity has dried its canopy beyond rebirth.

She know that it isn't safe, but she has a seat and ruffles through her ratty backpack. The same one that she has been using since nine years old. She finds it, the small box. It is as plain as any other, but within is a small faux copper key with a genuine citrine stone. She shuffles around a hole dug beneath the tree until her fingers touch a mid-sized small briefcase. The one with a spray painted, 'Not until I leave'.

Her mother has left.

I remember concerts.

Oh Rellina, I remember concerts.

She swallows. Rellina...she hasn't heard that name since...she shudders. The name Rellina has been outlawed by the Council of New Normal among others that were too distinctive. Since 2025, she has been Regina.

She strokes the beaten letter.

I remember concerts.

Oh Rellina, I remember concerts. I know that you have never been so let me describe it for you. The best that I can, anyways. So imagine this, Rellina. Imagine a building and outside that building there is a line down the block and it hums with anticipation. But a good kind, not a fearful brand. And then the doors open and you are greeted by spotlights and the pounding of a bass. A bass is like a heartbeat but louder than you can imagine. And at a good concert you can feel the bass in your chest just like a heart. Which isn't far from the truth. Music, Rellina, is a heart you can feel love and freedom and your soul in music.

So you are inside of the venue and the music is all around you. I know that this must be hard to picture since you have never heard music before. I won't try to describe it, because there is no fathomable way that I can ever do it justice. You just have to hear it. Oh, Rellina, I hope that one day the world will right itself and you can...

She hears the rumbling of a vehicle and her heart quickens. She hurries to put the letter away. The likes of which who can afford a car are not those to be trifled with. This letter isn't meant for eyes like those.

She stuffs it and the box back into her backpack and hustles down the cracked street. Sand whips against her cheeks and as the car zooms past, it is in her hair and her shirt and her pants, and anywhere else that sand can get. It scrapes and cracks her feet by the time she reaches town. The part of it that she likes anyhow. This part of town is desolate, wind rocks its foundations like the wail of a phantom. In some sense she thinks that the wind in these parts is a spirit. She finds herself her favorite spot. The weathered posters are a haunting glimpse of the world before. The world that they don't want her to see. The word 'opera' is both foreign and faded as it is written on the wall of the old crumbling building. She leans against the brickwork, taking care to avoid a scatter of shattered glass and pulls out the letter.

...enjoy it for yourself. That you can feel the bass in your chest in a way that not even lovers can coax. That one day you'll know what sounds a drum machine can make. Or maybe you'd like rock and metal more. Maybe you would think that it has more soul...

She crinkles her brows and picks up a blade of scrap metal. She thinks that there is nothing more soulless than a silvery and rigid slap of metal. The same metal that makes up most of the towering corporate buildings. And rocks, she tosses one from one hand to the next, those aren't much better. They're all about and they're all the same now that the best of them have been harvested and gutted of their crystals.

Maybe the static of an electric guitar will one day whisk you away. Will let you ride on the soundwaves into a bliss that only a bombastic solo can bring. Oh I remember how it was when I first heard it. Not through the radio, but right there with the guitarist only an arm's reach away. Your father loved metal.

I preferred the woodsy sound of a hurdy gurdy. Once upon a time you could listen to one of those and a flute, maybe the pan pipes and be spirited away to a different time. A distant time when castles reigned and timber houses were a normal sight. A time when there were trees and forests for miles.

I do miss the trees.

I miss the music that they made. It is different than the music I spoke of earlier. It is natural music. If only you could hear how they rustled in the breeze. When there were so many of them that their branches knocked together.

Oh, Rellina remember concerts.

I'm sorry that I brought you into a world without them.

She hadn't noticed them creeping up on her. They with their silvery suits and their sleek uniformed haircuts. Their shoes polished to perfection and their sunglasses glinting in the sunlight. She doesn't know how long they have been standing there for. It is either that they haven't been there for long or that they have so mercifully allowed her to finish the letter.

The first of them steps forward and he speaks in a voice like synthetic oil. "You shouldn't be here. Your shift starts in twelve minutes and your absence is holding the team back."

"A missing team member is like a loose screw, it can cause everything to fall apart." Says a woman. Her voice falls flat. Rellina wonders if her mother would be able to find music in that. The woman gestures to a car. A sleek black machine with a silver trim and darkened windows.

It is better to just walk. She has her hand on the door handle and gives it a tug. It opens and with a waft of petroleum. It is a scent that she has grown more than used to. It quite clings to her by the time she gets home for the night. She has one foot in the car and a hand taps her shoulder. The man holds out his hand.

She looks at the letter.

His pointer wags.

Oh how her stomach lolls when she places it into his palm.