Saving Panic's! Ryan

Chapter 13

I didn't get much sleep that night. I swear there was an entire extended family staying in the room next to us. All night I had to put up with their incessant talking, yelling and laughing. Oh, and once in awhile, if you were lucky, you'd get to hear a huge crash coming from their room.

Ryan seemed to sleep through it just fine. He was either beyond exhausted or just a heavy sleeper in general. Either way, I was jealous. I didn't want to be tired tomorrow.

Fuming, I kept a pillow over my head for the rest of the night, but it didn't do much to block out the sound.

...

It turns out that Ryan's sleep was disturbed after all. When I woke up, he was sitting at the table across from the bed, writing something. I sat up and rubbed my eyes. I figured that I had fallen asleep sometime in the wee hours of the night.

"Did they wake you up too?" I asked, pointing to the wall behind me.

He nodded. "I heard this loud crash at about 6:00 in the morning and I've been awake ever since."

I rolled my eyes and grumbled. "Tell me about it. That went on all night. Luckily you seemed to have slept through most of it. What are you doing?"

"Just writing." He replied. "Since I've been awake all morning, I decided to work on some lyrics. It turns out you can write some pretty unique things about a dilapidated motel room."

I cocked my head to the side. "You're writing a song about our motel room?"

"Not exactly. I have some lyrics here that start off describing a place like this, but I think I'm going to turn it into more of a story. I've only got a rough draft down. Do you want to hear some of my favorite lyrics so far?"

I smiled. "Sure."

He began to read everything he had so far. "It's these substandard motels on the corner of 4th and Freemont Street. Appealing, only because they're just that unappealing. Any practiced Catholic would cross themselves upon entering. The rooms have a hint of asbestos and maybe just a dash of formaldehyde. And the habit of decomposing right before your very eyes." He paused and gestured to another piece of paper. "Then I have this part over here that's probably going to be the bridge of the song. Songwriting is a weird process. You have all of these separate lyrics that eventually come together and turn into a whole story. At least, that's what my songwriting process is like." He shrugged.

I had never heard lyrics like that before. "Ryan, that was fantastic! Your writing skills are amazing! Your description was spot on. Anyone who hears that will be able to picture this room right down to the stains." I laughed.

"It's funny you should mention that. I actually did write about the stains in the bridge." He pointed to the other sheet of paper. "But I changed it up a little and described the bedding as stained. To be fair, the bedding is pretty disgusting too. Wanna hear?"

"Of course."

He began to read again. "There are no raindrops on roses and girls in white dresses. It's sleeping with roaches and taking best guesses. At the shade of the sheets and before all the stains, and a few more of your least favorite things." He looked up at me after he finished reading off of the paper. "It's kind of a take on The Sound Of Music."

I beamed. I could tell this was going to be one of their best songs. "Ryan, you have to call Brendon and read those lyrics to him!"

He chuckled. "Not on our date! I can do it on Sunday."

I laughed. "Are you going to tell him where the inspiration came from?"

He shrugged. "I don't see why not."