The walls of Skeeter’s room are smokey yellow. Next to his mattress there’s a bottle of pills, cheap whiskey and a radio. No one visits. No one would know if he got up the next morning or not. He unscrews the cap of the whiskey.
A song crackles onto his old transistor. He knows the chords. He wrote them decades ago in the glimmer of fleeting fame. Top ten for a couple of weeks.
Ronnie Madison yelps when she hears the chorus drifting from her daughter’s room. ‘Turn it up. ‘
Out of habit the volume drops.
‘I said up.’ Ronnie opens Rebbekah’s door. ‘I know this song.’
‘Yeah, Hangin’ on his Words. It’s Cyrus Blake. It’s huge.’
‘It’s a cover. It’s The Metronomes. I knew them.’
Skeeter’s thinking about her now. The song he wrote when the world was at their feet.
‘You OK Mum?’
Ronnie laughs. ‘I wonder whatever happened to him.’
‘Who, Mum?’
There’s no answer.
‘This is about you, isn’t it?’
The song slips into a minor key.
small stories about love 