#56 Song From A Nearby Window
Welcome to the penultimate Story Press for 2023! Is time not utterly flying? Today, the beautiful voice of a singer disrupts the downward spiral of a young man surviving isolation. I’m sure we’ve all been driven a little mad at times. Enjoy!
Your paired listening is the song from which the lyrics in the story came, written by Thom Yorke - of Radiohead and The Smile fame - for the beautiful horror film Suspiria, which I thoroughly recommend if you want to be properly terrified. This is a soul-snatching cover by the 25-year-old British Saxophonist, Jess Gillam MBE. One of my favourite pieces from recent years.
For more of my works, lick the spoon of the archives.
#56 Song From A Nearby Window
This pandemic never ends. I’ve been in my apartment for nine straight weeks. There’s a pile of plates in the kitchen which started to accumulate in week two. I’ve watched so much TV I now dream about its characters more than people I actually know. They seem closer to me than those I’ve known for years, than friends I grew up with.
And my work, my work is slowly killing me. The constant pinging and binging of colleagues desperately pretending to be busy.
Do you know anything about this project?
Do you want to join that call?
Have you heard from such and such a person?
If the city around me was literally up in flames, like Moscow when Napoleon arrived, I’m convinced my colleagues would still ring me up and ask: What’s the status of that report for Bla Bla Bla Ltd.?
Today, I’ve received 400 notifications, whether that’s emails or messages or whatever else. I know because I didn’t reply to a single one and then I checked at the end of the day. I’m now on a call with my manager who’s asking where the hell I’ve been all day.
‘I’ve been working on that research project. Desk research. I needed to focus so I muted my emails and notifications.’
‘But what if we needed to contact you? What if it was urgent?’
‘Everything’s always urgent, Chris. Meaning nothing is urgent.’
‘I’m your boss here, remember. You shouldn’t speak up to me like that. I’m putting you on a warning. Formal warning. One for not messaging or emailing anyone, and one for talking to me like that. Unacceptable.’
‘Oh, piss off, Chris.’ I slam shut my laptop, and throw it at the wall. As it drifts through the air, my eyes widen as I consider the consequences of my actions. Is this what isolation does? Is this what being driven crazy actually looks like?
I half expect it to shatter into a thousand pieces while I watch in slow motion. Perhaps the shards will bounce back and cut me all over. Perhaps there’ll be a small explosion and I’ll be left here, singed, like a Looney Tunes skit. But in reality, it hits the wall with a thump, and a bit of a squeak as its innards beg for forgiveness.
I open the laptop again and hit the buttons, but nothing happens. On any normal day, this would not affect me at all, other than to cause mild frustration. If anything, I might find it funny. But today, tears build up around my eyes. It all feels inevitable, inevitably cruel, and I ask myself: Am I ever going to catch a break?
I sink to my knees in a way I can only do knowing no one is around. I’m in the pitiful company of no one at all.
With my head in my hands, a distant voice emerges. It’s soft and comforting. Like a lullaby. Its words drift all around me, embrace me, like a pair of cold arms.
I haven’t heard a real voice, other than the guy who delivers my food shopping, for the best part of a month.
It’s a woman’s voice, and she’s singing.
‘This is a waltz thinking about our bodies
What they mean for our salvation
The little clothes that we stand up in
Just the ground on which we stand
Is the darkness ours to take?
Bathed in lightness, bathed in heat’
As she sings her voice gets louder. I scramble around to find where it’s coming from. I look out the window of my room, but all I can see is the fog hanging over the courtyard. All the windows are shut, their lights off, curtains closed.
I run to the bathroom window, but there’s nothing there. The window of the spare room, empty as it always is. And then the kitchen. In the kitchen, the voice amplifies again, so I must be closer.
I clamber up onto the counter beside the sink, open the window and look out for her. There’s nobody there, but the voice sounds so near. And yet, at the same time, it could be an echo from far away.
Her voice is so beautiful. I crawl up into myself, rest my head on the window and listen.
The voice soon finishes and an emptiness beds in. I get on with my evening: cook dinner, eat, watch TV, read a book. All the while, though, in the back of my head, I’m thinking about her voice. Will I ever hear it again? Where did it come from? Who is she?
The following day comes and passes the same as yesterday. I have to use my personal laptop while they courier me a new one. A lecture from Chris. A grovelling apology from me. 376 notifications. Another phone call.
As the day ends, however, at the same time as yesterday, her voice returns.
All is well, as long as we keep spinning
Here and now, death still behind a wall
When the old songs and laughter we do
Are forgiven always and never been true
I scramble up on my kitchen counter again and look out for her, but there’s nothing. When she stops, the words ring in my ears:
All is well, as long as we keep spinning…
What they mean for our salvation…
The next day, the same thing happens. And again, I clamber up on the kitchen counter and listen to her voice. I close my eyes as she sings:
When I arrive, will you come and find me?
Or in a crowd, be one of them?
Wore the wrong sign back beside her
No tomorrow's at peace
I open my eyes, peer out of the window and, to my surprise, in the window of a flat in the building opposite, there’s a woman standing there, her pale, sickly face staring at mine. And she’s singing.
The most overwhelming cold attacks me, seeps through my bones, and my face flushes like someone’s just walked in on me getting dressed. I leap down from the kitchen counter, slide my trainers on and run out the front door. Her voice keeps ringing:
Is the darkness ours to take?
Bathed in lightness, bathed in heat
I run down the three flights of stairs to the ground, sprint across my building and over to hers. The door’s shut, but then someone walks out on the other side. I sprint over and catch it before it shuts. I run up the stairs, look over for my flat to find the one opposite. Turn left and run.
Here it is.
It must be here.
I bang on the door but nothing happens. I look in the window but there’s only darkness. I look in the window next door. Nothing. Her voice is so painfully loud now:
When I arrive, will you come and find me?
Or in a crowd, be one of them?
The door to this next apartment is wide open. I step inside and there’s nothing. No one. Not even any furniture. And it’s so cold I start to shiver. In the middle of the room is an empty photo frame, with the glass cracked. I pick it up and stare into it, my own broken reflection the only thing looking back.
The voice now has stopped. Now there’s no sound at all. The only presence is that of the darkness, swallowing me up.
And I know now, I’ll never hear it again.
