Story Prompt: Voices

Each writing day, I wonder if a ray of light will come down from on high to illuminate a Higher Truth –– complete with the sound of horns. 

Maybe Wynton Marsalis playing Haydn, or something like this:

Then I snap out of my whimsy –– as if inspiration had a sound-effect! Oh for pity's sake, cliché alert! –– and buckle down to some warm-up writing. 

"Saint John Writing the Book of Revelation" by Carlo Dolci, circa 1647. John and Mabel Ringling Museum of Art.

Warming up –– for me anyhow –– often involves a second helping of whimsy. For instance, I wonder what Saint John might possibly have been listening to on his iPod while writing the Book of Revelation?


Story #1
The music washed over him in ecstatic waves. Ear-buds vibrating against the cartilage of tragus and cavum, the thin white cord tickling his neck with each pump of his pulse. There were times like this when he thought music was the only thing keeping him connected to the rocky earth. Without the slim silicone-encased player, he might float free among the clouds. Like the eagle, he might stare into the sun as he rose, until vitreous humor boiled into steam in the sockets of his eyes and the soft conjunctiva dried into sand. 

But then the music faded, the four chords of the chorus gently shifting to outro and silence, and in the moment of stillness between songs on his unnamed playlist, and he felt again the rock under his elbow. He took a steadying breath and calmed his thoughts against the feverish images of devils and harlots, the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb. He dipped his pen into the walnut juice and held it over the page as next introduction began to climb into the bridge. 


Story #2
Revelation, he thought. You say you want a revelation, well, you know. We all want to change the world. He jotted the words on parchment and found the next line flowed almost without effort. You say you've got a real solution, you know we want to see a plan. 

The words, written, turned on him like a serpent. 

Doubt and the devil take this infernal music machine! He pressed the wheel-within-a-wheel on the MP3 player. Damn the Beatles, he thought, skipping the remaining tunes of the White Album to get to the first song from the eponymous Beau Dommage. 

Thank you Lord, he mouthed the words and focused his gaze on the clouds.  Thank you for the future that includes Canadians!