Short story by Chloë Moloney
Jesston Music
Ed Visham sat behind the counter of his shop, running his liver-spotted hands over his balding head. Hunched, his spine curved like a bony S, just about holding his brittle body in shape. His skin was stretched tight over his jutting cheekbones, an off white colour which reminded him of parchment every time he had the misfortune of catching himself in the mirror. Ed’s eyes sunk into his face like ping pong balls, and if he inspected closely enough he could see that the corners were shrivelled and crumpled like old paper – but he didn’t like to do that very much. His head hung heavy on his shoulders, so he often let it drop to his chest, which gave him a muted pain that throbbed down the nape of his neck. He often made an attempt to look presentable, putting on a shirt every morning, however on a good day only one or two customers filtered through the shop doors, so he never bothered to iron any of his garments. An antiquated man, Ed sat in his music shop in Jesston like an antique, an artefact in a deserted corner of a museum that nobody ever wanted to visit. Left to desiccate.
Ed’s music shop stood drooping on Newham Street, a fusty building which had sprung up in the late 40s. The ingenuous young Ed had believed that he was the pioneer in keeping the classical music business alive, a messianic and professorial figure in the race for salvation from the droning beats of modern music. Callow, he was indeed. As time pulled his skin tighter over his bones and slowly blushed his hair a silvery-white, it proved that the dulcet sounds of violins and cellos no longer satiated the contemporary yearning for progressive bass lines and inconsequential lyrics and paroles. He gingerly pulled in the help of some fresh meat.
Rhydian Hopkins never meant to thwart the business in any way, and he certainly didn’t hinder it, but the histrionic graduate wore Ed’s sanity to the bone. He would ceremoniously come rollicking into the shop in the small hours of the morning, quaff down a jug of coffee and get to work on tuning the fiddles. Just looking at his ebullience made Ed even more waifish and, even though Rhydian’s work probably did the shop justice by degrees, after a lengthy few weeks in Jesston Music, Rhydian was let go. Covetous, Ed was indeed. Ed certainly tried to keep the blood of the shop pumping vigorously round, yet with each addition the beat slowed to a grinding halt.
The air was milky that morning, a creamy hue in the sky. Ed was nibbling at a piece of dark rye bread at his kitchen table, this time without butter. He had run out, and needed to go down to the grocers to get some more. So, for now, he ate it plain. He was sat solely in a pair of briefs, the chill of cold wood prickling the backs of his bare thighs. He sipped at a glass of tepid water and gormlessly looked out of the window, which opened up onto Newham Street. Ed’s abode sat atop the open-plan layout of Jesston Music and once his kitchen shutters had been flung open, they revealed a stretch of tarmac glistening with the dewy signs of dawn. There were only two buildings on Newham Street; a diversion off the east junction, a useless capillary of commerce. The other was a dilapidated house, boarded up and blanketed in a layer of soot and dust. Ed hasn’t seen anyone come in or out of that house for at least a solid fifteen years, although he’s certain that wayward teens sneak in there at night to illicitly feel the warm glug of beer slide down their throats; the rousing sting of rebellion. If Ed craned his neck to the left, he could see the road dip down as it followed the natural curves of the horizon. If you followed it long enough, you’d reach the beach with its darkened waters and wrack lines. But Ed never ventured down that stretch of road; he kept himself to himself in the mildewy confines of the shop.
The phone rang three times before cutting off. Ed scraped back the chair and walked over to the landline, which sat on top of a flurry of papers: a few insurance documents, a letter from his brother and a scattering of leaflets from the council. He lifted the handle, listening to the beep of the tone, and put it back down again. It was probably his brother or something, a man of illustrious wealth currently residing in the concrete jungle of New York City. There was an extremely inequitable gulf of prosperity between the two brothers, Ed thought, and he often wracked his brain for any sort of justifiable reason for this – but it often left him tired and gave him brain ache, so he stopped.
Ed tightened his leather belt to the last hole, furrowing his eyebrows when he noticed that he had lost even more weight this week. He should probably stock up on some more food at the grocers when he goes to get butter, he thought. Making his way down the spiral staircase, the woody smell of the instruments came to him like a saccharine song, spilling out of the glass cases and tickling his nostrils. He weaved his way through the aisles of sheet music - their edges curled, stained a pale brown with dotage - and flipped the sign hanging in the window to OPEN. He flicked the light switch, a muted yellow cast over the spread of the room. Loitering at the front of the shop, he fiddled with a couple of the display violins, shifting them this way and that, running his callused fingers over the strings. He polished a cello with the cuff of his sleeve and hot breath. The church bells rang ten times, rounded and soft with their distance. Ten o’clock, he was opening up late today, not that it mattered much either way.
He left the display and ambled back to the pine desk, stained with the brown rings of teacup bottoms. Ed lit a vanilla flower and almond candle, watching the flame quiver under his breath as the wax loosened and effused its sweet smell of tranquillity. Then, he sat and waited, flicking through an old Dvořák score.
‘Well this one is a remodelling of an Amati; dark wood and very smooth to the touch. Has a beautiful sound, too. It’s sort of like how I imagine a July morning to sound like, if only it could sing. And this one? Oh, that’s Guaneri. An Italian luthier, as the name would suggest. Not as nice a sound as the Amati, in my humble opinion, a little more…tinny. But still worth a look at.’
Ed spoke out with a thin voice, out into the empty air. He had now taken to ambling up and down the shop, practicing the speech he had learned verbatim and by rote. Waiting, just waiting for a customer to come in so he could perform his tricks over and over again. Taking them round the violins, weaving through the cellos, and if they wanted to have a gander at the violas then it really was his lucky day. But for now, he only took his lonely self through the labyrinth of strings and rich wood. He snaked around the shop at a sluggish pace, for it was the only speed at which his frail body would allow him to progress.
His body came to a halt before the display window. There were a few cellos that stood upright, their scrolls a reddened brown in the young light of the afternoon. Time flickered by like the sepia images of a lost childhood. Each day; to the desk, to the front display, and back up to bed. Ed felt the hazel rays of sunlight kiss his sagging cheeks. He wheezed as his lungs swelled up with the dust. A quiet shop, as always. All that Ed could hear was the light whistle as the air rattled through his bronchioles, his lungs like a decaying flute.
A piiing rang through the air.
Ed turned his head to face a fiddle string wobbling towards him in the sky, the piiing followed up by a waaaooo as the metal wavered in the air. Ed managed to duck his slanted shoulders as the string flung past him and struck the store front window, the glass vibrating and resounding with the strike. Ed’s heart began to churn blood round his heart apace, as another string popped out of a nearby viola, spinning and tumbling through the musty air towards him. This one flung faster, and with a violent jiggle struck the side of Ed’s forehead, like the hot lash of a leather whip from his school days. He shot his fingertips up to his temples and massaged the soft skin, the target zone stinging with broiling aggravation. Ed strained his neck towards the window when, piiing, another spanked the back of his head, bouncing off the nape of his neck. His neck shrivelled as he recoiled and took a staggering step backwards, stumbling towards the wall. Ed glued himself to the side of the room and pressed his now damp palms behind him.
Strings began to unhook and unhinge themselves from all corners of the shop, an unsavoury cacophony of clinks and tings. Ed watched them whirl and spin around each other, like a mating dance of thin metal. A bead of sweat carved its way down his temple, hot sweat which tingled at his soft skin. His bony forearms quivered as he pressed himself further into the wall.
A hurricane of strings. The air behind them woossshhhed as they lurched themselves at one another, creating a silver metal mesh in the sky. They eddied and weaved over and under one another, looping together and beginning to knot themselves. One knot popped in the far edge of this shiny cloud, and others began to lattice together nearer the heart of the strings. Soon enough, all strings were entwined together, like a ball of yarn which glistened in the balmy afternoon sunlight.
Ed relaxed the muscles in his hands, and pulled his hands off the wall. A sheen of sweat schlucked as he let himself go, leaving grey, wet handprints on the wall. Ed entertained the thought of going to prod at the floating sphere a little, see if he could stick a finger or two in the gaps of the metal framework. His mind tossed between checking out the strings or staying next to the wall for the rest of his godforsaken life. He shot his eyes over to the window, and the hazel light which gently touched the paned glass. Outside, a cyclist whizzed past and didn’t care to even look in Jesston Music, but then again not many people did. He could have helped, Ed thought. He stood there for a moment, his frail body like a statue at the side of the shop, thinking that this morning he was haplessly eating his rye bread, and now he was pinned to the wall, staring at a floating orb of violin strings.
Ed began to wiggle his toes, hitting the shoe cap on top. He gave his body a shimmer and shook his arms loose, an electric shiver rattling his bones. Tentatively, Ed rummaged deep inside himself for a loose scrap of courage and took a few babyish steps towards the orb. His chest wheezed as he sucked the dusty air into his cheeks, and glued his tongue to the roof of his mouth. The sunlight continued to kiss the side of his face, the balmy yellow light softening the flecks in his hair. Ed rubbed his hands over his thighs, the smooth denim comforting to the touch like an old lover. He shot his eyes over to the racks of sheet music by the right wall, and the old brass instruments on the left. The air encircling the orb settled, sagging limply and breathing. Ed brought his hands up to his face and ran his gaunt fingers over his chin. Small prickles, like needles, as his stubble began to poke through.
bbuurrrrrr
A light whirring. Ed’s hands shot down by his side and the lump in his throat took a leap up to his mouth. His feet welded into the ground as the buuurr grew louder. Ed twisted his head this way and that, peering into the net of strings to see what was buzzing from the inside.
bbuurrrr
Ed stood hunched in front of the strings. Straining his neck to survey the top of the sphere, his spine cracked down his back, the soft pain beginning to pop little electric sparks in his nerves. He lowered his eyes and the warmth of blood spread like margarine across the small of his back. The sphere began to waver and bob up and down in the air, making a wuuub sound as it did so. Ed was hesitant to press his face too close to the strings, in the fear that one might let slip out of its intricate weaving, jabbing him in the eye. Or maybe it would strike him in the side of his temples again. Ed entertained the thought for a moment, and as his tender temple throbbed at the very prospect, he thought not. The strings glibly glimmered in the afternoon light.
Ed felt a poke in the back. A rounded, warm, wooden poke. Then a twist. A twist which pushed like a screw into his frail back, impaled and propelled him forward into the face of the strings, his slip of a body disappearing into the orb. Ed felt the chill of the metal freeze his cheekbones and his breathing cut shot, like someone had plugged his lungs with a cork. Every breath he attempted to take tasted of sour iron on his tongue, and he kicked and flung his feet at the bottom of the mesh of strings, whilst the scroll of the cello kept him firmly pinned down into the face of the sphere. The cold of the strings slapped against his cheek like a backhand to the face, his thin lips smushed and disfigured as they were shoved in between the gaps of the twining. This is what drowning must feel like, Ed thought. Expect it wasn’t water which was filling his lungs, but the tart stench of metal up his nostrils. He lay, pinned. His throat, tightening. Squinching slowly shut. Air took its last threw skips down Ed’s throat. He fluttered his eyes shut. Let the strings form a muzzle over his mouth, where air would not dance. He heard a crack, felt the electric pain shoot through his spine as the cello drilled itself further into his back, shattering a few vertebrae along its way. As it cored into Ed’s flesh and smashed his bones like china, beads of blood coagulated around the top of his jeans. Some shined like crystals under the light, others grew weaker and slid down under his belt. Ed felt the tickle of red dripping down between his buttocks, whereas the pain launched itself at his stomach and it quivered like a bird trapped in a pair of brawny hands.
The orb absorbed him soon enough. The cello urged his body into the strings and, as they scored his skin, grated it into tiny flakes. His skin was shattered porcelain, falling like dandruff from the metallic sphere in the shop. Ed’s body was minced with ease, save the occasional grate as the strings caught their teeth on his bones. However Ed did not scream, or wail, or yelp with the searing pain. No one had ever really, willingly stepped foot into Jesston Music, and certainly no one was going to now. Jesston Music whispered its last lyrics to the melody of crunching bones and hot, iron flesh.
Ed Visham sat behind the counter of his shop, running his liver-spotted hands over his balding head. Hunched, his spine curved like a bony S, just about holding his brittle body in shape. His skin was stretched tight over his jutting cheekbones, an off white colour which reminded him of parchment every time he had the misfortune of catching himself in the mirror. Ed’s eyes sunk into his face like ping pong balls, and if he inspected closely enough he could see that the corners were shrivelled and crumpled like old paper – but he didn’t like to do that very much. His head hung heavy on his shoulders, so he often let it drop to his chest, which gave him a muted pain that throbbed down the nape of his neck. He often made an attempt to look presentable, putting on a shirt every morning, however on a good day only one or two customers filtered through the shop doors, so he never bothered to iron any of his garments. An antiquated man, Ed sat in his music shop in Jesston like an antique, an artefact in a deserted corner of a museum that nobody ever wanted to visit. Left to desiccate.
Ed’s music shop stood drooping on Newham Street, a fusty building which had sprung up in the late 40s. The ingenuous young Ed had believed that he was the pioneer in keeping the classical music business alive, a messianic and professorial figure in the race for salvation from the droning beats of modern music. Callow, he was indeed. As time pulled his skin tighter over his bones and slowly blushed his hair a silvery-white, it proved that the dulcet sounds of violins and cellos no longer satiated the contemporary yearning for progressive bass lines and inconsequential lyrics and paroles. He gingerly pulled in the help of some fresh meat.
Rhydian Hopkins never meant to thwart the business in any way, and he certainly didn’t hinder it, but the histrionic graduate wore Ed’s sanity to the bone. He would ceremoniously come rollicking into the shop in the small hours of the morning, quaff down a jug of coffee and get to work on tuning the fiddles. Just looking at his ebullience made Ed even more waifish and, even though Rhydian’s work probably did the shop justice by degrees, after a lengthy few weeks in Jesston Music, Rhydian was let go. Covetous, Ed was indeed. Ed certainly tried to keep the blood of the shop pumping vigorously round, yet with each addition the beat slowed to a grinding halt.
The air was milky that morning, a creamy hue in the sky. Ed was nibbling at a piece of dark rye bread at his kitchen table, this time without butter. He had run out, and needed to go down to the grocers to get some more. So, for now, he ate it plain. He was sat solely in a pair of briefs, the chill of cold wood prickling the backs of his bare thighs. He sipped at a glass of tepid water and gormlessly looked out of the window, which opened up onto Newham Street. Ed’s abode sat atop the open-plan layout of Jesston Music and once his kitchen shutters had been flung open, they revealed a stretch of tarmac glistening with the dewy signs of dawn. There were only two buildings on Newham Street; a diversion off the east junction, a useless capillary of commerce. The other was a dilapidated house, boarded up and blanketed in a layer of soot and dust. Ed hasn’t seen anyone come in or out of that house for at least a solid fifteen years, although he’s certain that wayward teens sneak in there at night to illicitly feel the warm glug of beer slide down their throats; the rousing sting of rebellion. If Ed craned his neck to the left, he could see the road dip down as it followed the natural curves of the horizon. If you followed it long enough, you’d reach the beach with its darkened waters and wrack lines. But Ed never ventured down that stretch of road; he kept himself to himself in the mildewy confines of the shop.
The phone rang three times before cutting off. Ed scraped back the chair and walked over to the landline, which sat on top of a flurry of papers: a few insurance documents, a letter from his brother and a scattering of leaflets from the council. He lifted the handle, listening to the beep of the tone, and put it back down again. It was probably his brother or something, a man of illustrious wealth currently residing in the concrete jungle of New York City. There was an extremely inequitable gulf of prosperity between the two brothers, Ed thought, and he often wracked his brain for any sort of justifiable reason for this – but it often left him tired and gave him brain ache, so he stopped.
Ed tightened his leather belt to the last hole, furrowing his eyebrows when he noticed that he had lost even more weight this week. He should probably stock up on some more food at the grocers when he goes to get butter, he thought. Making his way down the spiral staircase, the woody smell of the instruments came to him like a saccharine song, spilling out of the glass cases and tickling his nostrils. He weaved his way through the aisles of sheet music - their edges curled, stained a pale brown with dotage - and flipped the sign hanging in the window to OPEN. He flicked the light switch, a muted yellow cast over the spread of the room. Loitering at the front of the shop, he fiddled with a couple of the display violins, shifting them this way and that, running his callused fingers over the strings. He polished a cello with the cuff of his sleeve and hot breath. The church bells rang ten times, rounded and soft with their distance. Ten o’clock, he was opening up late today, not that it mattered much either way.
He left the display and ambled back to the pine desk, stained with the brown rings of teacup bottoms. Ed lit a vanilla flower and almond candle, watching the flame quiver under his breath as the wax loosened and effused its sweet smell of tranquillity. Then, he sat and waited, flicking through an old Dvořák score.
‘Well this one is a remodelling of an Amati; dark wood and very smooth to the touch. Has a beautiful sound, too. It’s sort of like how I imagine a July morning to sound like, if only it could sing. And this one? Oh, that’s Guaneri. An Italian luthier, as the name would suggest. Not as nice a sound as the Amati, in my humble opinion, a little more…tinny. But still worth a look at.’
Ed spoke out with a thin voice, out into the empty air. He had now taken to ambling up and down the shop, practicing the speech he had learned verbatim and by rote. Waiting, just waiting for a customer to come in so he could perform his tricks over and over again. Taking them round the violins, weaving through the cellos, and if they wanted to have a gander at the violas then it really was his lucky day. But for now, he only took his lonely self through the labyrinth of strings and rich wood. He snaked around the shop at a sluggish pace, for it was the only speed at which his frail body would allow him to progress.
His body came to a halt before the display window. There were a few cellos that stood upright, their scrolls a reddened brown in the young light of the afternoon. Time flickered by like the sepia images of a lost childhood. Each day; to the desk, to the front display, and back up to bed. Ed felt the hazel rays of sunlight kiss his sagging cheeks. He wheezed as his lungs swelled up with the dust. A quiet shop, as always. All that Ed could hear was the light whistle as the air rattled through his bronchioles, his lungs like a decaying flute.
A piiing rang through the air.
Ed turned his head to face a fiddle string wobbling towards him in the sky, the piiing followed up by a waaaooo as the metal wavered in the air. Ed managed to duck his slanted shoulders as the string flung past him and struck the store front window, the glass vibrating and resounding with the strike. Ed’s heart began to churn blood round his heart apace, as another string popped out of a nearby viola, spinning and tumbling through the musty air towards him. This one flung faster, and with a violent jiggle struck the side of Ed’s forehead, like the hot lash of a leather whip from his school days. He shot his fingertips up to his temples and massaged the soft skin, the target zone stinging with broiling aggravation. Ed strained his neck towards the window when, piiing, another spanked the back of his head, bouncing off the nape of his neck. His neck shrivelled as he recoiled and took a staggering step backwards, stumbling towards the wall. Ed glued himself to the side of the room and pressed his now damp palms behind him.
Strings began to unhook and unhinge themselves from all corners of the shop, an unsavoury cacophony of clinks and tings. Ed watched them whirl and spin around each other, like a mating dance of thin metal. A bead of sweat carved its way down his temple, hot sweat which tingled at his soft skin. His bony forearms quivered as he pressed himself further into the wall.
A hurricane of strings. The air behind them woossshhhed as they lurched themselves at one another, creating a silver metal mesh in the sky. They eddied and weaved over and under one another, looping together and beginning to knot themselves. One knot popped in the far edge of this shiny cloud, and others began to lattice together nearer the heart of the strings. Soon enough, all strings were entwined together, like a ball of yarn which glistened in the balmy afternoon sunlight.
Ed relaxed the muscles in his hands, and pulled his hands off the wall. A sheen of sweat schlucked as he let himself go, leaving grey, wet handprints on the wall. Ed entertained the thought of going to prod at the floating sphere a little, see if he could stick a finger or two in the gaps of the metal framework. His mind tossed between checking out the strings or staying next to the wall for the rest of his godforsaken life. He shot his eyes over to the window, and the hazel light which gently touched the paned glass. Outside, a cyclist whizzed past and didn’t care to even look in Jesston Music, but then again not many people did. He could have helped, Ed thought. He stood there for a moment, his frail body like a statue at the side of the shop, thinking that this morning he was haplessly eating his rye bread, and now he was pinned to the wall, staring at a floating orb of violin strings.
Ed began to wiggle his toes, hitting the shoe cap on top. He gave his body a shimmer and shook his arms loose, an electric shiver rattling his bones. Tentatively, Ed rummaged deep inside himself for a loose scrap of courage and took a few babyish steps towards the orb. His chest wheezed as he sucked the dusty air into his cheeks, and glued his tongue to the roof of his mouth. The sunlight continued to kiss the side of his face, the balmy yellow light softening the flecks in his hair. Ed rubbed his hands over his thighs, the smooth denim comforting to the touch like an old lover. He shot his eyes over to the racks of sheet music by the right wall, and the old brass instruments on the left. The air encircling the orb settled, sagging limply and breathing. Ed brought his hands up to his face and ran his gaunt fingers over his chin. Small prickles, like needles, as his stubble began to poke through.
bbuurrrrrr
A light whirring. Ed’s hands shot down by his side and the lump in his throat took a leap up to his mouth. His feet welded into the ground as the buuurr grew louder. Ed twisted his head this way and that, peering into the net of strings to see what was buzzing from the inside.
bbuurrrr
Ed stood hunched in front of the strings. Straining his neck to survey the top of the sphere, his spine cracked down his back, the soft pain beginning to pop little electric sparks in his nerves. He lowered his eyes and the warmth of blood spread like margarine across the small of his back. The sphere began to waver and bob up and down in the air, making a wuuub sound as it did so. Ed was hesitant to press his face too close to the strings, in the fear that one might let slip out of its intricate weaving, jabbing him in the eye. Or maybe it would strike him in the side of his temples again. Ed entertained the thought for a moment, and as his tender temple throbbed at the very prospect, he thought not. The strings glibly glimmered in the afternoon light.
Ed felt a poke in the back. A rounded, warm, wooden poke. Then a twist. A twist which pushed like a screw into his frail back, impaled and propelled him forward into the face of the strings, his slip of a body disappearing into the orb. Ed felt the chill of the metal freeze his cheekbones and his breathing cut shot, like someone had plugged his lungs with a cork. Every breath he attempted to take tasted of sour iron on his tongue, and he kicked and flung his feet at the bottom of the mesh of strings, whilst the scroll of the cello kept him firmly pinned down into the face of the sphere. The cold of the strings slapped against his cheek like a backhand to the face, his thin lips smushed and disfigured as they were shoved in between the gaps of the twining. This is what drowning must feel like, Ed thought. Expect it wasn’t water which was filling his lungs, but the tart stench of metal up his nostrils. He lay, pinned. His throat, tightening. Squinching slowly shut. Air took its last threw skips down Ed’s throat. He fluttered his eyes shut. Let the strings form a muzzle over his mouth, where air would not dance. He heard a crack, felt the electric pain shoot through his spine as the cello drilled itself further into his back, shattering a few vertebrae along its way. As it cored into Ed’s flesh and smashed his bones like china, beads of blood coagulated around the top of his jeans. Some shined like crystals under the light, others grew weaker and slid down under his belt. Ed felt the tickle of red dripping down between his buttocks, whereas the pain launched itself at his stomach and it quivered like a bird trapped in a pair of brawny hands.
The orb absorbed him soon enough. The cello urged his body into the strings and, as they scored his skin, grated it into tiny flakes. His skin was shattered porcelain, falling like dandruff from the metallic sphere in the shop. Ed’s body was minced with ease, save the occasional grate as the strings caught their teeth on his bones. However Ed did not scream, or wail, or yelp with the searing pain. No one had ever really, willingly stepped foot into Jesston Music, and certainly no one was going to now. Jesston Music whispered its last lyrics to the melody of crunching bones and hot, iron flesh.
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Chloë Moloney is a student and writer from Surrey, UK. She has had a short story collection published with Channillo, and fiction published with Darkrun Review, Cold Creek Review, Sick Lit Magazine and more. Chloë has featured on Burst FM at the University of Bristol, where she is undertaking an English BA. She also frequently writes for the newspaper Epigram, and is a reviewer for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2017 with Ed Fringe Review.
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