flash fiction: f major bar chord
channa picks up her guitar, for the first time since the divorce, and she strums a few times, sings part of a taylor swift song, then part of a gospel song her father taught her, which she practices until her fingers bleed — she tries again the next day and then every day for the following week, each day her fingers bleed again, she buys bandages and wraps them, she learns a joni mitchell song, blood leaks through the bandages, she goes to the doctor who tells her to stop, there could be permanent damage, she wakes up the next morning at 3 am and practices one of the joni mitchell songs, she can only play a chord at a time, taking breaks, her baby cries in the next room, she thinks he’s a background singer —
the next day she sings another song,
she doesn’t know the title, she heard it while shopping for bandages at 7–11, the lyrics go like — and when you only know, a love from afar, you fear, the closeness that it has, the potential to be — something like that, she remembers the voice, a man’s voice, grumbling over the telecom, the speakers over the bandage aisle — the lyrics continue — you’ll never be here, i know, it’s impossible, we know, you’re unkind, we know — her bandaged hands muffle the strums, they sound more like beats, like a drum, she’s just singing to a series of beats, she thinks it must sound horrible —
the baby cries again,
so long since she’s fed him, he’ll be okay as long as he hears the music though, guitars calm babies — something comes out of channa’s throat, like a cotton ball, but it’s more gooey, tastes like glue, she tries to swallow it down, she tries to think of the last thing she ate that would come up like that, taste like that — her baby over and over insists to her, play again, play again — what if someone visits her home, what would they see? — she knows what they would hear, beautiful music if she could just get rid of these bandages —
so she does, she picks at the bandage on her left hand,
to expose the fingers that she needs to make the chords ring, they’re sticky, like mucus, she expects more red, blood, but it’s worse, yellow, the smell strikes her, or maybe the baby vomited, channa weakens like she’ll fall asleep for a second, maybe more from the pain than the smell, or just both — she inspects her fingers, they’ve re-formed into something else more flexible, the skin stretches, the knuckles probably bend, double jointed now, they don’t feel broken, they feel right for stretching to play a difficult chord — some pieces of the bandages she’s removed with care float to the floor, others wet and gooey drop quickly and stick to it — she presses her fingers on the neck of the guitar to create a f major bar chord, it’s just right, the finger tips throb all at once, but it’s a pain that’s meant to be, like love far away —
