A story I wrote - in honour of the end of the talent show "the voice" tomorrow night - I'm a big fan of the thing for easy watching...
Loop
Music
began, and she sang. She sang despite
the nerves. Her chest felt like it would
explode with the quiver of it, but she managed to tame. She cast a net over herself and kept on
steering through the wild storm of her own waves and gushes of panic. Her body was reacting as if she might be shot
if she didn’t sing it perfectly. Tears
ran from her closed eyes, closed against the blur, focusing on the next note,
the next note, the next. Her nose felt
all soft. The meaning of the words kept
her going. The flood of gratitude, love
and excitement that filled her with each of these words that had unbelieveably,
even to herself, spilled from her pen at 3am of a quiet morning – helped keep
her steady. She seemed to wake at the
end of the song. She shielded her eyes
against the blasting lights of the studio to see all four judges chairs had
turned. They all wanted her on their
team.
Melon
clutched the microphone in front of her.
She’d never sung on any kind of stage and really didn’t expect even one
of the judges to turn. She didn’t quite
remember how she’d even got here.
“I
don’t know if you saw right” Stud began when the thunderous audience applause
died down, “but I turned around after two seconds, like two seconds flat!” The other judges began to shout him
down. He stood. “All 6 foot 7 of me was shaking when the
first note left your lips, honestly it was without a doubt the most stunning
thing I have ever heard.”
Shorty waited for the roaring and rapturous audience
to calm down, helping to quiet them with her slender arms. She fixed her eyes on Melon “You my girl,
have got a special gift, you know this don’t you?”
“Of
course she knows it, come on!” scoffed Cheeky,
throwing his hands up to the studio rafters, “she is a diva, a true and
honest Diiiiva”
Eyes
was last in the line. She was half
crying with the emotion – “What’s your name again darling?”
“Melon”
she quietly breathed.
“Well, an apt name for someone with such a fresh and
juicy voice,” Eyes didn’t miss a beat “I
would actually find your sound completely succulent and smooth. Was it your own song?” Melon nodded and the audience got to their
feet again, the judges shook their heads in disbelief.
Eyes
said with a wide smile “Your voice can go anywhere”
Stud
“Your voice does things to parts of me that have never before been done things
to if you get me.”
Shorty
“He can’t even speak. Listen, you and I,
I know you are going to win this, everyone else might as well go home, I want
to talk about getting you to duet on my next album, I would love if you could
pick me”
Cheeky
“Watch out for her, she only wants you to further her career – I’ll let you be
yourself.” There was silence before Eyes
came back in again with the killer smile
“ Only you can choose.”
Melon
noticed how orange the sides of her nose looked with the make-up they’d
plastered on her – she was far too pale the girls in the make-up room had
said.
They
all continued begging, quietly pleading in their own ways. “I’m going to go with Eyes” said Melon, which
led to the lucky judge jumping high off her seat squealing with delight.
Three
weeks later in the “judges homes” bootcamp, things were not quite so rosy. The judges had gone on and on for the
remaining few programmes about how Eyes had got a hold of the amazing Melon,
and how she didn’t need anyone else, so all the strong contestants went for the
other judges . She’d had to turn for the
weaker ones, so that she’d be alone, so that she’d be guaranteed to get them,
but she hadn’t been worried until now.
“What
do you mean you don’t sing anything else?”
Melon
shrugged.
“You
are telling me you don’t sing ANYTHING else?
Like you CAN’T sing anything else? Are you for REAL? You’ve never once managed to sing any other
song?” The normally sweet and collected
Eyes was storming around the penthouse apartment, the camera crew luckily
hadn’t arrived, and the other contestants – all mediocre and nerve ridden, were
standing awkwardly around the island in the kitchen while Eyes strode up and
down the fake tiger rug.
“Oh
we’ve a little trick or two up our sleeves” the flushed Eyes told the camera
flirtingly later. And then they shot a
warm little scene of everyone singing Melon’s song around the piano while Melon
herself smiled sheepishly.
Eyes told the camera later from
her bedroom in a confidential excited manner “The first surprise is a name
change. This isn’t a gimmick or
anything, it’s just that for Melon this competition has already been such a
transformative affair – we’ve decided her new stage name is going to be
Cantaloupe.”
“So
you’ve never sang anything only your own song?”
Eyes was going over the story again later that night, this time slightly
calmer, sitting on the couch, cameras and crew all gone away, her sweeter self
fighting to show itself. “You know you
can tell me about it? Did you never even
hum along with pop songs?”
Cantaloupe
shook her head. “No, I told you, I came
from a house where there was never any music – it was like my parents wanted to
be able to hear every single insult they hurled at each other – whispered or
shouted. And then when I finally left –
I dunno – music always kind of got to me a bit too much” Eyes nodded her huge understanding eyes
unbelievably wide and encouraging, until she remembered the lack of cameras and
narrowed them a little again.
“I
don’t believe it” she shook her head.
“And you’ve never managed to sing any other song?” She’d seen the proof earlier herself
though. The girl wasn’t making it up,
she sounded crow like when trying to apply her vocal chords to anything but her
own composition. It actually made Eye’s
toes curl with discomfort listening to her.
It was fully apparent – the girl struggled to get anything out that
wasn’t part of that one amazing song.
Cantaloupe
shook her head again sadly “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have entered, it was a
stupid idea” her eyes were brimming
wetly as she thought about the job at the dog shelters which was probably gone
by now, the house mates who won’t notice her absence till the rent is unpaid.
Eyes
looked slightly haggard when the live shows came around – they’d spent weeks
trying everything she could think of - hypnosis, sleep training, she’d even
tried to scare the girl into singing another song – but not even when held at
knifepoint by actors dressed as crazed fans could she string more than a note
or two of a song together before breaking down in an exhausted sob or sometimes
she’d go and start singing her own song again – leaving the listener spell
bound, but Eyes increasingly worried.
They
pretended she was skipping the sound check for health reasons. And then the moment came. The nation had been talking about the song
and her amazing voice since the point when her audition had been aired. People were humming it to themselves,
thinking about it while they made love, finding refuge in clicking the youtube
clip again and again no matter what their difficulties. Something about the song just made everyone
melt. When her turn came to get up and
sing – a reverent and blistering silence descended on everyone in the mega
theatre. The pianist began a thrum thrum
thrum, and she began to sing “It’s a little bit funny...” and then she stopped,
shook her head, seemed to fight something inside herself before roaring out of
her, unaccompanied by the stunned musicians came her original song again,
stronger and even more impressive and touching and tender than before. It was way off script, but Eyes lit up like
it was planned and every listening soul in the whole country swooned with it,
skin fizzing with each note, backs of necks caressed by the sounds. Hairs standing up but dancing. She looked as surprised and awed by the power
of herself as everyone else as the place erupted in thunderous appreciation.
She got
through of course, to the next round, and the next. 3 weeks before the end of the series the rest
of the contestants quit. “I was only
thinking about her song anyway while I was up there” said the young fella with
the gravelly voice. “Yeah” nodded the
woman with the face held together with staples, “I’ve enjoyed the journey, but
there’s no way I’d want to win anyway if it meant Cantaloupe was going to
lose. Who am I kidding? I was voting for her myself every chance I
got” she giggled showing her coloured button teeth.
Things
got strange after that. She was crowned
winner of the series. Camera people had
to have their ears blocked so they could concentrate on their jobs when she
sang. Every time she sang it just kept
getting better and better. She recorded
an album full of the song. In 12
different styles, recorded over the course of one 24 hour period every two
hours. People gathered around water
coolers – “I adore the 3 am, it’s just so aching and tired you know?” The 5pm was released as a single – but all
the different versions were played incessantly on the radio as well. The rest of music started to sound so old, so
wrong and false. “He’ll only go to sleep
for the 9pm version” said the young mother at the bus stop with earphones in
her sleeping babies ears, as she checked the iphone to see how many seconds were left in the tune
– “I’d never have survived the colic without it!”
Everyone
agreed it was the most amazing thing. Of
course it spread. Conquered the world.
No translations required. She didn’t
quite believe it herself. Eyes gave
heaps of interviews about her times with “Loupe” as she liked to call her. “When I first heard she couldn’t sing any
other song I felt like a race horse owner who’d found out the horse was
paralysed from the neck down, I didn’t know that she had the song, I mean THE
song – the only song we’d ever need again.”
Cantaloupe
herself didn’t do interviews. She’d have
liked to see her old school choir master who’d kicked her out for not being
able to sing – he was probably eagerly training his kids to sing her song now,
boasting that he knew her once upon a time.
This was just a dream – she knew he’d never remember that he’d once
known her, that he’d once frowned, rolled his eyes and stood her in the corner
at the back, coffee breath telling her to sing softly, so she wouldn’t put the
kids who could sing off their notes.
At
first it was wonderful. Her music was
out there, the world’s finest musicians (as well as the lousiest) all sending
her demo tapes, trying to capture the sound, trying to impress her so that they
could be in her band. She got lovely
letters, from people who’d been preparing to die but then rallied around at the
sound of her voice. People who’d fought
for years no longer seeing the sense in it and reuniting with the people they’d
once loved. Terrorists abandoned their
plots. Boardrooms began their meetings
with a quick listen and gave everyone the rest of the day off, realising that
giving people a chance to connect with each other and share some love was
actually infinitely more important than growing. But Cantaloupe grew tired of it all. She went into hiding. The attention, the adoration was too much.
Once
she’d stopped her daily podcast of the song she began to relax. It was true the critics said that every time
she sang it just kept getting better, but so also grew the nerves and the
pressure on her to deliver, until her blood was pounding with it, and she was
stopped in her steps a few times with heart palpitations. So stopping was a great relief. Her massive wealth bought her an island where
she could hide. She had a full staff who
she interviewed extensively for until she found the perfect team of people who
were deaf but no one else, no one from her old life. She flew a doctor in twice a month to check
on her recovery. He strongly advised
that she stay put and said that if she ever sang again there was a strong
chance that she would die. He had tears
in his eyes as he said this, as he really wished he could hear her just once
more – but he was a consummate professional and wouldn’t risk the patient’s
life.
The
world was in shock. When the podcasts
stopped people prayed it was just a blip, a technical difficulty, that the
mysterious singer would be back soon.
Every concert had turned into a Cantaloupe tribute concert, the same
song echoing sadly and never quite perfectly delivered in arenas around the
world to crowds who were in mourning. In
nightclubs her earlier recordings were mixed with later versions, the 7 videos
from the talent show were shown on a loop, people smiled wanly under the disco
lights, no one felt much like dancing.
Eyes
was a shadow of her former self. The
media were cruel, they blamed her as she was the only known connection to the
girl. They even went back to calling her
Melon, saying that the name change was part of why she’d ran. Eyes was hunted and headlines showed her in
tabloids and broadsheets alike pointing out that she had the brashness, the
boldness to continue living, eating, breathing and seemingly, or claimed to
have lost contact with her protegee.
“Eyes wide shut” they jeered.
“Irish Eyes not smiling” “Eye’m
the biggest loser”. This was only 3
weeks into the loss of Cantaloupe – a full 3 months after she’d first began to
sing in public. Cantaloupe’s former
friends and family it must be said never missed her – of course they worshipped
her as a singer, along with the rest of us, but they never connected her with
the mousy colleague/ sister/ daughter who’d gone missing a few months before
without trace, and who they really weren’t all that distraught to lose.
Her
doctor broke his silence on the 22nd day, he sold his story to a
respectable broadsheet and a medical journal – “The song has nearly killed our
songstress,” he said, “she has only just stopped in time” He was hunted by the press for news of her
whereabouts, and soon regretted having brought the attention to himself.
Eventually
Cantaloupe made a Video. In it she told
the world she would come back and sing once more. Her holiday was good, but she was ready to
return. People blessed themselves, sang,
gave birth without pain killers, and cried into their soup.
She
never returned, but every day she made a promise that she would, made an excuse
or two and asked for more money to be sent.
She grew fat and then dramatically thin and perfect with the help of
surgeons. She starred in documentaries
and films. The song was played and
played. People continued with the purge
of other music till no other music was to be heard in the entire world – even birds
were shot at except the ones that could learn the song and everyone kept
smiling at each other like they do in Ireland when the weather’s good and they
said to each other “I think we’ll hear the new version tomorrow” “I think we might”
