A/N: Written for Blur's video "Charmless Man" and put in this category because there obviously isn't one for music videos.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. No profit made.
Blurred Image: Charmless Man
It started innocently enough.
A few weeks ago John went to a pub; not some seedy, third-rate hole, but one befitting his social standing. Posh, some people might call it, but it just wouldn't do if someone spotted him somewhere... cheap.
The bar was crowded, full of people in various stages of inebriation: from those who sipped their first drink that was supposed to cheer them up, to those who were well on their way to being drunk. Alcohol-induced happiness would pass quickly but still, only the next day.
He bought a Scotch. Then another. And another one. His gaze wandered until it landed on one of the tables. He was reasonably sure he wouldn't meet the young man sitting there ever again. The alcohol made John pleasantly less caring about proper social conduct and nicely more open. He walked over, sat down and poured out his frustration with his job, so-called friends and anything else he could think of to the bloke.
He was quite sure he would never meet him again.
xx xx xx
The Company's weekly meeting was uneventful. Alice droned on about how the Market was stable and how the Company's money was well invested. He wasn't really interested, but paid attention closely enough. That's why he was so surprised hearing a piano nearby. Quick, clipped chords that he could have imagined, but he knew they were real because he wasn't sufficiently bored to drift off and day-dreaming just wasn't his style.
He looked at Alice, she was still speaking as if she didn't hear a thing. He glanced at Peter, who sat to his left, and raised his eyebrows.
'Do you hear that?' he finally asked in a whisper.
'What?' Peter gave him a blank look.
'A piano,' he replied impatiently. Wasn't it obvious what he meant? 'Someone's playing, but...' he shook his head. There weren't any instruments on their floor and probably there weren't any in the building. 'Is that a radio?'
He was given another blank look, this one lasted longer.
'I have no idea what you're talking about. You must be imagining things.' Peter turned away, his slight frown suggesting he found the conversation ridiculous in the extreme.
John looked around at the faces of people gathered in the conference room. No one seemed to hear anything out of the ordinary. And that was just plain weird because he now could hear the words. A male voice began to sing, John couldn't understand exactly what, but after a moment the sounds faded into silence, dissolving when confronted with a graph, a bar chart and Alice's forceful conviction that the Company's prosperity would continue.
That evening, after an obligatory round of drinks and fake smiles in the company of his "friends", John went to bed, thinking that this was the last time he allowed such a piss poor beaujolais to taint his taste buds.
He woke up to the sound of the piano again. It was the same melody and the same voice he had heard the day before and for a wild moment John thought he could see a man sitting in a corner of his bedroom and singing away.
He blinked and the impression vanished. Was he going insane?
No, that was impossible.
Why should he go insane, anyway? Madness was for people with overactive imagination and unstable income. He was neither.
He got up, went through his morning routine and left for work.
In the evening he decided to visit one or two clubs. He was just in the mood for a spot of light, mindless entertainment. And he also had this list – quite long – of places he could get in practically for free. The family connections did pay off that way.
The next morning he was woken up not by his elegantly sounding alarm clock, but by a bloody horrible noise. It sounded like a rock band was playing right next to his ear.
John's eyes snapped open and he nearly had a heart attack because there it was: the Band. Three blokes with instruments, one with a microphone and all making fucking awful racket.
He bolted from the bed, sparing a brief thought on how unreliable even the most expensive locks were. He only had time to start wondering if direct confrontation would be a smart thing to do, or if he should call the police straight away, when the Band disappeared. In front of John's disbelieving eyes they just... vanished into thin air.
The sudden silence was still ringing in John's ears as he left the flat, trying to go about his morning as he always did.
He thought he managed it quite well until he saw them again – standing on a pavement, playing and attracting absolutely no attention at all. That was the strangest thing, John thought as he drove past. People just walked by, neatly moving around the four musicians, seemingly unconsciously avoiding bumping into any of them. It was as though the Band were invisible and mute to anyone but John. He didn't know how to feel about that.
When he arrived at the Company, the Band were already there. He could hear them and it was obvious that the music was drifting out of his office. Everyone else was oblivious. Of course, what else could they be?
John opened the door and was hit, full force, by a guitar riff; the wave of sound racing past him and into the open hall, going through people, totally unnoticed as always.
John looked at the Band, aversion understated, but clear on his face. It was damn unfair that he was the only one seeing and hearing them.
He looked closer at the Vocalist. He was sure he'd seen the guy somewhere before. Then it connected; he remembered the bar and the man and their conversation. Or rather John's monologue. For a moment he was embarrassed by the memory, but then the anger got the better of him.
'What the fuck are you doing here?!' he shouted, but got no reply, save a sarcastic half-smile and the lyrics. The Vocalist sang about... about... Their meeting, John finally realised.
And his life.
John's dislike for the Four turned into mild hatred.
'Stop it!' he yelled. 'Stop it or I'll—' he raised his fist, wanting nothing more than to punch the bastard in his stupid face.
'Are you all right, Mr Smith?' John's secretary peeked in.
He whirled around. 'Yes, thank you.'
He didn't have to look to know the Band had disappeared. The silence they left was a dead giveaway.
'Oh,' the secretary seemed unsure. 'I thought you called.'
'No.'
They looked at each other for a moment, then the secretary left, quietly closing the door behind her.
That day a routine was established. The Band would appear whenever they pleased.
At first it unnerved John, but he gradually got used to it. He refused to think that seeing things meant he was losing his mind. He figured if he ignored the Band, everything would be all right and maybe, eventually, things would go back to normal. He didn't allow himself to acknowledge them even when he was in the bathroom, brushing his teeth or taking a shower and they were barely three yards away, playing as usual.
The lyrics got on his nerves too. Maybe even more than the music, but by a sheer force of will, John learned to tolerate them. Not like, mind you. Just tolerate. Barely.
He didn't think the situation would have any advantages, but as it turned out, it did. Sometimes when John needed an outlet for his anger – justified or not – he took it out on the Vocalist. He would push him under a conveniently passing bus if they were out or just simply beat him to a pulp if they were in. He (and the rest of the Band) was only a figment of John's imagination, a product of being overworked perhaps, so what did it matter anyway? Besides, he always seemed none the worse for it; bounced right back from whatever John had inflicted on him, without a scratch.
The other three members of the Band didn't inspire that much malice in him. Or maybe it was only the fact that they were always protected by their instruments.
John's life went on like this for some time. He didn't know for how long, but he knew the situation couldn't last indefinitely. There were times when he wondered what would happen if he somehow killed the Four. Surely then the music would stop and he would no longer see things that had no right to be where they were.
Unnoticed and unchecked John's frustration with the whole thing only grew and one evening, when he was driving around London in an effort to escape those reverberating guitar riffs, it suddenly was too much.
He saw them standing in the middle of a street, for once without the barricade of two guitars and a drum kit. There was enough resenment in John to feel that thinking twice about what he was going to do was unnecessary. And he was simply fed up.
At full speed he ran his car over the Band and the only sound he could hear was bones being crushed. It was... liberating.
John got out of the car and looked at the mess under the wheels. He crouched down and smelt blood – faint and sickly sweet.
Suddenly he heard a female voice scream. He looked up and saw a woman, white as a sheet, a hand covering her mouth, and terrified eyes, darting from the pulp under the car to John's face. She turned around and fled.
He stared after her, some thought slowly rising to the surface.
She saw them! She saw the Band.
He glanced at the ground again; they were still lying there, the pool of their combined blood slowly spreading.
It was real. They were real. John's confused mind latched onto that fact and he felt sick. He'd just killed four people, without hesitation, and even felt a small amount of satisfaction while doing it.
What if that woman was going to tell somebody? He felt a stab of fear.
Damn it!
He repeatedly hit the roof of his car with his fist. Anger, fear and desperation mingling and being only slightly relieved by the impotent gesture.
When he stopped, his knuckles were bleeding. He took out his monogrammed handkerchief and wrapped it around his hand.
He looked around. Saw no one, but surely someone was bound to come eventually.
John started to run, as far away from the place as he could. Finally he didn't even know where he was, but it abruptly ceased to matter as he heard the familiar, terribly familiar, song.
He stared at the seemingly abandoned warehouse the music was coming from. No, it was impossible. It just wasn't possible.
His mind, completely exhausted, gave up and John's feet carried him – almost against his will – to the building and inside.
He was met, of course, by the same, familiar sight.
Was that how madness looked like? If so, it had uneven teeth and an infuriating smirk.