This is my take on the Somebody of a certain musically oriented Nobody. I present to you, the reader,free licence to critique and comment on this story: Sunset Boulevard, inspired by the song, Sunset Boulevard, from Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Sunset Boulevard, which takes place on California's very own Sunset Blvd.
I would like to own the musical, the quote from the song below, and/or the Nobodies of Organization XIII. But I don't, so I'll just write about them.
Sunset Bouelvard, frenzied boulevard, swamped with every kind of false emotion. Sunset Boulevard, brutal boulevard, just like you we'll wind up in the ocean...
Sunset Boulevard
Even in the calmest weather, the streets are slick with water from past downpours. He takes soft steps down the nameless roads, he has been walking for hours in a complete circle and means to do just that for a few hours more. All the while, he is thinking, he is reaching far down, deep into the useless abyss where emotion once was. He tries to make the cold world morph into things he can understand: he likens his footsteps to drumbeats, he lets the harsh wind-whistle by his ear become a melancholy flute, the faint grating and groaning of the empty city turns into his cacophonous string ensemble. He has vainly sought a street lamp for his spotlight, he has searched for the unwary passer-by to be his audience. He has forgotten how to perform for himself; the strings on his instrument will hum to life, his mouth will open in breath-taking song, his body will writhe and bend in the power and passion of dance, if there is someone there to behold it. If, and only if, there is someone there to marvel at him.
He impresses them, inspires them, and he is not arrogant in thinking so. He will, with great enthusiasm and no honesty, tell them that he can tap into those sacred reserves of thought beyond logic, that hidden mystery of joy, sorrow, rage, love, hate. Heart. They look the other way, they allow themselves the illusion of bittersweet envy, for they only wished that they had his music. But in the cruel reality, he wishes he had his music.
Once upon a dream of nostalgia, he was a real musician. He was gifted, bright-eyed, hopeful, and sang when nobody and everybody was listening. He had himself, he had his music, he had dreams of revolution. Poetry spoke to him, nature's grace moved him, and he could compose everything his heart had to offer him. There was no mystery, no X variable in his life, just the innocuous desire to create, understand, and love.
Curiously, he had forgotten that he had started out that way.
People saw him play and they liked it. They filled his head with dreams of success, they gave him hope, money, and a train ticket to the Big City for him to make a name for himself. People saw him there and he was one of a million. But he was young, patient, and far too naive; he rented a shabby room, served tables, worked bars, played street corners, and waited. He auditioned and was rejected. He auditioned again and was rejected. This went on for an entire year before he finally let his smile fall and he worried.
It was raining and he was on the street corner again, this time with all his possessions, this time without hope. He played his despair, he played his agony and bitterness, he played the darkness that he had never allowed himself to play before.
A block away, there was a woman with raven tresses in a red evening dress, covered in diamonds and kept dry in her sleek luxury car. She saw the broken and dreadful figure there, she heard the fear in his trembling notes, and she smiled. She told the driver to pull up next to the boy, and when the musician saw her he did not recognize the demon lurking behind the kind face.
He played for her at her ritzy home placed on a gold-paved boulevard, and she got him a job.
"From the goodness of my heart." She lied.
He played wherever she told him to: from opening acts in hallowed halls to weekend nights in small cafe. People loved him, they adored him, he was fresh and new and handsome, and he became a celebrity in short order, with his sweet appeal and her shady closed-door dealing. Halls of thousands applauded for him, and he at first could not believe that sound of approval was for him. The masses liked him. He had a place in their hearts and on their billboards. He was a star.
And he was paid well, he had a nicer apartment, but he was incredibly unhappy. Somewhere along the line, he lost his ability to compose. He played the songs from his earlier years, because they had been memorized by his fingers, but he didn't know what to do about new material. The woman sneered at him and told him to stop fretting over writer's block.
But he was fretting, because he knew that there was no chance he could succeed without new songs. He and his raven-haired manager got into arguments, she threatened to take away his job and he groveled on his knees for her to reconsider. She smiled. She knew his weakness. He worked long hours, smiled and laughed when he didn't want to, he fell to the floor and kissed hundreds of boots, until he almost forgot he was a musician. He stopped practicing in his room, he stopped writing to his friends far away, he just pushed himself to fit his mold and prayed he could find both a way out and a way deeper in.
When they went around town together, all the 'gentlemen' elbowed and winked and guffawed about how lucky he was to have a dame like her wrapped on his arm when he was really wrapped around hers.
He did what his manager wanted, and what his agent wanted, and what his producer wanted, what his producer's wife wanted, whatever any highbrow gent or cocktail party slut wanted, and forgot to do what he had set out to do. He forgot about music, instead he allowed himself to be shuffled from concert to concert. He despised the performance and basked in the applause. The monotonous clash of hand against hand, the whistling and high pitched shriek of enjoyment, this was the only music left for him.
At the end of the day he was tired, at the start of the day he was tired. He longed for a stressless release. One morning, he got into his car and told the driver to take him to the beach. Endless, eternal ocean stretched out farther than his arms could reach, waves crashed harmoniously with the gently swirling sand, tossed freely and playfully by the sea breeze. The sun was reaching over the distant horizon, painting the world with beautiful strokes of crimson fiery beauty. He looked out and saw nothing. He mused over the idea of taking off his jacket and diving into the water, to feel the rush of cold and the glorious warmth of the ocean...but he stopped himself. He remembered how expensive his jacket, his diamond watch, his shoes, his suit, his ring were. He turned around and demanded to go back to his manager's home.
That afternoon he had a fight with his manager. She had said that he was getting old, less people were coming to see him, he didn't have anymore good songs left in him.
He was nobody, that's what he was.
Even though it was the truth, he had to refuse it. He had to take this last concert, and show them that he was somebody. He deserved to live, he deserved to sing, he deserved to be the center of attention.
"Really now?" She had snapped.
She was heartless, that's what she was.
It happened when he was in his dressing room, when he looked into one of many reflective surfaces and found he couldn't recognize himself. He wondered when his life had gone from music to social climbing and dirty dealings with every whore that promised him something. He wondered why the ocean was so unimpressive and small now.
He walked down the hallway, and saw no people, only an all-consuming darkness. He walked into that void, feeling that he was back on the street-corner, penniless, heartbroken, worthless, and he said to the darkness,
"I'll give up anything to stay here. I like my things, my home, my money, my fame. I've given the world my dreams, my hope, my body, and my soul! What more do you want from me?!"
A pair of yellow eyes gleamed from the emptiness.
YOUR HEART.
He plays when he is sure someone will hear him, he sings when he knows he will be applauded. He walks the empty roads slick with rain as a maelstrom of clouds brews in the ominous sky. He plays the hollow melodies that drove him there, he sings the songs made and shaped from despair, and they all think he is the one closest to finding what he has lost. They call him a musician, they think he is innocent, kind, and without guile, that music and water love him, and that he is close to loving them back. But his instrument is his heavy cross to bear, and the rain relentlessly pounds down on him, he knows he couldn't love either if he tried.
He searches in vain for his limelight. For someone who will say, "Yes, you are important."
He forgot how to tell himself that.