A.C. KOCH — An Unforgetting

Flash Fiction by A.C. Koch

An Unforgetting 

A simple chord progression. A trumpet figure, glittering above a guitar’s strum. A summer evening by the river. A snatch of melody, silver with harmony. A drunken midnight stumble for the last train, watching the métro pull away from the platform even as our footfalls echo in the station’s vault. A bench against the tile wall. A shared cigarette. A new song, this one improvised, echoing, reverberating. A half-full bottle of wine, disappearing by swigs. A head laid on a shoulder. A murmur of sleep. A cricket singing in a dark tunnel. A tattered dream. A hand on a leg. A hand moving up. A caress. A growing urge. An unzipping. A feigned sleep and a throbbing awakening. A gentle touch, a tight grip. An insistence. A rhythm, a repetition, a gathering of waves, a surging. A rush. An arrival. A moan that reverberates. A river of sparks. 

A heaving of breath. An unexpected kiss, a sprinkling of whiskers. A sticky shirt, knuckles laced. A mouthful of wine, a cat’s bath licking the hand clean. A head returning to a shoulder. A deeper sleep, warm and safe. A bleat of a watchman’s whistle, a startling, a gathering of guitar and horn and wine and a laughing, hooting escape, a storm of footfalls down the platform, into the passages, up the stairs to the night city. A return to the world. A shared look. A pair of punched shoulders, a taking of leave. A glance back. Another glance back. An hour later, an exhausted collapse, across the city, onto the covers at last, spent as much as one can possibly spend. 

A solstice. A season, and another. A distance. A year. A river of years. A shoebox of letters, a stacking of emails. A memory never spoken of. An unforgetting.  

A marriage, a career. A life. A corset of plans and routines, a comfort in habit. A weekend alone in the house. A bottle of wine and a freshly tuned guitar. A remembered song. A reverberation, still going. A phone app to record the tune. A computer app to layer effects and reverb and compression. A trumpet figure played on keyboard and converted into an approximation of the sound of a horn. A mixing, a bouncing, a conversion. A playlist of one song, repeated. A darkened family room, an old sofa, a pair of earbuds, a quickening of anticipation. A cricket singing in a dark basement. A pressing of play. A stretch of imagination, a vaulted tunnel, a reverberation. A pulsing of blood. A becoming of rock. A gathering of waves, a surging, a rush. An arrival. 

A shiver, a ghost’s kiss. A return to the world. A lace of threads over knuckles. A cat’s bath. A head nestling a cushion even as the snatch of melody plays on. A simple chord progression. A trumpet figure, glittering above a guitar’s strum.  

The Music 

The lonesome walk through the unknown neighborhood at twilight, looking for a place to sleep. The sun setting behind the trees, beyond the city. The summer night. The thump of a house party down the street, couples in their smart clothes going down the sidewalk, mounting the porch, slipping inside. The gravity of humans after so long apart. The smile that blooms with a spark of courage. The solitary approach, joining the stream of laughing, blurring people. The passage inside, uninvited. The warmth of the room, the burr of voices. The thump of Motown. The wine glasses on end tables, bookshelves, the beer bottles in fists, the beards and brows, the long necks of women, bare shoulders, glittering laughter, the hands of men clapping backs, circling waists. The buttery warmth of baking brie and garlic. The commandeering of a pinot noir. The homeowner casting a watchful eye, the unspoken question: Do you belong? 

The lyrics to “What’s Going On?” The echoing stir in the throat. The wandering from room to room where people gather and flow and intersect. The parting of bodies that reveals the vast and obsidian flank of a grand piano. The archipelago of wine glasses and cocktail tumblers on the glossy top. The vacant bench. The open lid exposing the keys. The single note, struck with a single finger. The tonic that pins the center of the melody. 

The eye that flicks this way. The soft arpeggio that stairsteps up the melody’s shape, then back down again. The eyes that flick and catch, watching. The shoulders re-orienting as first one arpeggio and then another unfurls beneath awakening fingers, soft thunder from the left hand, clusters of bass notes that underpin. The prodding of the melody, and then the deluge. The unleashing of hands across the landscape of ivory. The riverbed of the song’s melody, filled at once with a flash flood. The light and power. The drowning out of the stereo, the hushing of the room, the re-centering of gravity. The words sung aloud–“Mother, mother“–first by one and soon by others, the joining of many voices. The song extending itself, the stereo silenced, the swaying of couples, the pressing of bodies, the shining faces turned up to catch the light, the hands twisting and turning and writing semaphores of deliverance and contentment and togetherness in the air. The slowing down and the rounding out of the song. The final note, landing like a knuckle rap from a velvet glove on an anvil. The holy silence, and then the outburst of joy. The hooting and the wonder and the release. The cramped hands at the keyboard, the smile of exertion well spent. The chants for more, the offers of drinks, the glimmering eyes of women. The belonging.   

The opening bars of “My Baby Just Cares for Me,” the melody tucked inside the right hand’s climb up the keys. The radiance of friends. The promise of the evening. The question: Who are you? The answer: I’m the music.  

A.C. Koch is a teacher, writer and musician whose work has been published in Analog, December, Meridian, Split/Lip, Five South and forthcoming in Fantasy & Science Fiction. After some years living and working overseas (France, South Korea, Mexico), Koch resides in Denver, Colorado, working with language learners while studying at the Mile High MFA program at Regis University.

Flash Boulevard is edited by Francine Witte. Banner photograph Wes Candela.