Flickr Fiction
‘I hold your last breath in my hand…’
The music wavers, cuts out and then begins again. The machine tries to catch up with itself, spinning magnetic tape in a frenzy. Finally the fight ends. Machine and tape surrender. The cassette snaps, the machine grinds to a halt.
‘Dammit’
Suzy pulls herself from her pit, leans a silver clad hand across and pulls the ribbons of tape from her broken stereo. She’d had that tape for years. Never bothered to get it on CD, hell, had never SEEN it on CD anywhere. It was a bootleg. Suzy had listened to it so many times she knew every note, every breath, every hiss and crackle.
She slammed her hand on the stereo, angry and pissed off. Inside something went clunk and it made a slight noise, like a sigh or whisper.
The tape was in shreds, it had snapped in a couple of different places, and the stereo -ornery thing that it was- had twisted the free strands into tangles and knots.
Suzy shrieked and threw herself back onto the bed, pulling a pillow over her face and shouting. Anything to block out the silence.
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Inspired by Abandoned by Flickr user Dark Tranquility. Not sure who else is in this week but check out the usual suspects: The Gurrier, Chris, Linus, Tadmack, LittleGoat and Aquafortis.
It’s hard times when you lose your “Best of Ray Stevens” tape.
Comment by Cope — September 30, 2006 @ 7:19 pm
Oh, the drama. Oh, the vicious anger that assails… if only we’d GOTTEN THE CD!!!! Now the effing thing is broken, and it’s OUR OWN FAULT!
Had this happen too many times…
Comment by TadMack — September 30, 2006 @ 10:42 pm
Heh, I remember that feeling…the tape unwinding and tangling into a horrible mess…sigh. It’s always the tapes you copied from somewhere else, too.
Comment by Sarah — October 3, 2006 @ 1:47 am
You just can’t get the same amount of melodrama out of a scratched cd.
Comment by Donal — October 5, 2006 @ 7:28 pm