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Harmonic Dissonance

The final days of an artist

By Vince ColiamPublished 3 years ago 6 min read
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Harmonic Dissonance
Photo by Rachel Coyne on Unsplash

"I'm afraid that your heart is failing."

These words echoed inside Noah's head as he sat on his couch, attempting to cope with the prognosis that ultimately meant that his life was nearly over. His gaze cut right through the television show that he wasn't even watching while he alternated between sipping the beer in his left hand and puffing the cigarette in his right. He always knew that this day would come, in fact he expected that it would have come sooner than it actually did. Noah had never been one to concern himself with his health. He had always lived in the moment, and the moments he lived in were intense.

Memories began to flash through Noah's mind like the strobe lights that often perused the many stages that he had played on throughout the years. Noah was a singer, songwriter, and master lead guitarist. Music was his first love, and he felt fortunate to have spent his life in an intimate embrace with the most elusive of pursuits. It was elusive because no matter how satisfying those magic moments of harmonic greatness were, there was always a craving for the next gig, the next song, the next city. His appetite for it was insatiable. So he was torn between the nostalgia for those epic moments and the satisfaction they brought and the daunting sadness of knowing that the next moment may not ever come for him again.

Oh those were the days, Noah thought. He had been the epitome of rock musicians; he was always ready for that inevitable after-party and the substance abuse and scandalous encounters that came with it. There had been women, so many women, Noah reminisced with a smile. He arose from his couch and went down the hall to his bedroom and opened his closet door. On the floor of his closet was a chest where Noah kept the objects that were precious to him. He opened the chest and reached past a small shoebox that contained various souvenirs from his life to pick up a small black luxury notebook.

Noah opened the notebook and continued to enjoy the relics from his many years on the road that it contained. It was full of pictures from different gigs and the original scribbles of the lyrics to many of his top songs. As he continued to turn through its pages, he stopped on a particular page with a very specific picture. The photo contained a much younger version of himself, a beautiful young woman, and an infant child. It was the family that, although for just a short time, once was.

This picture had been taken during a time when Noah had seemingly retired from the music business. He had left his band to be with this woman that he loved more than he imagined he was even capable of, and the daughter that had become his most sacred joy. This new family had been the most unexpected twist on a journey that Noah had charted when he was still a teenager, a new destination that he had never seen coming.

Six months after leaving the band, Noah found himself working at one conventional job after another. He was willing to do whatever he had to do, for those that he loved. But gradually, pieces of his soul began to die. As much as he tried to live a typical suburban life, he just wasn't made for it. She saw it too. In fact, it was she who insisted that he rejoin the band. He had ceased to be the man she fell in love with; the fire inside him that she had been so attracted to could not survive without the music. For a short time his family joined him on tour, but it didn't take long for them to discover that it was no place to raise a child. And after returning to his life of music and realizing that being without it had been like trying to breathe underwater, Noah knew that there was no way this could work.

He would visit her and the child from time to time and especially when he was in town, but he always knew that it wasn't even close to enough. And saying goodbye was always so hard, on all of them. The conflict inside his heart between the sheer joy of seeing them and the agony of all he had missed out on since last time, created a dissonance in his soul that cried out for its resolution. Those visits began to become fewer and further between, and by the time his daughter was three years old, he had stopped visiting on a regular basis. That was his greatest regret and the inspiration for the rage and pain that filled so many of his hit songs.

Suddenly Noah felt a buzz and realized that he had a notification on his smartphone. It was from his bank to inform him that a deposit of twenty thousand dollars had been made to his account. It was much smaller than the royalty checks he was used to, but considering the decline of his health during that year and the few times that he and his band had played, it was no surprise.

Noah put the notebook down and went to the bank. He took out a cashier's check and had it made out to the order of his daughter, leaving only a small amount of money in the account for basic needs. She was now an adult woman and his only heir. Even though he had never reconciled with her out of the fear that she would reject him, he knew that she was the one that he owed every bit of the proceeds that he had received from the life that kept him away from his responsibility to her. He then returned home and placed the check inside the chest on the floor of his bedroom closet.

It was strange that Noah didn't attempt to get a heart transplant or pursue any course of action that could prolong his life, at least the doctor that had given him the news of his heart failure thought so. It was unusual for a dying man to accept his mortality so quickly without manifesting the typical stages of grief. The soul of an artist is something that isn't always understood by most or even by anyone at all. In fact, it is an infinitely deep sea of emotions that is as intricately woven together as the many layers of harmony that exist each time of group of musicians play. It is as mysterious and unique as the millions of combinations of twelve possible notes that the artist will craft together to create a song.

After placing the check inside his chest, Noah Bard picked up his notebook and began to write his memoirs on a blank page near the back. After he was finished he turned to the previous page. He pondered what he would write on that page and although he wanted to pour his heart into the salutation, he knew that it might not be well received under the circumstances. So he simply wrote:

For Abigail

family
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About the Creator

Vince Coliam

I am a novice writer, songwriter, pianist, and poet. I love all art forms and am so blown away by the talent I've encountered on this platform.

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