Jo M Thomas
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Ten Inch / Silent Sonata (Flash)

Ten Inch / Silent Sonata (Flash)

Jul 20, 2021

(This is a piece of flash fiction written following a Twitter brainstorming session as part of The Future Fire's ten year celebrations, originally posted at https://www.journeymouse.net/ on 29th August 2015)

I had a love who was a vinyl collector before it was cool. Or after it was cool and before it was cool again. Whatever. Anyway, this love was looking for a particular record, a ten inch called the Silent Sonata - ten minutes on each side of pure silence, recorded in one of those sound proofed rooms where the sound of your own heartbeat drives you mad if you stay in there as long as the recording equipment did. Rumour had it that playing it backwards did something weird.

"Like what?" I asked.

"Dunno," said my old love. "Like something weird."

One day, they come home with a vinyl record in a blank white sleeve, ecstatic at having found it. One night, they didn't come to bed and I never saw them or that bloody record again, although they left everything else and a message scrawled on the wall, "Back in 10", behind.

They didn't come back in ten minutes, or ten days, or ten weeks. At ten months, I'd firmly moved on in both address and in affections. Although I still have all their stuff, boxed in the attic. I could never bring myself to get rid of it all because that would be like admitting they were dead.

Ten years on, I'm not entirely sure why I'm up and typing this story out. My ears are ringing with silence, a pressure as if a tune I can't quite grasp is being played and playing havoc with my heartbeat. I've searched the house for anything left on, clearing up the kids' toys and putting my partner's gadgets away after checking everything was turned off. I even dug out my old love's turntable - it's sat beside me on the desk, not plugged in and with nothing on the deck - because it was the only other device I could think of to check. There's nothing.

Except...

The turntable just started working. I swear it's not plugged in, but the deck is turning on its own.

And...

Didn't I say there was nothing on it?

I must have been wrong. There's a ten inch there, spinning gently, with a blank white label.

Should I... Should I put the needle on it? I mean, it's not hooked up to an amp but--

Oh! There's colour and lights! I didn't realise you could build a hologram into a record. The artwork on this carousel is gorgeous. The colours are hyper real, like that glorious technicolour from the old musicals. The ten little horses are almost cartoonishly real. They look like they've just come out of a fair, their curved necks, the cast-in saddles and bridles. If I squint, I can see names written on their flanks.

That one, that one with "Lillabelle" written on her side, she's going backwards. That can't be possible.

I can't resist trying to touch the hologram, even though I know it isn't real. My finger goes through Lillabelle and I find myself touching the finely ridged vinyl beneath.

Something about the way I did it makes the record turn backwards on the deck. There's a crackle of white noise and I could swear I just heard my name.

I let the record go and listen, in case my partner or one of our children is calling me. I hear nothing but silence.

I touch the record again, right where Lillabelle prances, and push the record backwards. The hologram continues to turn the other way, except for Lillabelle rising and falling over my finger.

"Just keep doing that," I think I hear through the static in a voice that reminds me of someone I haven't seen in a long time. "I'll be there in a minute."

Should I keep going? I mean, I haven't stopped yet but--

"Thanks," says my lost, old love. They look around the study. "You've not done badly since I left."

They wear a suit and bow-tie I don't recognise, that I would have never expected them to wear. They also clutch the string of one of those plastic fairground balloons and an overstuffed teddy bear.

"What?" is the best I can manage.

"Oh, it's just the fair," they breeze. "The way is only open every ten years."

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