"The Day the Music Died" - canon ficlet
Fic content and rating:
Brokeback movie canon ficlet, 700 words, no warnings but angsty, rated G.
Synopsis: What happened to Jack's harmonica?
Disclaimer: Jack, Ennis and Brokeback Mountain belong to Annie Proulx, Diana Ossana, Larry McMurtry and Focus Features. I intend no disrespect and make no profit.
The Day the Music Died
After an hour’s worth of driving, Jack pulled over on the empty road, got out to stretch his legs and to curse the uncaring sky, and knew for a fact that he felt about as bad as he ever had. Punching the side of the truck bed and furiously kicking some stray rocks off the road made no difference to that.
Seeking some meager measure of comfort he reached into the back of the truck, grabbing his sack with personal belongings. He needed assurance that the shirt was safe, that he still had in his possession something that was tangibly, uniquely Ennis, the worn fabric carrying the smell of blood and smoke and sweaty blond curls, rare smiles and brown-sugar eyes melting in the firelight.
The bag clanked noisily as it grazed the dented door. Reaching inside he pulled out not the stolen bloodied shirt, but his harmonica. He stared at it with a bitter grimace.
Easy banter, grins, joking around. Kissing. Affectionate glances. Nothing could pull a tender and relaxed Ennis out from behind the shy and closed-off face he always wore as much as the noises Jack valiantly kept coaxing from this humble instrument, doing his darnedest to harness it into producing actual music.
The halting music of pitch-perfect sweet summer bliss.
“Didn’t sound right”, Ennis had scoffed at him humorously - but seeing the wonders it continued to work, Jack had secretly thought it sounded like heaven.
That mood had been crushed by Ennis, one dirty punch silencing their song as quickly as a lightning strike kills a sheep. It was all of it abruptly over and done with; the easy camaraderie and euphoric joy of floating on air, soaring above the ordinary world like two joyful tunes on the breeze.
And if any uncertain strain of music remained, a small struggling sigh of life following them from the mountain, it had been strangled in Signal as Jack watched an unyielding Ennis disappearing in the distance.
Jack looked at the harmonica, dull fool’s silver in his hand, cheap and dented and good for nothing. Only outside of ordinary life could its squawks herald moments of joy and love and laughter. Only in dreamland could they seem to him as clear as the beautiful ringing of bells.
This sorry thing sure wouldn’t soothe that skittish friend of his no more.
He couldn’t imagine what good it could do him now. Back down on earth it was nothing but a hollow shell emitting painful noise to harm everyone’s ears and cause them headaches.
Tightening his fist around the harmonica convulsively he felt a surge of angry hurt and helpless protest rise from deep within, exploding outwards into movement. He hurled the damn toy as far away as he could with a shout. A good riddance to the useless broken thing!
He hurriedly turned back to his truck to get himself away from there, driving northwards across the wide nowhere plains. He had a long way to go still, and little enough to look forward to at the end of his journey.
And if there were any regrets over his rash improvident act there by the roadside, well - he hardly could feel worse than he already did, anyhow.
The squashed harmonica remained where it landed, nestled in weeds, dirt and dry grasses. A discarded summer souvenir, left to decay and to rust, once lost never retrieved. The wailing wind soon enough buried it in sand and grit. Its last silver glint dulled and disappeared with the first storm passing over. No soft lips would ever call forth another note from it now. The innocent, uncomplicated mountain melodies, as happy and honest as they were off-key, would not be heard again.
And that could have been the end of it.
But no.
On quiet evenings, when dusk merged with night and the world grew silent and pensive, when people turned to their beds after tired days of toil, the long-ago echoes of the broken harmonica’s untroubled music could still be discerned. Lingering in the air, longingly calling across the many lonely miles, reaching the sensitive ears and the hearts of two men who lived far apart - but could never forget.