Feb 16, 2004 02:06
Bassline note as the sun goes down.
Snap snap snap snap. Car headlights snap on, heartbeat percussion in the veins of the city.
Hold my hand now.
Piano sweep as the streetlights flare on one by one. Clatter of snare as doors bang open. Up on the toms as the human torrent floods out on to the streets.
Hold my hand now. I'm standing right here.
There's a guitar tone, plectrum screaming down the string, as the first of the fires catch in the centre of the city. Then ten, twenty, thirty more, scrubbing the fretboard before collapsing down into a riff as the firebombs pulse into life on a cascade timer.
Please. I'm standing right here. Here on my own.
Guitars in my head, clanging like fire alarms, screaming like sirens.
Here on my own. Take my hand now. This is for you.
Screaming. A high, hammering choral note, like a host of panicked angels. The hi-hat smack of glass exploding from ten thousand windows, the cymbal clash of ten million shards hitting the road.
This is all for you. I wrote this music for you. Please. Take my hand now.
All the things you hated. All the things that made you cry. All the buildings, and all the people. I'm burning it all away. Burning it down, burning it out. I won't let this world hurt you. I won't let it get away with making you cry.
Take my hand now. I did this for you. They're never going to make you cry again.
Please. I wrote this song for you and I'm here on my own and I think I'm going to cry and I need you to take my hand now.
Please. Don't look at me like that.
Hold my hand. Please.
(C) Warren Ellis 2004
(SCREAM TALKING. Fifty short pieces. A complete work, more or less. It's February 16 here in GMT, which means it's officially my birthday. I am 36. It's 2am, I am beyond exhausted, I haven't seen another human being in some forty-eight hours and I would like it very much if someone could kill me now.)