The Black Horse
Filed under Flash Fiction • 28-01-2012 •
A story for you…
The Black Horse
By Gareth L PowellI’m standing outside a country pub at nine o’clock at night, holding a guitar case. In either direction, the road vanishes into the darkness. The wind smells earthy and damp. Inside, in the warm, I can hear Bill and Connie arguing. They’re going through a bad patch and life in the van’s become edgy and uncomfortable.
Bill’s the keyboard player and Connie’s the singer. We schlep around, from pub to pub, hall to hall, playing our music. A little blues, a little folk. As long as they pay us, we’ll play whatever they want. Some nights we attract a good crowd. Some nights nobody shows up. And some nights, like tonight, the van breaks down in the middle of nowhere.
“You’re fucking useless,” Connie shouts. I hear a glass smash. Bill curses. He’s been drinking since lunch, on and off.
“It’s not my fault,” he says.
She laughs and it’s an ugly, scornful sound.
On the other side of the valley, I can see headlights moving on the motorway, where it cuts through a gap in the hills. It’s a cold spring night. The stars overhead are hard and sharp and there’s mist hanging over the river.
And right there, in the middle of nowhere, it hits me. A cold certainty crawls up my legs and into my heart. I know we’ll never be famous. We aren’t going to make it. In fact, I’ll be lucky if Bill and Connie don’t kill each other.
And so I walk out. I drop my guitar case in the middle of the road and walk off. Away from the warmth of the pub, the fields on either side are dark and imposing. They’re so dark I can hardly breathe. But the clouds ahead are orange with the reflected lights of a provincial town, and the promise of something new on the wind.
I put one foot in front of the other.
I’m done with music.
