witb soundtrack project: 6.04 'the dead land'
So, this is new.
Because I am obsessed with this show, I've decided to try my hand at making soundtrack fanmixes for my favourite episodes. (Actually, maybe all of them. We'll see.)
This is my first attempt. It's a double mix, or two mixes, whichever you wish, of ten tracks each. One mix for Alex's perspective, one for Tony's.
Plus, there's fic. Eighteen little sniplets of fic, to accompany each song/moment from the episode (and two bits of dialogue). It's all pretty fricking epic and time-consuming really, but hey, I'm in love. What can I say?
Wire In The Blood Soundtrack Project
6.04 'The Dead Land'
Dancing Dirt Into The Snow / Alex
I Could Break Your Heart Any Day Of The Week / Mandy Moore
those calendar girls ain’t got nothing on me
i could break your heart any day of the week
She caves in at midday, and calls her niece for advice.
“Don’t dress too sexy, Aunt Alex.”
She realises, as Chloe elaborates, that this sort of genius simply wouldn’t have occurred to her.
“There’s no point going all out. This is Dr Hill we’re talking about it. He won’t get it.”
She doesn’t bother reminding Chloe that she’s never met Tony, and that her niece has only formed her opinion from her own second-hand obsessing and from reading his books, but still, she’s right.
“Just… go a bit subtle. Don’t scare him off.”
She rolls her eyes at the empty room around her, and Chloe, down the line, catches her telltale scoff.
“I don’t mean like that, Aunt Alex. I just mean… he’s sensitive. You can’t just… overwhelm him with your tried and tested class-A seduction technique.”
Chloe dissolves into laughter, and Alex curses herself for calling in the first place.
“Just go with it. Relax. Be cool. You’re amazing, Aunt Alex. Tony knows that. Just… let it happen.”
Marlene On The Wall / Suzanne Vega
all the evidence has shown
that you and i are still alone
we skirt around the danger zone
and don’t talk about it later
It occurs to her, on the drive home, that it might be a hopeless cause.
He just doesn’t get it, even though she’d spent hours choosing her dress and buying new underwear and lipstick and spritzing every inch of her skin with Chanel.
He doesn’t get it, because his brain gets so caught up on the detail, and although this is one of six thousand things she loves about him, it's still frustrating as hell.
She thinks about calling him, later, when she is curled in bed and he is still in her thoughts, but her mind fails to conjure the words to explain, even though over the phone would of course be easier.
She wonders, as sleep reaches out for her, how long she’s going to be waiting.
32 Flavors / Ani Di Franco
squint your eyes and look closer
Her fingers are crossed in her jacket pocket, but he isn’t to know.
It’s taken her an hour to drum up the courage, but she’s good at keeping her feelings secret.
A quip, a gentle tease seems a good preface, not to let his head get too inflated, and he responds in his usual charming way, turning the other cheek and gazingly loftily away.
She should’ve known he wouldn’t get it straight away.
Come on, Tony. Catch on, please, she thinks, wincing against the awkwardness of it all.
When he draws in a swift, steeling breath, and suggests Japanese again, the relief floods over her, chased instantly by furious, deliciously violent joy.
Confidence soars along her blood as the phone begins to ring. Nothing can stop her now.
Play Dead / Bjork
i play dead
it stops the hurting
“Another body?”
He can’t know, can’t have anticipated just how very wrong his words would be, and she barely hears him anyway, through the chaos in her head.
The remembered words of an argument, one last fight, and the perpetual, emerald-green disappointment in her mother’s voice rings in her ears, as Tony stares hard at her, silent, waiting.
“My mum just passed away.”
God / Tori Amos
God sometimes you just don’t come through
“Do you ever wonder, Tony, what it’s all about?”
These Days / Kasey Chambers
this life
well it’s slipping right through my hands
these days
turned out nothing like i had planned
Gabriel arrives at midday.
He has the decency at least to look nervous, and she has to argue Jago back, his hands already wrenched into quaking fists at his sides.
She walks to him, across the crunching gravel and the grass stiff and crackling with frost, and there are tears in his eyes and flowers in his hands.
“I’m sorry, Lex.”
Her eyes close against the familiarity, against the smell of him and the grief, new and old, twining around her insides like ribbon.
After a while she sends him away, and carries the flowers back into the house to set them in water, to see out their days with greater permanence than the dreams she used to share, with him.
Dancing Dirt Into The Snow / Missy Higgins
alone you find yourself just hanging
and to fill the hole you cling to all that seems
to hide the little girl that’s crying
underneath the rage you let others see
She snaps at her father, who bears it with bowed head, and brushes off her niece with callousness her hands hadn’t intended.
The ceaseless niceties, the condolences, and from across the room Father Jacob’s suspicious eyes send her reeling, and suddenly the air closes in and blackness threatens to overwhelmed her, tinged at its edges with red.
She can’t explain to her brother where the anger has come from, when he asks, with bright eyes and a twisted mouth. Jago is too perfect; strong yet visibly grieving, stricken but stoic, unafraid of emotion, of anything.
He doesn’t understand, and she knows now that there is only one person who would, who could, and he is a hundred miles away.
Jago waits, patient as ever, steady against her shoulder, until the anger goes and the tears come in its place.
Devotion / Indigo Girls
as one day moves into two and i’m losing
everything except for you
i would sing you a song of devotion
if that’s what i should do
Aunt Rosemary’s thin arm encircles her shoulders, and Chloe’s eyes are heavy like stone on her face, but she can’t seem to make her brain think of family.
Jago takes charge, and for this she loves him, more than ever, and finally, after so long, she is left alone, to think.
Grief clouds her, blocking the light from illuminating her thoughts, but he is there, as always, lingering at the edges with quiet, knowing eyes. It is inevitable, now, that she should think of him, and that she should want for nothing more. For such a slow, steady revelation, the understanding still leaves her breathless.
Draw Your Swords / Angus & Julia Stone
come on love
draw your swords
shoot me to the ground
you are mine
i am yours
let’s not fuck around
It’s the first time she doesn’t care how pleading her voice sounds.
He asks for directions, and times, and tells her he’ll be there, of course he will, and because he is good and kind and because he so terrifyingly perfect he says nothing, when her voice catches and a sob chokes her.
He murmurs, says her name, promises everything will be okay, and waits, on the other side of the line, for her to catch her breath.
When she speaks again, he listens, and when she tells him goodbye, the pause before his words rings like a bell.
“I’ll be there, Alex. For you. Where else would I be?”
Valium / Lisa Mitchell
sometimes your love it’s so pretty i just wanna sink in
and sometimes your heart, oh it’s so pretty i just wanna live there
i wish i could bottle it up
and breathe it back like valium
He is emanating warmth against the cold air, and she feels herself swaying, pulled inexorably to him while two dozen grieving relatives linger, silently demanding her attention.
He’s smiling, and it’s such a welcome relief, amidst the tears and white handkerchiefs like surrender beneath the grey of the sky.
When he says the word, when he tells her in one quick, monumental word that it is not over, not nearly over and barely even begun, it is too much. She manages a nod, one final look into his eyes, and turns away, back to her family, certain now that when she does finally return, he will be there.
download dancing dirt into the snow
Deep Talk In The Shallow End / Tony
Crazy Beautiful / Hanson
all i need is you
to tell me what to do
you drive me crazy
‘cause you’re crazy beautiful
There’s something different about her; even through the rushing about and worry over the inquiry, something registers, in the crowded back of his brain.
She’s smiling.
Smiling, grinning, beaming up at him from where she is perched, and she looks transformed.
His eyes skate over her, completely of their own inappropriate accord, but she doesn’t scowl, or snap, or even seem to notice; she only smiles some more and asks him about the inquiry, before her face - her unquestionably beautiful face - takes on the familiar guise of attentiveness, and concern.
They talk, and for some reason his mouth is disconnected from his frontal lobe, it seems, because he says something incoherent about her lipstick, but it is only because his eyes won’t seem to wrench away from her mouth, and because her perfume has coiled in his brain like a serpent waiting to strike, and rationality is long since gone.
Her smile disappears, like a light going out. Expletives roll around in his head, but nothing makes its way out of his stupid, stupid mouth.
A horribly cool silence descends, and in his mind, confusion reigns.
Undo / Guy Sebastian
sometimes i wonder
what it would be like
if i could go back in time
“Idiot! She was wearing lipstick, she looked really nice. She looked really nice.”
Friday I’m In Love / The Cure
Monday you could fall apart
Tuesday, Wednesday break my heart
Thursday doesn’t even start
it’s Friday, i’m in love
“See? You can do it.”
He can’t help himself, can’t muster a wick of self-discipline to stop himself from grinning like an idiot, but at least there is the phone to distract her. He half-listens, realises briefly that the sound of her saying her own name is something he loves, and then his mind breaks loose and wanders down city streets, conjuring her tucked close by his side, her arm entwined with his, her face tilted up and smiling, at him.
Tonight.
It feels all too unreal, but it isn’t, because she just asked him, or made him ask her, either way, and it’s happening, for real, tonight.
No more screwing up, he vows. No holding back, no fear. Over and over in his head like a mantra, willing himself on.
Private Universe / Crowded House
no time, no place to talk about the weather
the promise of love is hard to ignore
There are small things, tiny little things which he expects no-one else would notice, and which give her away, always.
The set of her jaw. The sweep of her eyes across the floor, their sudden shyness. The rough edge in her voice, when she says he won’t even notice she’s gone.
Something contorts inside him at the words, and the desire to scream his protest is choking, but she’s leaving, disappearing like vapour, and he wonders if it’s his fault. Such undeserved happiness can only be followed by tragedy, surely, inevitably, in the manuscript of his life.
He leads the way to the door, holds it open for her to pass him by. The force of her grief hits him like a blow, and it hurts.
Umbrella / Boyce Avenue
now that it’s raining more than ever
know that we’ll still have each other
you can stand under my umbrella
“You need to talk. You know my number.”
It isn’t enough, not hardly enough, and even as he watches the straight line of her back as she walks away he knows. There’s nothing more to be done, just work the case, and wait, and so he retreats back into her newly abandoned kingdom, and stares blindly at the whiteboard. Waiting.
He thinks to ask Kevin if he should’ve offered to go with her, but Kevin is in charge for the time being at least, and has already been squired away upstairs, and Paula is staring at her monitor, eyes fixed and shoulders hunched.
There’s no-one to talk to, no-one to reassure him, and it takes him a while to realise it’s because she is gone.
Raining In Baltimore / Counting Crows
where you should be
no-one’s around
i need a phone call
The tea Kevin brews is too weak. The constant shifting of his feet is too restless, the sound of his breathing too loud, and after barely an hour Tony retreats to the bedroom, and sits on the edge of his bed, waiting.
The phone is too silent.
He could call her, but the last thing he wants is to drag her away from her family. He could tell her what’s been going on, ask her opinion about the case, ask her about her father, her brother, but he shouldn’t intrude.
He waits, with his fingers crossed in his lap, but she doesn’t call.
It takes him a long while, to recognise the loneliness for what it is.
Deep Talk In The Shallow End / Ben Lee
you’re not here and i’m not strong
and this whole thing’s gone on too long
Sleep is evasive, and in its place creeps in a slow-burning anger, inexplicable in its origin and fury.
He damns her, in his mind, over and over. He curses her name, her face, the sound of her voice, again and again, until tears force their way down his face, and smear on his hands.
Missing her is too much to bear. Fearing for her carves a whole in his chest, and wanting her makes his breath shallow and useless.
He thinks about regret, about the things which have unfolded to bring him here, now, without her. He says her name to the silent room, and wonders if the hurt would be worse if they’d never met.
Passing Afternoon / Iron & Wine
and she’s chosen to believe
in the hymns her mother sings
The priest has broad shoulders. A wide, strong back and steady arms, and from across the span of pews he watches as Alex listens, condolence raining down upon her. He’s too far away; he isn’t a part of this, of her family, her life, and it hurts like sickness to feel so out of place.
He watches her, as a hymnal swell rises like sea around the assembled. He wonders if she can feel it, where his eyes lay on her.
Foreign Land / Eskimo Joe
dying in a foreign land
so do you understand me?
do you understand?
do you understand?
if this is what it feels to love
then i can feel that
Consciousness seeps between his eyelids like dirty water. The first perception is movement, the second is cold, the third a sick chemical smell, and it is the olfactory which brings his memory back.
Michael. He must have been at the funeral, somewhere nearby, watching. The thought turns Tony’s stomach sour.
With a sudden lurch, everything goes still, then blinding light pours in. Through the particles of drifting dust he sees Michael’s face, and it is alight with anticipation.
Blood rushes noisily around in his head. He reaches for his tie, unravels it, winds it around his hands. He’s already died, already been brought back to life, and he will not allow it to happen again.
He remembers Alex, white-faced and sodden, heaving great shaking sobs on his bathroom floor. Not again.
Resolve hardens, and readies his hands for the fight.
Are You The One That I’ve Been Waiting For / Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
are you my destiny
is this how you’ll appear
wrapped in a coat
with the tears in your eyes
well, take that coat babe
and throw it on the floor
are you the one
that i’ve been waiting for?
When Paula rushes at him with stricken face and hot tea, he says nothing.
When Hall questions him, over and over, nothing comes out.
When the ACC scowls darkly over the rim of his glasses, he doesn’t bother trying to speak.
When Kevin asks him what he wants, the only word his mouth can form is her name.
Kevin smiles, pats his shoulder with a heavy hand, and nods.
download deep talk in the shallow end
Because I am obsessed with this show, I've decided to try my hand at making soundtrack fanmixes for my favourite episodes. (Actually, maybe all of them. We'll see.)
This is my first attempt. It's a double mix, or two mixes, whichever you wish, of ten tracks each. One mix for Alex's perspective, one for Tony's.
Plus, there's fic. Eighteen little sniplets of fic, to accompany each song/moment from the episode (and two bits of dialogue). It's all pretty fricking epic and time-consuming really, but hey, I'm in love. What can I say?
Wire In The Blood Soundtrack Project
6.04 'The Dead Land'
Dancing Dirt Into The Snow / Alex
I Could Break Your Heart Any Day Of The Week / Mandy Moore
those calendar girls ain’t got nothing on me
i could break your heart any day of the week
She caves in at midday, and calls her niece for advice.
“Don’t dress too sexy, Aunt Alex.”
She realises, as Chloe elaborates, that this sort of genius simply wouldn’t have occurred to her.
“There’s no point going all out. This is Dr Hill we’re talking about it. He won’t get it.”
She doesn’t bother reminding Chloe that she’s never met Tony, and that her niece has only formed her opinion from her own second-hand obsessing and from reading his books, but still, she’s right.
“Just… go a bit subtle. Don’t scare him off.”
She rolls her eyes at the empty room around her, and Chloe, down the line, catches her telltale scoff.
“I don’t mean like that, Aunt Alex. I just mean… he’s sensitive. You can’t just… overwhelm him with your tried and tested class-A seduction technique.”
Chloe dissolves into laughter, and Alex curses herself for calling in the first place.
“Just go with it. Relax. Be cool. You’re amazing, Aunt Alex. Tony knows that. Just… let it happen.”
Marlene On The Wall / Suzanne Vega
all the evidence has shown
that you and i are still alone
we skirt around the danger zone
and don’t talk about it later
It occurs to her, on the drive home, that it might be a hopeless cause.
He just doesn’t get it, even though she’d spent hours choosing her dress and buying new underwear and lipstick and spritzing every inch of her skin with Chanel.
He doesn’t get it, because his brain gets so caught up on the detail, and although this is one of six thousand things she loves about him, it's still frustrating as hell.
She thinks about calling him, later, when she is curled in bed and he is still in her thoughts, but her mind fails to conjure the words to explain, even though over the phone would of course be easier.
She wonders, as sleep reaches out for her, how long she’s going to be waiting.
32 Flavors / Ani Di Franco
squint your eyes and look closer
Her fingers are crossed in her jacket pocket, but he isn’t to know.
It’s taken her an hour to drum up the courage, but she’s good at keeping her feelings secret.
A quip, a gentle tease seems a good preface, not to let his head get too inflated, and he responds in his usual charming way, turning the other cheek and gazingly loftily away.
She should’ve known he wouldn’t get it straight away.
Come on, Tony. Catch on, please, she thinks, wincing against the awkwardness of it all.
When he draws in a swift, steeling breath, and suggests Japanese again, the relief floods over her, chased instantly by furious, deliciously violent joy.
Confidence soars along her blood as the phone begins to ring. Nothing can stop her now.
Play Dead / Bjork
i play dead
it stops the hurting
“Another body?”
He can’t know, can’t have anticipated just how very wrong his words would be, and she barely hears him anyway, through the chaos in her head.
The remembered words of an argument, one last fight, and the perpetual, emerald-green disappointment in her mother’s voice rings in her ears, as Tony stares hard at her, silent, waiting.
“My mum just passed away.”
God / Tori Amos
God sometimes you just don’t come through
“Do you ever wonder, Tony, what it’s all about?”
These Days / Kasey Chambers
this life
well it’s slipping right through my hands
these days
turned out nothing like i had planned
Gabriel arrives at midday.
He has the decency at least to look nervous, and she has to argue Jago back, his hands already wrenched into quaking fists at his sides.
She walks to him, across the crunching gravel and the grass stiff and crackling with frost, and there are tears in his eyes and flowers in his hands.
“I’m sorry, Lex.”
Her eyes close against the familiarity, against the smell of him and the grief, new and old, twining around her insides like ribbon.
After a while she sends him away, and carries the flowers back into the house to set them in water, to see out their days with greater permanence than the dreams she used to share, with him.
Dancing Dirt Into The Snow / Missy Higgins
alone you find yourself just hanging
and to fill the hole you cling to all that seems
to hide the little girl that’s crying
underneath the rage you let others see
She snaps at her father, who bears it with bowed head, and brushes off her niece with callousness her hands hadn’t intended.
The ceaseless niceties, the condolences, and from across the room Father Jacob’s suspicious eyes send her reeling, and suddenly the air closes in and blackness threatens to overwhelmed her, tinged at its edges with red.
She can’t explain to her brother where the anger has come from, when he asks, with bright eyes and a twisted mouth. Jago is too perfect; strong yet visibly grieving, stricken but stoic, unafraid of emotion, of anything.
He doesn’t understand, and she knows now that there is only one person who would, who could, and he is a hundred miles away.
Jago waits, patient as ever, steady against her shoulder, until the anger goes and the tears come in its place.
Devotion / Indigo Girls
as one day moves into two and i’m losing
everything except for you
i would sing you a song of devotion
if that’s what i should do
Aunt Rosemary’s thin arm encircles her shoulders, and Chloe’s eyes are heavy like stone on her face, but she can’t seem to make her brain think of family.
Jago takes charge, and for this she loves him, more than ever, and finally, after so long, she is left alone, to think.
Grief clouds her, blocking the light from illuminating her thoughts, but he is there, as always, lingering at the edges with quiet, knowing eyes. It is inevitable, now, that she should think of him, and that she should want for nothing more. For such a slow, steady revelation, the understanding still leaves her breathless.
Draw Your Swords / Angus & Julia Stone
come on love
draw your swords
shoot me to the ground
you are mine
i am yours
let’s not fuck around
It’s the first time she doesn’t care how pleading her voice sounds.
He asks for directions, and times, and tells her he’ll be there, of course he will, and because he is good and kind and because he so terrifyingly perfect he says nothing, when her voice catches and a sob chokes her.
He murmurs, says her name, promises everything will be okay, and waits, on the other side of the line, for her to catch her breath.
When she speaks again, he listens, and when she tells him goodbye, the pause before his words rings like a bell.
“I’ll be there, Alex. For you. Where else would I be?”
Valium / Lisa Mitchell
sometimes your love it’s so pretty i just wanna sink in
and sometimes your heart, oh it’s so pretty i just wanna live there
i wish i could bottle it up
and breathe it back like valium
He is emanating warmth against the cold air, and she feels herself swaying, pulled inexorably to him while two dozen grieving relatives linger, silently demanding her attention.
He’s smiling, and it’s such a welcome relief, amidst the tears and white handkerchiefs like surrender beneath the grey of the sky.
When he says the word, when he tells her in one quick, monumental word that it is not over, not nearly over and barely even begun, it is too much. She manages a nod, one final look into his eyes, and turns away, back to her family, certain now that when she does finally return, he will be there.
download dancing dirt into the snow
Deep Talk In The Shallow End / Tony
Crazy Beautiful / Hanson
all i need is you
to tell me what to do
you drive me crazy
‘cause you’re crazy beautiful
There’s something different about her; even through the rushing about and worry over the inquiry, something registers, in the crowded back of his brain.
She’s smiling.
Smiling, grinning, beaming up at him from where she is perched, and she looks transformed.
His eyes skate over her, completely of their own inappropriate accord, but she doesn’t scowl, or snap, or even seem to notice; she only smiles some more and asks him about the inquiry, before her face - her unquestionably beautiful face - takes on the familiar guise of attentiveness, and concern.
They talk, and for some reason his mouth is disconnected from his frontal lobe, it seems, because he says something incoherent about her lipstick, but it is only because his eyes won’t seem to wrench away from her mouth, and because her perfume has coiled in his brain like a serpent waiting to strike, and rationality is long since gone.
Her smile disappears, like a light going out. Expletives roll around in his head, but nothing makes its way out of his stupid, stupid mouth.
A horribly cool silence descends, and in his mind, confusion reigns.
Undo / Guy Sebastian
sometimes i wonder
what it would be like
if i could go back in time
“Idiot! She was wearing lipstick, she looked really nice. She looked really nice.”
Friday I’m In Love / The Cure
Monday you could fall apart
Tuesday, Wednesday break my heart
Thursday doesn’t even start
it’s Friday, i’m in love
“See? You can do it.”
He can’t help himself, can’t muster a wick of self-discipline to stop himself from grinning like an idiot, but at least there is the phone to distract her. He half-listens, realises briefly that the sound of her saying her own name is something he loves, and then his mind breaks loose and wanders down city streets, conjuring her tucked close by his side, her arm entwined with his, her face tilted up and smiling, at him.
Tonight.
It feels all too unreal, but it isn’t, because she just asked him, or made him ask her, either way, and it’s happening, for real, tonight.
No more screwing up, he vows. No holding back, no fear. Over and over in his head like a mantra, willing himself on.
Private Universe / Crowded House
no time, no place to talk about the weather
the promise of love is hard to ignore
There are small things, tiny little things which he expects no-one else would notice, and which give her away, always.
The set of her jaw. The sweep of her eyes across the floor, their sudden shyness. The rough edge in her voice, when she says he won’t even notice she’s gone.
Something contorts inside him at the words, and the desire to scream his protest is choking, but she’s leaving, disappearing like vapour, and he wonders if it’s his fault. Such undeserved happiness can only be followed by tragedy, surely, inevitably, in the manuscript of his life.
He leads the way to the door, holds it open for her to pass him by. The force of her grief hits him like a blow, and it hurts.
Umbrella / Boyce Avenue
now that it’s raining more than ever
know that we’ll still have each other
you can stand under my umbrella
“You need to talk. You know my number.”
It isn’t enough, not hardly enough, and even as he watches the straight line of her back as she walks away he knows. There’s nothing more to be done, just work the case, and wait, and so he retreats back into her newly abandoned kingdom, and stares blindly at the whiteboard. Waiting.
He thinks to ask Kevin if he should’ve offered to go with her, but Kevin is in charge for the time being at least, and has already been squired away upstairs, and Paula is staring at her monitor, eyes fixed and shoulders hunched.
There’s no-one to talk to, no-one to reassure him, and it takes him a while to realise it’s because she is gone.
Raining In Baltimore / Counting Crows
where you should be
no-one’s around
i need a phone call
The tea Kevin brews is too weak. The constant shifting of his feet is too restless, the sound of his breathing too loud, and after barely an hour Tony retreats to the bedroom, and sits on the edge of his bed, waiting.
The phone is too silent.
He could call her, but the last thing he wants is to drag her away from her family. He could tell her what’s been going on, ask her opinion about the case, ask her about her father, her brother, but he shouldn’t intrude.
He waits, with his fingers crossed in his lap, but she doesn’t call.
It takes him a long while, to recognise the loneliness for what it is.
Deep Talk In The Shallow End / Ben Lee
you’re not here and i’m not strong
and this whole thing’s gone on too long
Sleep is evasive, and in its place creeps in a slow-burning anger, inexplicable in its origin and fury.
He damns her, in his mind, over and over. He curses her name, her face, the sound of her voice, again and again, until tears force their way down his face, and smear on his hands.
Missing her is too much to bear. Fearing for her carves a whole in his chest, and wanting her makes his breath shallow and useless.
He thinks about regret, about the things which have unfolded to bring him here, now, without her. He says her name to the silent room, and wonders if the hurt would be worse if they’d never met.
Passing Afternoon / Iron & Wine
and she’s chosen to believe
in the hymns her mother sings
The priest has broad shoulders. A wide, strong back and steady arms, and from across the span of pews he watches as Alex listens, condolence raining down upon her. He’s too far away; he isn’t a part of this, of her family, her life, and it hurts like sickness to feel so out of place.
He watches her, as a hymnal swell rises like sea around the assembled. He wonders if she can feel it, where his eyes lay on her.
Foreign Land / Eskimo Joe
dying in a foreign land
so do you understand me?
do you understand?
do you understand?
if this is what it feels to love
then i can feel that
Consciousness seeps between his eyelids like dirty water. The first perception is movement, the second is cold, the third a sick chemical smell, and it is the olfactory which brings his memory back.
Michael. He must have been at the funeral, somewhere nearby, watching. The thought turns Tony’s stomach sour.
With a sudden lurch, everything goes still, then blinding light pours in. Through the particles of drifting dust he sees Michael’s face, and it is alight with anticipation.
Blood rushes noisily around in his head. He reaches for his tie, unravels it, winds it around his hands. He’s already died, already been brought back to life, and he will not allow it to happen again.
He remembers Alex, white-faced and sodden, heaving great shaking sobs on his bathroom floor. Not again.
Resolve hardens, and readies his hands for the fight.
Are You The One That I’ve Been Waiting For / Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
are you my destiny
is this how you’ll appear
wrapped in a coat
with the tears in your eyes
well, take that coat babe
and throw it on the floor
are you the one
that i’ve been waiting for?
When Paula rushes at him with stricken face and hot tea, he says nothing.
When Hall questions him, over and over, nothing comes out.
When the ACC scowls darkly over the rim of his glasses, he doesn’t bother trying to speak.
When Kevin asks him what he wants, the only word his mouth can form is her name.
Kevin smiles, pats his shoulder with a heavy hand, and nods.
download deep talk in the shallow end