A Smile Makes a Lousy Umbrella

Random 10

• Like a Hurricane – Neil Young – Greatest Hits
• Weathered Tome – A.F.I. – Black Sails in the Sunset
• Big Church – Sunn O))) – Monoliths and Dimensions
• The Happiest Days of Our Lives – Pink Floyd – The Wall
• Things Aren’t Like They Used To Be – Black Keys – Attack and Release
• Margaret in Captivity – The Decemberists – The Hazards of Love
• Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black) – Neil Young – Rust Never Sleeps
• Thirty-three – Smashing Pumpkins – Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
• Valley of Debris – Heartless Bastards – All This Time
• You Know You’re Right – Nirvana – With the Lights Out

For Rhu_ru:

Story

“Rain just keeps on falling on me, and it ain’t no light shower either.  No sir, this downpour is like a hurricane and it doesn’t matter whether I’m indoors or out.  So you might want to move your fancy book there.”  He gestured at the weathered tome under the arm of the girl next to him at the bar.  Margaret looked at him, perplexed, until a sudden intensification of the downpour onto the man’s already rain-soaked cowboy hat deflected a wave of water at her and sent her scurrying for a safer barstool.  She sat there carefully wiping the drops from the big church on the cover. “The happiest days of our lives are gone” the besodden man continued despite losing his audience, “things aren’t like they used to be, when I could have brought sunshine even to this dreary place.”  The bartender smirked at this, and neither man noticed the reader of the thick volume at the end of the bar was no longer a small blonde girl, if they had looked in that direction they would have seen Margaret in captivity within a dark mass that seemed to be gathering all the light from the already dingy room into itself.  The bartender felt the pull too late, and couldn’t find anything to hold on to as he slid down the bar into the void.  Arms flailing, he yelled for help, “Hey!” “Hey!”  “My My” (into the black went the bartender) “we meet again.” the man, now alone, turned to face the slowly expanding darkness “Thirty-three years later, have you come to remove this curse you placed on me?”  No answer came from the cloud as it enveloped him.

———————————————-

Many years later, in the middle of the desert, in a spot that no one knew there used to be a bar, a man stood considering a cowboy hat that lay at his feet.  He waved his companion over and they both ignored the many potential treasures hidden in this valley of debris, and considered the hat.  One of them spoke, “You know, you’re right.  There’s is no way that should be possible, but that hat is soaking wet.”