Chamber of Music

Chamber of Music

ed. Charlotte Ashley

CHAMBER OF MUSIC

Copyright 2014 Charlotte Ashley

Compiled and edited by Charlotte Ashley

Published by PSG Publishing at Smashwords

Cover design by Maya Starling

All rights reserved. The stories in this collection remain the copyrighted property of the individual authors, and no material in this book may be copied or reproduced in any form or by any means, including information storage-and-retrieval systems, without the express written consent of the author, except for brief quotations in critical articles and reviews.

These are works of fiction. All people, places, events, and organizations are the product of the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to any places, events or organizations is purely coincidental.

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Bone Music by Kim Fry

Her Song by J.D. Carelli

The Snake Charmer's Pipe by C. M. Rosens

The Cello Room by Natasha Rowlin

Drink Down the Moon by Charlotte Ashley

Sing Me the Song of Madness by Tim McFarlane

Song to the Moon by J.B. Roger

What Goes Around, Comes Around by Ken Magee

All Our Futures by Miloš Petrik

Morgan's Songs by Dorchi Dreen

Scheherazade by Emerald Delmara

Pipe Dream by Yzabel Ginsberg

The Phantom Orchestra by Adam Sigrist

About Musicians Without Borders

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you to everyone who helped make this anthology possible.

To Wattpad, who brought us together and gave us our first platform to express ourselves and share our stories.

To Maya Starling (https://www.facebook.com/StarlingCovers) for her beautiful cover art and for all her layout work.

To Tim McFarlane & Ang Thomas for their help as first readers and proofreaders.

To Yzabel Ginsberg for her help with reading and promotion.

To Maja Homen for her help with cover design.

To Andrej Škvorc, for the domain and hosting of our website.

And of course to all the members of the PSG for their encouragement, advice, conversation and support before, during, and after this undertaking. Keep up with us all at http://www.psgpublishing.com.

Bone Music

Kim Fry

Today he’s playing Jazz. And tomorrow he will sell the Motherland. - Unknown

I was a young man when I returned to Moscow in 1956. I’d left my homeland during WWII and returned to a Cold War instead. It was January and I’d missed the holidays—though from what I heard, not much celebrating had occurred. I returned, seeking a more promising life than that which I found.

Everything in the Soviet Union was controlled by the Communists and anyone who opposed it never said so for fear of taking a trip to the Gulags—slave labor prisons where more entered a grave than not. No one owned anything and the government tried to dictate every aspect of our culture from the way we looked to family values to our media.

After my return, I went to live with my parents and two young sisters in a communal apartment. We all shared one small bedroom located next to the bathroom shared by the fourteen apartments on that floor. We were lucky to have it and luckier that both my mother and father worked.

The first thing I did was get a job for a taxi cab company—good work for the Cold War era. In the winter time, more people spent what little money they had on a cab to avoid the frozen cityscape. I enjoyed talking to people, though most of my fares were downtrodden and generally unhappy—like the gray that Moscow had become, her residents dressed to match.

One day, I was called to pick up a group from a place called Broadway. I had lived in the city most of my life but it wasn’t uncommon to be unfamiliar with certain aspects since it was such a large place. I wrote down the address but when I disconnected the call, I turned to my co-worker and asked what it was.

With a laugh, Abram shook his head. You haven’t seen the Stilyagi, have you? They’re talkative little parakeets.

My only response was a look of confusion.

Abram gave me better directions to the location in Moscow center but refused to elaborate on the group he referred to as style hunters. Nothing could prepare me for the sight of the three men who’d called for a ride and when I pulled up, I wasn’t sure what I was truly seeing.

They were a sight. Big hair slicked back with grease, a mismatched group of suits jackets, narrow pants, thick-soled shoes, and outrageous ties in prints I hadn’t seen since I watched old-time movies. I then understood why Abram had called them parakeets—they wore their clothes like bright plumes of happy little birds.

Where to? I asked, trying to remain aloof. They were laughing and joking as they slid in, more carefree than I’d seen from a comrade in a long time.

One of the men rattled off an address and I pulled away from the curb, noting that more people were leaving the building dressed like the three fares in my cab.

Where’d you get the suits? I asked. I tried to make conversation with everyone I gave rides to, but I was genuinely intrigued by these men that looked nothing like the pale gray sadness that seemed to have taken over Moscow.

I made it, Kulak, what’s it to you?

Kulak was a term that meant wealthy peasant, and I realized that he was probably used to catching negativity for the way he dressed. Surely, he must have meant it to be insulting, but I had been called much worse. Just curious, I guess. I saw some clothes and styles like that when I was in the war. Kind of reminds me of the Ukraine.

I could see them exchanging looks in the back, followed by hushed whispers I couldn’t hear over the sound of the engine. Finally, one man wearing a bright yellow tie spoke up. What do you know about Western styles?

I shrugged. "They’re more personalized people there. Here, we all dress the same—brown pants, white shirt, brown hat. In some places, they all dress completely different from one another.

You can tell people apart there. It’s a mixing pot in some places. Of course, I don’t know what it’s like now, after the war. But when it started and I was there, it was...I dunno. Happier.

I’m Yakov, yellow tie said, then pointed to his companions. Vasily and Eugeny.

I nodded to them in the rearview mirror. I’m Pyotr.

Well, Pyotr, what time do you get off?

Just like that, I found myself spending my off hours with the Stilyagi, who were a group of mostly-mismatched young men who were absolutely obsessed with Western culture. They called each other Bob or Chuvak and everything they knew came from smuggled media from the 40s.

At first, I felt like the odd one out in my brown pants, white shirt, and brown hat. I looked like the very idea of a typical Russian: bland, simple, and following whatever the government said was acceptable to follow.

One thing set me apart from that typical picture: my love of music. I quickly learned that the Stilyagi had an original recording of Glen Miller’s The Chattanooga Choo Choo and they listened to it daily, often more than once. It was almost like their unofficial anthem.

Music, like all media, was censored by the government and difficult to come by. They had deemed Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley a threat to civilization, so naturally, the group had worked a long time to get a cheap, black market cut.

One afternoon, I surprised my new friends by bringing over the records I’d brought back with me from the war. I pulled out one and they took turns running their fingers along the crisp grooves, admiring their condition. Most of them were from the ‘40s and purchased when I was still in the army. There were a lot of records by Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, and I received delighted nods over a record from The Ink Spots and another from Benny Goodman. For a moment, we were just a group of comrades enjoying a moment together.

We forgot about the wars, the politics, and the ugly dull city with its Communist laws and hatred of change. We were still reeling from the laws of Stalin, the black and white denouncement of all things from the Western civilization. Our fellow people didn’t know how to handle such change, so they rejected the thought of anyone embracing it.

From there on out, I was treated with a level of respect I hadn’t experienced, not even in the army. They had gone from being unsure about me, wondering if I was actually an enemy, to accepting me as a Stilyagi.

I kept my job at the taxi cab company, but on my days off, I was one of them. A regular guy they called Bob, wearing borrowed clothed from Yakov, who was close to my size. He promised we would get some stuff for me as well, though I was content borrowing from him. I didn’t want to tell my family about this, to answer to their judgment or worry that I would get arrested.

We went to dances at Broadway and enjoyed the company of our Chuvak friends. There were many more men in our group than women. They wore their hair short, cut close to their scalps, more boyish than womanly. They wore checkered jackets and shoes with heels, which was abnormal. The highly moral women of Moscow would not have regarded this as righteous. Although we all spent time together, the women kept to themselves and the men didn’t attempt to spend time with them alone. We had been brought together for other reasons than to spark romances.

Balancing both cultures became my routine for several months. One day, I returned from a job and Abram told me I’d missed an urgent call from Yakov. I called back but there was no answer. While I was worried, I couldn’t leave work. I still provided for my family, so I spent the remainder of my shift wondering what had happened.

Yakov was supposed to meet me at the bus stop after my shift, but he never did. I wasn’t sure what to expect, so I went to Broadway. When I arrived, the only person there was a woman by the name of Galina sitting at a table, smoking. She had tears running down her face, creating big black smears where her makeup ran.

The woman took a pull from a bottle of cheap vodka and assessed me. Why are you here?

I’m looking for Yakov. He called earlier and told my boss it was urgent. What happened?

Vasily and Stepan are in the hospital.

What? How?

They were stopped in the street by the KGB and were beaten. It doesn’t look good for either of them.

Is Yakov there now?

Galina nodded, taking another drink from the bottle. They aren’t letting anyone in right now, though. He and a bunch of the others are waiting with the family.

I felt empty, as if there was only darkness ahead. I knew that the Stilyagi were regularly given a hard time by the media and the authority figures, but I had never heard of it being this bad. The KGB was notorious for their brutal tactics. I had always avoided them whenever they did raids on the flat where my family and I lived. Most of the time, if we complied, there were no problems.

There were a few that talked back when the enforcers came, so they were beaten—not usually bad enough to put them in the hospital, but that was a risk they should have known. People were herded like cattle by the authorities; trying to fight them was just a request for violence.

I stayed for a while as the group slowly filtered back into the building. They may have been dressed brightly but their worried expressions made the colors seem dull. We were all beat down, even if the signs weren’t there physically. We recognized that we were in a society that didn’t want us there, that would do whatever it wanted, because we were unwanted.

A few days later, Stepan succumbed to his injuries. His family did not approve of the Stilyagi so we found ourselves expelled from the funeral when we tried to enter. Instead, we headed to Broadway and passed bottles of vodka to fuel our heightened emotions. We had gone from laughter and dances to melancholy and drunkenness.

Eventually, however, Vasily healed and rejoined our group. Things had definitely changed with the loss of a comrade, despite our happiness that one of them had made it through. The music seemed quieter, the joy harder to reach. We were slowly dwindling in numbers; our fellow style hunters stopped hunting and started staying home.

That was when we discovered music on the bones and with it came a new perspective. Unknown to all of us, Vasily brought back a gift with him from the hospital—one of his x-rays showing his broken femur. It was interesting to look at, but that wasn’t the amazing part. What he did with it was enough to pull us out of the grey drab and back into the world of brightness.

Vasily presented us with his gift one evening before the first dance we’d held since Stepan passed. He gave it to Yakov, who held it in confusion. What is it?

It’s my leg, obviously, but it’s also a copy of ‘Rock Around the Clock’ by Bill Haley.

I found my own frown matching that of my comrades. We were curious, but also unsure of what this new thing was. It was clearly an x-ray—something we were all familiar with—but it was cut into a crude oval shape and had ridges cut in a circle, though not as deep as a regular record’s.

We were in awe, touching the makeshift disc and chattering in a newfound excitement. Yakov put the record on the gramophone. The quality was very poor but we were never more enlivened to hear a piece of music.

We called it Bone Music and it saved us. From there, we began rifling through garbage bins at the hospitals and doctor’s offices for their disposed x-rays. Other people’s broken, damaged limbs became our source of happiness.

Taking the discs to Vasily, he worked his magic with an old phonograph, a wax cutter, and a level of patience no one else possessed. Each rugged copy of a song by Elvis or Harry Belafonte brought us empowerment. We were rebels, we were finally doing something just for us. We felt unstoppable in a world where no one wanted us.

Big changes were happening in our Motherland. Other Stilyagi bought our Bone Music through the underground markets. By that time, the media had upped their attempts to discredit us and make a mockery of our style. We didn’t care. We had each other.

I felt unstoppable, even when the government began arresting people they suspected of being Stilyagi. Anyone caught with a bone disc was accusing of making them. They were charged with profiteering and sent to the slave camp Gulags for 3-5 years.

With my job at the taxi company, I was able to talk to people and sell records that way. We didn’t charge much for the copies, just a few rubles, but people were excited to get their hands on them. It gave them the ability to listen to their favorite songs and hear music not available to our country.

Music was our life—more than the bright clothes or meticulously-styled hair. We could all relate on the same basic level to the music, whether to the songs themselves or the fact that we were rebelling against a government we didn’t care for.

Even when the Kommosol—a youth Communist league—raided us for what they called a cleansing raid, we didn’t let it beat us down. They came in and cut our clothes and our hair, mocking and shaming us as they pleased. We had no recourse, were allowed no revenge, so we hung our heads and waited for them to finish. We let them have their fun and when they left, we repaired what they had broken. They could not take our spirit, because that was ours alone.

We made our bone music, we had our dances. The media hated the Stilyagi and that was fine by us. We, as comrades, continued to make our records and rebel against the government. The KGB shut down Broadway. We congregated elsewhere. All told, fifteen of my brothers and sisters went to the Gulags. Eight died in the slave labor camps.

By 1957, Sputnik had launched. Then, Moscow hosted the Seventh International Festival of Youth and Students, which introduced our poor, Communist country to rock and roll. The Stilyagi advancement and what it stood for eventually faded, as all things do. Music became freer and our Bone Music became a thing of the past.

I’ll never forget how it banded us together. I ran into Yakov in 1977. We met on a street not far from where Broadway had been. Pyotr, my Chuvak.

We embraced. Yakov, my comrade. We made small talk and parted ways. Although our friendship faded with the Stilyagi movement, I can fondly remember the harshest time in my life with love because it saved me from the grey and brought the colors into focus.

Kim Fry is a wife, mother and fiction writer who makes her life in Casper, Wyoming. She has a dark sense of humor and an enormous obsession with Edgar Allan Poe. Some of her work is currently posted on Wattpad under user name KimFry. Her horror/thriller, Scream for Him, won the 2012 Watty Award for ‘On the Rise’ in horror and has been read over 1.5 million times. She published a short story, Dead Girl Walking, in the Library of Dreams Anthology in 2013. With numerous other stories in the works, she writes many genres, including fantasy, horror, thriller and paranormal. You can find her at http://www.authorkimfry.com.

Her Song

J.D. Carelli

Kyle stepped down from the coach, his worn boots sinking into the ashen earth. He turned to bid the driver farewell, but the man spat a wad of chew and snapped the reins. Kyle had hoped he could get past Tacoma and its blight-stricken skies but the driver had been stronger-willed than he had let on. It had been a good day’s travel all the same.

His hand went reflexively to his back, checking to make sure his most important possession – his only real possession – was still there. His violin was indeed slung across his back, still stored away in the splintered case he’d had since he was eight. It once had stickers of his favorite manga characters plastered all over it, but he’d peeled them off one by one while on the road.

He turned to face the only structure for miles. It was large, rectangular, and had a big, yellow shell on the side. It had once been used for fueling cars, but no longer. The awnings were still there, now used for storing wagons.

Walking towards the entrance, he knew full well that buried beneath the ash was what had once been pavement for a massive parking lot. But none of that remained now, as it had all been eaten away by the blight. The putrid stuff was heavy in this area and the coastal winds made it unpredictable. The greenish air whirled in the