“Split Between Screens and Screams” is part 5 in a series. It uses the writing prompt “he was a husk of the person he used to be.”
1: Sequins, Stardust, and Rust
2: From a Rainbow to a Tragedy
3: Dead Stars Become Black Holes
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He was a husk of the person he used to be. Too often he found himself split between screens and screams. Tired of being scrolled through. He was the heartthrob with the cynical smile who more to hide than anyone would ever know. On stage he was someone, but offstage he just existed in digital.
Was Johnny’s biggest secret the literal skeleton in the closet, or that he was tired of the fans and the adulation?
Could it be he was so bored that he was ready to trade crazy diamonds for traditional jazz?
Maybe.
This was now immaterial. Johnny was dead and so was his music career.
But now here were his bandmates, picking up the pieces of his hidden life. Here they were, faced with a decaying corpse.
Joe and Kenny were no C.S.I. Baker Street, but they could see that the body in front of them hadn’t been dead for long. Split between screams and screens, they knew this nightmare was suddenly real.
Quickly and instinctively they pulled down fur coats and flowing shirts and started wrapping the corpse up with anything they could find. Like amateur undertakers they dragged the deceased unceremoniously through the house and down the stairs. Every step brought about a stoic bass drum thump as the body hit the floor.
There was no plan. They’d figure that out as they rolled.
They didn’t even know who he was or why he was dead in Johnny’s closet.
Image by Matthew Priest from Pixabay and Yatheesh Gowda from Pixabay