Heath woke up on the floor. Not that he’d gone to sleep in the same place: there was an air mattress mere inches away, but he hadn’t managed to stay on top of it either of the last two nights. He softly growled his annoyance as the waking world filtered into his eyes: the mattress at eye level, the washer and dryer it had been pushed up against, the austere chill of the concrete floor filtering through his cheekruffs and into his bones.

He rose to his feet, then stretched in an attempt to alleviate the aches of god knows how many hours sleeping on a hard surface. Turning to face the wood table in the center of the room, he forcefully blinked the blear from his amber eyes as he surveyed the work surface he had laid out for himself: a tape recorder, a microphone, and dozens upon dozens of scattered sheets of scrap paper. Each one was covered from top to bottom in the lynx’s scrawled notes: some were attempts at lyrics, some were lined with makeshift staves in an attempt to figure out chord voicings, and some of it was straight-up prose, written in an attempt to get at the heart of the idea he was chasing. None of it, he thought, was worth a damn.

He’d spent the last month or so futzing around with sound effects, and the results had been incredible, so Ellie had said. He wasn’t inclined to doubt her judgment, but he was dissatisfied because the percussive effects and synth patches he’d come up with only sounded great in a vacuum. Sound design in and of itself didn’t have the power to change the world; he needed actual songs to use them with, or else he’d just be better served making an ambient record. Hence, Basement Dismal, not that he’d ever tell Ellie that’s what he was calling it. It was meant affectionately, as a nod to Castle Dismal, where Hawthorne had started his writing career in total isolation and singleminded focus. Unlike Hawthorne, though, he’d only be using it for a few days while Ellie’s folks were out of town and she went back to her college to see old friends. The basement was where he had come to get away from his software, from the internet, from his cell phone, from his library – a place where his attention could be undivided and his vision could be unadulterated. It was a great plan, but the only issue was that the session had been spectacularly unproductive.

Heath pulled up the chair he’d borrowed from the dinner table upstairs and sat down. He pored over his notes with a critical eye, tapping a pen on the desk. He thought that surely something in this mess must be salvageable. A page of political sloganeering – too much of it was tied to current events; he wanted something timeless. An abstract doodle – that was just to blow off steam. An attempt at poetry describing a relationship turned toxic – unfortunately, he’d only realized after he’d tried to put a melody to it that it was way too verbose. Then it clicked: he could write a second draft of it no problem! If the issue was that the words were getting in the way of the feeling, he could start from the feeling and recreate the words. He slapped the pen onto the table, hopped over to the microphone, and hit record.

He began with the first line: “You don’t know what you’re doing babe.” He shut his eyes, willing the image of the subsequent lines out of his mind. “Youuuuuuuuu-uu-uu-uu-uu…” Focus. Don’t just repeat it. What comes next? “…understand, do you understand, you have got to understand, yes you knoooooooooooooooooow.” Nonsensical, but that’s not the point – you’ll get something good out of this eventually. “It feeeeeeeels, yes it feeeeeeeels right but do you know if it’s right do you know the CONsequences do you know know know know know know know know.” He paused to catch his breath – stretching the words out like that taxed his lung capacity. His delivery had taken on the feeling of a hellfire sermon; it wasn’t the original feeling he was going after, but something about it worked. “Youuuuuuuu have GOT to look around yourself look around around around around around arou-u-u-u-und” – gasp – “do you see me here yes you see that I am here but do you see me here” gasp “do you see your lover do you see your neighbor do you see your friend” gasp “goddamn it you have got to see you have got to understand you have got to know you have got to SEEEEEEEEEEEEE-”

“Heath? What the hell are you doing?”

Heath nearly jumped out of his fur. He’d gotten so into the moment, so quickly, that he hadn’t heard Ellie open the door. “Oh! You, uh, scared me. I was just…”

“Annoying the neighbors?” The question took the form of a joke, but the leopardess’s lowered brows indicated she wasn’t entirely in a joking mood.

“…Improvising,” he finished. He took the opportunity to hit the stop button on the tape recorder.

“You sounded more like you were choking.”

That time it wasn’t a joke at all. He decided to attempt to lighten the mood. “Lynxes always sound a little hoarse though.” Ellie’s face remained concerned – way to go, now you sound defensive. He did a little mental math in his head. “You’re back early.”

Ellie looked up, consulting her memory. “No? The flight was delayed a couple of hours.”

It was Heath’s turn to think for a second. “I thought you were supposed to get in around 11 at night.”

“Yeah, it’s 1:30 in the morning.” Seconds passed as the lynx processed this information. “You don’t seem convinced.”

“I just woke up about 15 minutes ago.”

Ellie’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. “So you mean…”

Heath exhaled deeply, his whiskers drooping. “I thought it was 9 AM. If that’s true… I completely lost track of time in here. I just assumed I’d wake up at the same time as always.”

“Wait… how does that even happen? When was the last time you’ve been outside?”

For the first time in days, Heath thought about something other than his music. He glanced over at the fridge, which had enough food to last him the past 5 – or, apparently, 6 – days. He realized the basement had no windows to speak of. He recalled his decision not to bring any clocks in with him so as not to feel time pressure. He thought, guiltily, of Ellie’s neighbors. “I was going to go outside once I had some songs written. I’ve got insane writer’s block in here.”

“Maybe that’s because you’ve blocked yourself in. I haven’t seen you take a day off in months.” Ellie looked genuinely concerned for his health – or maybe he was projecting his own concerns onto her.

Heath’s ears splayed in embarrassment. “Tell you what. Your parents get home tomorrow afternoon, right? I’ll get all of this squared away, go home, sleep in a real bed, and I promise not to think about music all weekend.”

“You don’t have to leave right away. You look tired – you can crash on my couch if you want to, and pack up in the morning.” He really did - the superhuman sense of purpose that had fueled him over the past several days was fading, and in its place came an awareness of his own limitations.

“Thanks so much. I really don’t deserve a friend like you.”

“You do, though.”

“No, I mean it – I’ll make it up to you.” Ellie came in for a hug, and he found that the contact was sorely needed. He flicked the lights off, followed Ellie out of the room and up the stairs, and said good night before lying down on the living room couch. Sleep was elusive, though; his overactive mind was no longer focused on music, but it had turned to self-recrimination. He would find it hard to forgive himself if Ellie’s folks heard complaints from the neighbors – he still had no idea how many of the days he’d spent in the basement had actually been nights. He’d been focused on his art to the point where he had lost sight of his friendship with her, of the entire world outside his head.

Then, as it always happened when he least expected, things clicked. That’s what the improvisation had been about! “Do you see your neighbor, do you see your friend” – it was a warning about the need to look beyond one’s own self-expression to take into account the impact on one’s environment, or at least it could be easily construed that way. It’d make a great song! The lynx got up from the couch, snuck downstairs, bounding over the steps he knew weren’t creaky, and whipped out a fresh sheet of paper, ready to write the anthem that would define a generation-

He stopped himself. You’re doing it again. He took a deep breath, realizing that writing an abstract polemic on the importance of community and connection wouldn’t be nearly as good of an idea as putting it into practice. He instead wrote a simple to do list:

-Don’t think about music

-Get some sleep

-Do something nice for Ellie

A smile crept across his muzzle, one that felt entirely different from the kind he felt when he came up with a melody he was proud of or a particularly poetic turn of phrase. One, he decided, that he hadn’t felt in far too long. With that accomplished, he snuck back upstairs, lied down on the couch once more, and slept peacefully.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I had this idea for a story vignette bouncing around in my head for a few days, and I figured the best way to actually get it written was to commission an illustration, bang out a first draft (took me ~4 hours), and hit send. Any constructive criticism appreciated!

Illustration by thelivingshadow
Heath's design by nicnak044
Characters and words by clayburn
Original art here