Damien's Process
I shoot upright in bed with a loud gasp, scaring Snoop Catt, who was asleep on the other side of my king-sized bed, until my startling movement turns him into an orange puff ball. His long fur slowly lowers, and he glares at me with his yellowish-green eyes while he settles himself until he’s comfortable.
“Sorry, Snoop,” I say quickly as I throw back the covers.
The cool night air touches my overheated skin after being snuggled up, and I pause my escape. My skin pebbles, and I shiver, considering whether or not to just try and force myself back to sleep. Though it’s usually a waste of time if I try to force my brain back to rest. It’s fired up and ready to work. Sleep is the last thing I’m capable of right now.
I ignore his condescending meows and the chill as I practically leap out of the bed and run through my dark house, not bothering to put on clothes. One of the perks of living alone, there’s no one to see me or scold my choices.
My skin quickly grows accustomed to the temperature and the shivering is short-lived.
Flipping on the small desk lamp in my office, I open the drawer with my tattered notebook–my prized possession. I carefully turn the pages until I find a clean one and begin jotting down the lyrics currently playing on a never-ending loop in my head.
They are what woke me up.
They’re what always wakes me up.
No matter if I’m dreaming, lost in a deep slumber, or tossing and turning fitfully. I will pop up in bed with lyrics running through my mind. If I don’t write them down right away, I won’t be able to sleep, and then I won’t remember them. So, instead of fighting my neurodivergence, I embrace it. It’s what has made me an award-winning artist.
Not that I do it for the awards. I truly enjoy what I do.
I lose myself in tonight’s words, completely ignoring the fact that the sun is nowhere near ready to rise. But I find solace in the quiet of the evening hours.
Nor do I bother covering myself when I walk laps around the space with my eyes closed. Everything has a place and everything is in its place. I know this office better than anywhere else in the world. So trip hazards aren’t a problem. Which is a good thing because wandering around helps me think whenever the lyrics just won’t flow quite right.
Nor do I acknowledge the bags under my eyes from the little sleep I’ve been getting lately. I’ll catch up on my sleep eventually. Yes, yes, I’m aware you can’t actually catch up on sleep.
Once the words are done, I switch between humming, mumbling, and singing to find the proper notes. I cringe when I hit an especially sour note that’s not right, but it doesn’t keep me down. I toy around with the melody until I’m pleased with it and move on, slowly working my way through the song. More humming and mumbling; whatever strikes the best chord with my lyrics.
Snoop joins me around four in the morning on the couch, burying his face into my side.
“Sorry, bud,” I say, scratching him on his favorite spot behind his ear. “Daddy is in the zone.”
Meow, he grumbles before headbutting my notebook and making my pencil scribble across the page.
“Well, that was just uncalled for.” I push him away, which only results in him rolling onto his back and swatting at my hand. “You’re lucky you’re cute,” I say, giving in to his demands.
Meow.
I run my hand down from his head and over his back through his soft fur.
Deciding now is as good a time as any to text Aurora to meet up in the morning. She’s always the first to hear my music, helping me clean them up as well as process the lyrics and chords. Without her aid, I’d be here for days.
Locked away from the world, sometimes even forgetting to eat or go outside for fresh air.
So, I fire off the text and toss my phone to the side to return back to my work with Snoop’s soft purrs as background noise.
By the time I have the lyrics for three different songs, and I’m slowly working through chord progressions on my keyboard, the doorbell rings.
I sit up straighter, my spine protesting the foreign movement.
How long had I been hunched over?
The door rings three more times in rapid fire. Grabbing my phone off the side table with a groan. Snoop stretches out long and yawns broadly, showing off his sharp canines. With my phone in hand, I open the doorbell camera app to see Aurora standing there with her sunglasses on; her short dark brown hair is a disaster, poking out in every direction. She’s holding a tray of coffees and a brown paper bag.
“Dammit, Damien, buzz me in. Eejit,” she snaps at the camera, her thick Irish accent coming in heavier until she wakes up fully.
I wonder, not for the first time, if she’s clairvoyant because she has an uncanny ability to know when I’m watching her or not.
Pressing the button on my phone, I can hear the click through my phone’s speaker and then hear the door open through the house. Her footsteps grow louder while I return to my keyboard, my back to the door to my office.
“Oh, fuck me! D, we’ve talked about this,” she scolds before I hear her footsteps walk toward my bedroom and then back. “Here, put these on. Hide your hairy man ass, please.”
A pair of gray sweats hit me in the back. I make quick work sliding them on. All while she plops down on the couch with Snoop, carding her fingers through his long fur.
“Nuh-uh. Food first,” she says as I turn to sit back at the keyboard.
I pull up a chair opposite her and grab one of the breakfast sandwiches. It doesn’t take me long to devour it when she pulls out a second for me.
Like I said, she has a gift. Maybe it’s just in regards to me.
“Care to explain why you had to see me at seven in the morning?”
“It’s 7:15,” I tease, not bothering to hide my mouth full of food.
Her eyes narrow at me, and if looks could kill, I’d be a pile of ash. “I had to stop for food. You know gargoyles are supposed to be nocturnal, right?” she jokes, changing the subject and referencing our band’s M.O.
All of us wanted normal lives, but we enjoy making music. We just want to sing our songs. None of us had any clue how popular we’d become. So, a disguise was our only solution. For concerts, we dress as gargoyles to hide our true identities. It’s allowed us to maintain normal lives however we please. It also inadvertently created a whole cloud of mystery around us and a stream of bored bloggers trying to figure out who we are.
It’s been ten years, and no one has guessed it right. Yet.
“I don’t have a hairy ass,” I mumble around too big a bite, returning to our original conversation.
“Hairier than mine,” she says with a shrug.
“And I’ve been up since two-thirty. So I think that counts as nocturnal.”
She tosses me a third sandwich when I crumble up the trash of my second one. “Yes, but then you should be asleep by now.”
I lift a shoulder, not feeling like getting into our usual banter.
“I had to kick a relatively stunning and long-legged seductress out of my bed too early this morning to be here. So, what’s the craic?” she asks, referencing what I’ve been working on for the past five hours.
Finishing my last sandwich, I hop up and slide back onto the bench in front of my keyboard. I first run through the chord progression of the song to help her get a tune in her head. The second time I run it, she hums to match, or sometimes harmonizes, depending on how she’s feeling. The third time, I sing the words.
I don’t have to glance back at her to know her eyes are closed as she listens. She told me once it allowed her to visualize the song; like a living organism.
On the fourth pass, she joins me for the chorus and harmonizes with me. By this point, she’s standing right behind me with her warm hand resting on my bare shoulder. And on the last note, I let it linger in the air. Like a fine wine, we savor the flavor of the song.
“Wow. That’s grand,” she whispers, afraid of breaking the moment.
I nod my head, loving how it played out so perfectly. “I wrote two more, but their chords aren’t quite as tightened up.”
She glances over my shoulder, looking over my sloppy handwriting where I’ve written the lyrics and chords into my notebook.
“Do you mind if I work on this one while you find your chords in the others?”
“Sure. I’m thinking ballad on this one. The other two feel heavier, darker.”
She claps her hands excitedly. “Do I get to scream in these?”
“That’d probably work for one of them. Did your doctor clear you for screaming again?” I ask, worry pinching my brows together.
After our last tour, she nearly went hoarse. But she went to a specialist and they had her on some drills to help strengthen her vocal cords for that part. The fans love it when I do it, but I think it’s even better when she can.
“Yup. Voice coach cleared me for screams last week. As long as I maintain my teas and warm-ups, he doesn’t think I’ll have any more issues.”
“That’s great news! I’ll be sure to write one in then. I think the third one I wrote would really play nicer to the tone of your voice versus mine.”
She playfully shoves my shoulder. “That may be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“Fuck off,” I tease, knowing it’s not true. I know I’m great at what I do, but I’m not above admitting when someone else can do it better. And no one lady screams as well as my bestie and backup vocalist.
She sits at my second keyboard, plugging in the laptop and her headphones. This way, the computer can write down any of the music she plays, saving her from having to write every note down on paper. I don’t miss those days. She scans the page from my notebook into her tablet and sits looking more like a computer genius than a music genius with the multitude of tech she’s implementing.
Me? I plug in my headphones and have my ratty old notebook and pencil.
The two of us don’t say anything to each other for almost two hours when we’re finally peeking up from our keys and stretching our backs.
“Okay. I think I’ve got it,” she says.
I stand behind her as she closes her eyes, letting the music lead her fingers. I do the same, feeling it run through my body. After several moments, I pick up, singing the lyrics I wrote only just this morning.
The haunting melody that sounds as if it’s been ripped from my soul oozes into the world around us.
Aurora’s beautiful lilt joins me during the chorus. And by the end, we have a masterpiece.
Or at least the start of one.
