Empty

The record kept skipping.

It didn’t used to, Imogen thought.

There was something poetic in the way that the act of playing a record slowly wore it out. The more you loved an album, the more you listened to it. And the more you listened to it, the faster you destroyed it. She wouldn’t call it her favourite album, but Imogen had worn out this copy of Plans. Charlie had always called her basic for loving it as much as she did, but that would just inspire her to listen to it all the way through again. It made sense to hear it skipping like this. But was this the same copy she’d always owned? Or had it gotten replaced? Imogen would never know.

“Room-room-room-room-room…” The speaker clicked and popped, Ben Gibbard repeatedly interrupted himself. She sat in her overstuffed chair, the record player out of reach, perilous stacks of books and vinyl between her and the shelf that held the antique stereo. Her lip curled into a smile the more it skipped. “Room-room-room-room-room.” It popped one last time and the sound stopped. The smile vanished with a sigh. She regarded the man who had entered the room, though he did not regard her.

Imogen cast her eyes back toward the sky, through dirty glass. Sunbeams shot through storm clouds onto a hill in the distance, and water pooled at the bottom of the driveway below. The rain had finally let up.

She heard the click and hiss of the record starting again: a dulcet organ, metaphors in C major, memories of nights with Charlie made into a paste to wallpaper over what came next. Imogen closed her eyes and let her head rest against the chair. Strands of silver fell into her face as she nestled deeper into the upholstery.

The muffled voices of her minders downstairs distracted her as she drifted off. Only the loudest arguments ever reached her nook. Another disagreement, then. She wondered what it was about this time. But it didn’t matter. For now she’d listen to the record and enjoy what she could. It would be stuck again soon, skipping away, waiting for someone to intervene.