david mcmullan : “cobain comes”

Cobain comes and sits on my window ledge. He seems to like that, and uses it as his favorite perch. Sometimes I wait for him. He comes just before dawn. I leave crumbs and seeds out for him.

 

When he comes today I lean out of my window and look up at the starry sky at nothing in particular. I have some feed in my palm for him to peck at.

 

Maybe I will stroke him under his stubble chin. Maybe I will groom his blonde hair and look into those blue, troubled eyes.

 

I will ask him, as I do each time, ‘Why?’

‘Don’t,’ he will say.

He doesn’t ever explain.

But I love him so much.

 

How was the little greenhouse? Your last place when no one knew where you were. Were you hiding? Do you recall? Did you choose twenty-seven?

Was it a master plan?

I read that Courtney took a bit of your skull.

You looked good together. You were both beautiful but on fire.

Now you’re over and immortal, forever.    

 

I tell him I liked his sunglasses and red-and-black striped top. I liked the rip at the knee of his jeans. I liked the cardigans and retro look. How many layers did he wear to make himself look bigger?

 

He taught me how to frown. He made me scrawl lyrics into my wall. That day I found out and fell sad and black for days. I was almost sixteen when he blew his head open.

 

And they tried to say that it was some murder, and that he was too doped up to hold a shotgun and put it to his pretty head and pull the trigger. They said Courtney did it.

 

Courtney is strong and tough. I admire her. I always fancied her bass player too.

 

‘Don’t tell no one.’

 

I liked the way you turned that guitar into a chainsaw. Did it remind you of your timber community? Where was it? Washington? Aberdeen? Some place I’ve never been.

 

One day.

 

I liked the way you screamed and hissed. Face covered by straw hair, chin stuck out. I liked the way you smashed the guitar and snapped its neck, ran at the drums, pushed amps down. I liked the way you hung on Kris’s back or jumped into the crowd.

    

But now it turns dawn and he sits upon my floor as I write this. It is dawn and he draws pictures of pink babies in the womb. I ask him, ‘Hey, Kurt, why can’t you draw something happy, man?’

 

‘Uh, yeah, okay, sure…’ he says. ‘Let me finish this, yeah?’

He doesn’t give me a smile. He keeps it for himself.

I fall asleep and he goes. I awake and he is gone.

That Pisces, Jesus Man.

He will sign eternally.

 

David McMullan is a rare & mythical creature who lives in a blue room somewhere in Bedfordshire. He is 29 & in a current stage of madman typing to finish his various novels & scripts before he dies. His work is due to appear in Ambit Magazine. People come by occasionally to feed & water him, check on him, & change his bedding. He is currently seeking an agent for friendship, maybe more.

 

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{ issue three