Read Bridge: a shade short story Online
Authors: Jeri Smith-Ready
Bridge: a shade short story (4 page)
Kilt and Keeley (SHADE fan site
)
Interview with Mickey and Logan
For the re-release of his short story, “Bridge,” Logan sat down to have a revealing conversation with his brother Mickey and the
Shade
fan site Kilt & Keeley. A post-Shifter translator was provided so that everyone could understand one another.
Kilt & Keeley: Hey, guys, thanks for talking to us. This is the first time you’ve done a joint interview, right?
Mickey (glances at Logan’s seemingly empty chair): Yeah.
Logan: My brother doesn’t talk much to the press, or to anyone, for that matter. But that’s okay—I talk enough for both of us. So, thanks for doing this interview! I’ve been dying to ramble on about “Bridge.”
Mickey (mutters): You, starving for attention? Shocker.
Logan (flips him off): Dude, guess how many fingers I’m holding up.
K&K: Okay! Let’s get started. Logan, your story flows very much like a song. Do you find storytelling to be similar to songwriting? Which do you prefer? Why?
Logan: For me the two are similar. I like songs that tell stories, where the singer is at a different place emotionally at the final chorus than they are at the first verse. Where there’s evolution, you know?
“
Forever
,” for instance, starts off really dark and despairing but ends with a wistful sort of optimism. That was my idea from the start, so I had a structure to plan around, the same way a storyteller has a beginning, middle, and end in mind. The chorus repeats, but each time it’s a little different, because it reflects the emotional progress made in the verse before it.
As for the story, I tried writing “Bridge” in regular prose and it was incredibly flat and lifeless (no pun intended). On my second attempt, I thought, okay, it’ll be a verse story but I’ll write a prose version first, then “translate” it into verse. Nope, that didn’t work either.
So on the third try, I took it from the top writing in verse, and it just flowed. Maybe one of these days I’ll write something with paragraphs. But probably not.
I don’t know which I prefer. I like the in-your-face audience feedback from songwriting, but at the same time, with a story it’s cool to be able to create something, put it out there, and then step back behind the curtain. Maybe that shield lets me be more honest.
K&K: Wow, that’s a very thorough answer. Your turn, Mickey: Do you think you were seriously considering killing yourself?
Mickey (glares): ………………………
K&K: OK, next question. Hmm, that was a follow-up to the first question, so we’ll skip it. How about: why do you shoulder so much of the responsibility for Logan’s death? There were other family members there that night, and you know that Logan had an independent streak that couldn’t be controlled.
Mickey (sighs, crosses his arms, looks away): I guess. Whatever.
K&K: Ooookay. Logan, back to you. Having experienced two very different perspectives, is it better to be a pre-Shifter or post-Shifter?
Logan: It depends on the person. A lot of grownups I know would freak if they saw a ghost. They have a hard enough time dealing with the fact that we exist. But maybe that’s because they haven’t been around ghosts their whole lives like post-Shifters have.
So maybe it’s like asking, “Is it better to be a boy or a girl?” You just are what you are, and it’s what’s right for you because it’s what’ve always known. Then again, there are people born as boys who are really girls and vice versa. So…I don’t know.
All I know is that if I could live again, I’d want to be a post-Shifter, and I sure as hell wouldn’t ignore ghosts.
K&K: Mickey, less sensitive question this time: does Ocean City, Maryland, hold a special connection to Logan for you?
Mickey: Yeah, to Logan, and to our childhood especially. I think everyone holds a certain place in their minds where they remember being perfectly happy. For me that’s Ocean City, especially the boardwalk.
Logan (to K&K): You got him to talk. Awesome!
K&K: Whew! Logan, in “Bridge” you said, “To become a ghost, your death has to be a surprise. (Boo.) People who thought it’d be easier to be a ghost than to be alive found that out the hard way.”
Since we’re from a world without your kind of ghosts, what were you referring to there?
Logan: I’m too young to remember, but apparently when the world first figured out that ghosts were real, there was a big spike in suicides. Maybe death got less scary once the afterlife was proven, or maybe ghosts were seen as a romantic thing to be. Anyway, no one who killed themselves came back. No one.
It’s really sad. I wish I could understand why someone would want to quit life, but it pisses me off so much. Even when life sucks, it’s better than the alternative.
Mickey: It’s not that simple.
Logan: I know, but it should be. It should be.
K&K: Mickey, how much of a role has religion played in your healing process?
Mickey: Okay, first of all, don’t say “healing process.” That makes it sound like a computer program where you just follow the right steps and you know everything will work, because it works for everyone else. There’s no such thing as a healing process. Sometimes I think there’s no such thing as healing.
Logan: You don’t mean that.
Mickey: How can anyone heal from something like this? You can’t. You can only keep going and keep busy and hope that one day you’ll wake up without feeling stabbed in the throat.
As for religion, I don’t know. I’m sure it helps a lot of people through times like this, otherwise it wouldn’t exist. All it does is heap more guilt on me, for being too stupid to understand how “all things happen for a reason” or how it’s part of some divine plan.
But the
Pietà
statue I was looking at in the story…there’s something comforting about it, that even someone supposedly so close to God as Mary could feel such human anguish.
Then again, religion didn’t make that statue. Art did. And it’s art that’s healed me the most, especially songs and books. I think that’s true for a lot of introverts: we work out our emotions in other ways besides yakking endlessly about them with friends and family. Sometimes listening to a song—or writing one—is the best way to communicate our feelings and understand them better.
K&K: So for you, listening or reading is a two-way communication, not just a one-way consumption?
Mickey: Absolutely. Not to get too mystical, but I think there’s a thread that connects an artist to his or her audience. When I hear a song or read a book that I can relate to, I feel like there’s a kindred spirit out there. Me and the writer, we
get
each other.
Sometimes that’s all I need to make me feel less alone. But our society thinks everyone should talk it out. Talk talk talk, all day long.
Logan: I admit, I’m a big fan of talk talk talk, and not just that old Psychedelic Furs album.
Mickey: Which I still say is their best.
Logan: No way, dude. Their sound is so much richer with the saxophone.
Mickey: It’s not richer, it’s carnival-esque. Like most bands, the Furs were better when they were rawer, like on
Talk Talk Talk
.
Logan: You’re such a purist.
Mickey (slight smirk): You say that like it’s a bad thing.
K&K: Logan, why did you feel the need to make peace with Mickey in order to help you move on? Why not your parents or Siobhan?
Logan: I did actually talk to them. I mentioned in
Shift
that I was planning to do that, but it was never shown since Aura wasn’t there. Sorry, not every moment of my “life” makes it into print.
Mickey: That’s hard to believe.
Logan: I know, right? I’m an oversharing kind of guy.
K&K: This question is for both of you. Since music is such a part of your lives, which songs would you choose to describe your state of mind at the beginning of “Bridge” versus the end?
Logan and Mickey: “The Cave.”
Logan (laughs): Glad we agree on something. I think that Mumford & Sons tune describes both of us, both at the beginning and the end. Remember how I said I love songs that evolve like a story? “The Cave” does, but it’s not from Point A to Point B like “Forever.” It’s Point A to Point Q to Point M. Because they’re a lot more brilliant than I am.
Mickey: I also think it’s told from more than one point-of-view. So it’s a conversation. It might be a conversation the singer is having with himself, but it’s still a dialogue, not a monologue. And it refers to Homer’s
Odyssey
, so, points for that.
K&K: Speaking of conversations, Mickey, why weren’t you able share your feelings with your family or your girlfriend, Megan? They all lost Logan as well. Was it easier to finally let it all out to a stranger, Krista?
Mickey: I think it was
because
they lost Logan that I had trouble talking to them. I didn’t want to be all, “poor me, my grief is so special” when they were hurting too.
It’s just easier to close yourself off. It’s not right, but it’s less painful. Talking about Logan with my friends and family is like looking into a mirror—not a regular mirror, but one of those magnifying mirrors that girls use to put on makeup. What are they called?
Logan: Dunno. Makeup mirrors?
Mickey: Whatever. It’s like every bit of sadness and anger gets blown up and distorted. I just can’t take it.
It’s also hard to be “weak” around people you know. I think instinctively we pretend we’re stronger than we really are. At least guys do. But with a stranger there are no long-term consequences. You don’t have to worry that the next day they’ll treat you differently or tiptoe around you or ask embarrassing questions like, “How are you
feeling
?” It’s like when you’re in the hospital and the nurse comes in every two hours or whatever to check your temperature and blood pressure. You feel like you’re being examined and judged, and when you say you’re okay, there’s this relief on their faces, and you want to keep seeing that look, you want to make them happy, so you keep saying you’re okay.
Logan: And you’re not okay. Is that what you’re saying?
Mickey: That’s right. I’m sorry. But I’m starting to suspect that some things hurt forever.
K&K: That’s quite a declaration.
Mickey: Yeah. I once read a book by Joe Hill,
Heart-Shaped Box
. It’s about an ex-rock star who’s haunted by the ghost of one of his ex-girlfriends’ fathers, a girl who he thinks killed herself because he broke up with her.
Anyway, there’s a line that’s kind of a refrain: “The dead pull the living down.” At first it creeped me out—I pictured a corpse literally reaching out of the ground and dragging live humans down into the grave.
But when the line was repeated, I realized it’s metaphorical, too. The dead pull the living down. They keep us from moving forward. They keep the living from living.
And Logan, please don’t think I’m saying that to guilt you into passing on. Whether you’re here or…beyond, it doesn’t matter.
Like I said, some things hurt forever. There are some voids that can never be filled, because there’s no one who
can
fill them, no one who fits that slot. I mean that as a compliment, not a fuck-you-for-leaving-us.
Logan (whispers): I know. But I still hope you’re wrong about some things hurting forever.
Mickey: Me too.
K&K: Well…I’m glad to tell you guys that “Bridge” isn’t the final chapter. Since your short story takes place about halfway through
Shift
, which is only Book 2, you both still have time to find the peace you’re searching for.
Logan: Cool. Um, since you see into the future, can you tell me if the Ravens ever win a second Super Bowl?
K&K: In which universe, yours or ours?
Logan: You just answered my question. (pumps fist) YES! Dude, up top. (raises hand for high-five from Mickey, who misses him by several inches)
K&K: Thanks for this exclusive interview, guys—wait’ll we tell our friends we got to sit down with the Keeley Brothers! (does victory dance)
Lyrics to “Forever”
If you’ve read
Shade
, you know that Logan wrote a song to sing to Aura on the night of his birthday, the night of the big gig, the night they were supposed to consummate their love. The night he died.
Logan wrote “Forever” just the week before, on that afternoon when they...didn’t. As you’ll see from the first verse, he started writing in his head that very moment.
He never got to play the song for her, but he did sing it for her near the end of the book. That’s when Aura realized what they lost when he died. They lost forever.
“Forever”
by Logan Keeley