Caldera Lakes - Track 1 [mp3]
There were loud unexpected noises all around us now, from inside the house came a shout full of mirth and discordance its reverb audibly edited by some monstrosity of hate. We were on our way in for lunch, my brother and I, we hadn’t eaten in a while and after an afternoon of athletics in the yard and woods, a hunger fell defeated instantly at the sounds appearing in images inside. Initially we deigned to find another way inside as we returned to our basketball court in the woods, but time elapse found us fighting for position under the hoop instead. We shot at the wood basket hanging from a wooden tree, our ball bouncing flatly against the packed mud of the forest. He said, “I think they’re fighting again.” At first I agreed with him but our attentions drifted from domestic affairs to the question of superiority. It wasn’t so much that we were competing to determine the better basketball player, it was quite clear that at two years his elder and possessing natural athletic gifts, I would win most games involving physical exertion. Rather, our collected emotional responsibilities, our innate ability to ignore the ignition of imbalance inside, we would play H-O-R-S-E and then Around the World and then even have a dunk contest instead of addressing the rage inside.
Later, we forgot. Our venture to cure the aching feeling of hunger proved fruitless once more. The simmering disagreement was in a bout of unfortunate momentum. We were soon confronted with the expulsion of good graces and common sense our loved ones running from the front door beating down all sense of logic and proper behavior. On the outside we viewed from a tree climbed rapidly to avoid a scene unlike others. A hand in the glass, a peel of the pavement and blood falling far from the arm of a father. From a pine tree we watched, we climbed to the top higher still than the house, from the tree at the top nearly forty feet from the ground we witnessed it all, a scene from our hearts squelched without a hope. From the tree we sat still wondering about the scene far below in another world, in our tree high in the air we felt for once free to see the places below us as potential, for luck of the draw we could see all around all the way to the next town the beauty and wonder of our potential the future without disgrace and below he came walking through the corn fields, his arm tattered and smeared left and right, jagged windows etched a pattern for all to see. His expression without a clear thought and we watched him re-enter the house to await his plea. We watched again the sun as it neared the horizon from our tree high above and we thought we would be fine as long as we had noise to fill in the empty spaces in time.
Caldera Lakes are a rhythm and blues band from Portland and Denver. The featured song is from an upcoming album. Purchase the music at Sentient Recognition Archive.
