Band On The Run

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The knocking had me surfacing from my wrapped up state, and I blinked, staring at the door blankly.

It’s called a door, Keely, I reminded myself, giving a snort as I shook my head.

Seriously, I was not someone who should go without sleep. It was quite necessary for my brain function.

Setting the acoustic guitar to the side, I stood up from the box, my legs suddenly reminded me that they’d been folded up for far too long and protested at the movement. Grimacing, I ran my hands down my thighs as I made my way over to the white door that the knocking was coming from.

“Oh, hey,” I greeted, feeling a bit surprised despite myself as I met Nick’s frowning expression. Mentally I smacked myself in the forehead the moment my shocked tone came out, who else was it supposed to be? I was still in our apartment. I had to keep reminding myself of that my makeshift music room was still in this apartment.

That frown didn’t disappear from his face, in fact, if anything, it deepened after my words. “What are you doing?”

Leaning against the door slightly that I still hadn’t opened all the way, I dropped my head on to the doorframe and sent him a grin. “Working,” I told him simply.

“Did you sleep at all last night?” he questioned, reaching out and placing a hand on my cheek. Naturally I leaned into the pressure, though he traced the dark marks beneath my eye with his thumb. “You didn’t come to bed.”

That in turn had me blinking at him in confusion. “Last night?” I asked incredulously, glancing back into the room behind me, but found no clue with the curtains fully drawn in the room. No light go through those. “What time is it?”

Okay, he was definitely starting to worry now, I could see it in his eyes. “It’s ten thirty, we’ve got to be at the festival grounds by noon.”

“Ten thirty in the morning?”

Nick just nodded slowly, his widened eyes fixed on me.

“Shit,” I muttered, running a weary hand over my face. “And we have to be there by noon? I’m not even on until nine thirty tonight.”

“They told us this weeks ago,” Nick reminded me, “The benefit organizers called all the artists that are a part of it. They want all performers there by noon to show unity or something.”

Okay, I definitely needed to sleep more often. I was not going to function well having been holed up in the music room, boxes still unpacked with my song book and acoustic guitar and absolutely no sense of time. I’d switched positions from sitting cross-legged, leaning against the wall, lying flat on my back, perched on top of some of the sturdier boxes, but I’d never had the thought to actually check the time.

And now that I had been forcefully pulled out of that song writing vortex I’d been sucked into, there was nothing more I wanted than to crawl in bed and pass out with my face flat in the pillows. Well, that or finishing perfecting the chord progression that was coming after the bridge.

“Alright,” I started, “How much time do you think I have until we have to leave?”

Nick’s face crinkled slightly with the thought, and he said with an apologetic look, “We should probably be gone by quarter to, eleven at least. Sorry, I thought you knew.”

“And you’re all ready?” I questioned, but it was a rhetorical one. I could see easily he was ready, the black dress pants with a tucked in white shirt and black tie looked very clean cut and were following the wardrobe specifications we’d been given of wearing on black and white.