If the Sun Has Faded Away (UNDER REWRITING)

Chapter 12 : Practice session

"Is there anybody going to listen to my story...

As soon as John began singing, I locked my eyes onto his figure, as I prepared myself to pay a careful listen to the words that he was about to sing.

As I always did, I was sitting on the floor, with my legs stretched ahead of me. That's where I liked to sit whenever I was the privileged spectator of the boys' practice – the parqueted floor.

Uncle Jim was sitting in the armchair, just a few centimeters away from me. Glancing towards me, he silently motioned for me to come and take over his seat, getting ready to give it up for me, – as he always did whenever I was sitting on the floor -because he felt it was disrespectful of him to let me sit on the bare floor.

But I didn't mind sitting on the floor. It provided me with a certain feeling of coziness that I liked.

I smiled at Uncle Jim and gently shook my head in denial. He slightly frowned at me but then, he immersed himself back in the newspaper that he was reading.

If you asked me, I had no idea how he was able to focus on the reading of his newspaper while he was surrounded by so many sounds: John's firm voice, Paul and George's voices backing John's with their repeated « tit tit tit » - that made my heart skip a beat every two seconds or so, precisely because I got hold of the naughtiness that was hidden in this seemingly innocent one-syllable word -, added to Ringo's quite loud drumming.

Even though Uncle Jim seemed to be fully focused on the news he was reading, it did not escape my attention that, now and then, he would raise his head to look at the boys, turning his attention to them.

Every time Paul and George provided with their « tit tit tit... » in the background of John, Uncle Jim would slightly shake his head from side to side, even when he seemed to be immersed in the newspaper he was reading.

John was standing only a few centimeters ahead of me. From where I was sitting, his tall figure seemed even more imposing to my eyes.

Precisely because I was sitting on the floor and because he was standing tall right in front of me, I was in a position that allowed me to pay close attention to every single detail of his figure.

I noticed the fact that he was keeping his hands close to his body. The fact that his legs were slightly shaking didn't escape my notice either.

John was feeling nervous. But that wasn't preventing him from delivering a soulful rendition of his song.

His gaze was lost in the space.

A single look into his eyes made it clear to me that, although he was physically standing in the same room as all of us, his mind was wandering elsewhere. In a place where neither I nor anyone else could follow him.

Words flooded effortlessly from his mouth, in a limpid flow.

I could see that these words were coming straight from deep down his heart. Or better said, from his soul.

The meaning of the words hit me, unexpectedly, as I unconsciously started to let them dawn upon me.

I suddenly realized that the lyrics that John was singing were presenting the figure of a woman whom the song's protagonist found himself helplessly attracted to. The song was about a dream girl. But was this girl John's dream girl?

Strangely enough, that thought struck my mind the minute I heard John singing the line which, at one point in the song, said « She's the kind of girl you want so much it makes you sorry ».

To hear John's sharp intakes of breath during the chorus also left me quite puzzled.

Every time he would breathe in that particular way, I would feel my heart beat faster than usual.