Page 34 of Echoes of a Muted Song

“The stars were my first inspiration,” Johnny said, “for everything, really. Poetry, song lyrics, even what I wanted for dinner. I loved chicken and stars way more than I ever liked chicken noodle, and star-shaped nuggets more than dino-shaped or the oddly-shaped lumps they passed out at other fast-food places. I just liked everything about the way the night sky glittered like the sparkles in my aunt’s favorite dress.”

Nodding, I draped my arms over his shoulders and gave him a little squeeze, wanting him to know that I enjoyed hearing him talk about himself and his childhood.

“My favorite movies were about the stars, too,” Johnny said. “When I was a kid, I thought the best thing about growing up was going to be getting to leave the planet. Talk about disappointing to learn that very few people ever got to go out into space, not that there’s anywhere to go when you get there.”

“Were you expecting 7-11s?” I rasped, nuzzling his ear when I said it.

I loved the way he shivered, then narrowed his eyes at me and stuck out his tongue. “Now who’s misbehaving?”

“No one ever said anything about me behaving,” I reminded him.

“Guess that’s ‘cause you think you make all the rules, huh?” Johnny said, shooting me a wicked grin. “Well, you might, one day, but only onceyou put your name on it.”

I knew what he was talking about, we’d discussed it a couple times now. Johnny wanted to wear my collar, with a tag that told the world that he belonged to me. I wanted to wait awhile before we publicly declared anything. Staying out of the public eye was the best thing for him until this case got resolved. His lack of interest in the news meant he didn’t see shit unless people tagged him on it, which I wished they wouldn’t do.

In the weeks since the second crash victim had succumbed to her injuries, the internet had been ablaze with articles that were mostly filled with opinion and speculations, alternating between condemning the justice system for continuing to allow Johnny to walk free until the trial, and praising him for continuing to be up on the stage every night, giving the fans his all despite the charges hanging over him. What sucked was that there were people who trashed him for that, too, and said that he should have been lying low somewhere out of respect for the victim’s family. I knew from experience that some of those same people would have been filling the internet with comments about how he was in hiding because he knew he’d done wrong if Johnny had locked himself away somewhere. There were just people out there in the world who had nothing better to do than look for ways to make someone else’s life miserable, whether they knew the personor not. Celebrity of any kind had its drawbacks, particularly when it came to the court of public opinion, but that was the problem with opinions, at least as far as I was concerned. People rarely formed them without taking the time to evaluate all the information available or look at things from every angle. It was more like they had hair triggers and sat around just itching to jump on the latest bandwagon and give themselves the false sense that their lives had purpose when in fact, they were just sad, silly creatures wasting all their energy being jealous of other people.

No matter what anyone ever tried to claim, I knew in my gut that was the real reason they were so shitty when anything happened that involved someone with a little bit of fame. They loved seeing them fall, so they could feel superior about not even trying.

Sad, really.

Johnny led me into a room with almost a dozen screens, each playing a clip from a different movie. It was like watching a kid explore a toy store, the way he stopped in front of each one to watch them from beginning to end.

Most of these I’d never even heard of before.

Several were dark, too, and not just in their tones and hues, but the subject matter they tackled. Somber and poignant, there was one about a crow who wanted to be a peacock, so he collected all of their discarded feathers inan effort to make a new tail for himself, only to discover sewing their castoffs together didn’t change what he was, or where he belonged, it just allowed him to make believe for a little while, before his hastily stitched together threads came undone.

“I wonder what inspired that,” Johnny said, cocking his head as he leaned against me to watch it again.

Turning him, I showed him the engraved placard and ruffled his hair while he read it before we continued on to the next screen.

I loved seeing him this way, so in awe and enthralled by everything. With our guards at our backs, we slowly made our way through the museum.

“What the?” Johnny murmured as we stepped into a box with a curtain that blocked out the light behind us as the screen on the wall roared to life the moment we sat down.

Wavy lines, like the inside of a lava lamp, drift up from the bottom of the screen, orange and that odd, medium purple that reminded me of an eggplant that had lost its sheen. Muted. Yeah, I got what Johnny meant now when he talked about how it wasn’t just sounds that could be understated. Colors got muffled, too, and lights, fading before finally going out.

Like my voice.

It would never be strong the way it once was, but in the mornings and when I rested it, I couldtalk to him and watch his eyes light up when I growled in his ear.

Those were the moments that mattered.

And if I should get it in my head to try and sing something to him, Johnny had proven time and time again that he didn’t care if the song was a little soft and lacked my old growling intensity, he just wanted to lie there and listen to me sing.

“This makes me want to draw more,” Johnny said as we entered the next to last room.

Thank the goddess for the map, because there were so many twists, turns and murals that it might as well have been a funhouse, which only enhanced the whole experience.

“You should,” I murmured. “They’re funny as hell and I love the way you tuck them away as hidden surprises for your victims to find after you’ve enshrined their chicanery.”

“That mean you found the one in your Maple Leaf’s jersey yet?”

I stopped moving, at least until his forward momentum forced me to take a step.

Glance left, glance right, good, we were alone in this part of the museum. There was no one to see me crack him on the behind with my palm, or hear him yelp before he rubbed it and waddle-walked away, protecting it all the way down the hallway. It was only after he reached the other end that he turned, stuck his tongue out at me and blew raspberries like Daffy Duck. I wagged a finger at him, and soon caught up, draping myarm back over his shoulder because there was one last thing he needed to experience, and I couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when he learned what it was.

I steered him left at the end of the hall, to a restaurant that looked more like private cubes with an opening on one side and passageways between them, which must be how they delivered the food. The setup was amazing, with bench seating on one side and a movie screen on the other, a menu as well as media options waiting for us at the table.

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