Wanna Hear My New Song?

Orpheus Nohair carries a rectangular case as he walks briskly over the beach, littered with shells, nudes, and broken hearts. He laughs to himself, as he sees the suitors lined up and placing themselves on the sacrificial altar, then cutting their hearts out in a symbolic offering of love. “That is so 90’s.” He thinks to himself. He sees the line of suitors, male and female, blocking the entrance to what looks like a good-sized house. He sets down the case, opens it, and pulls out his autoharp. A few strums and he begins to sing. Immediately, the entire line of suitors turns to look at him. The women, at least the ones that aren’t covered in tattoos and smelling of chewing tobacco, leave the line and come towards him. He looks to the side, and they go where his eyes looked.

He steps forward and the line moves out of his way. There is absolute silence as the song is carried across the air. Nobody can pay attention enough to realize there are no echoes, but the sound is eerie due to this. After a brief walk, Orpheus is at the door. He begins a new and softer song, looking right directly at the door. He sings for an hour, amazed that the door doesn’t open. The lights inside the house are turned off. All the suitors are cleared away by the police, including our stunned hero, Orpheus.

“The door didn’t open?” He says to the policeman, half as a statement of disbelief, half as an admission of failure.

“She looked through the peephole and didn’t like what she saw.” The policeman snapped back.

“But, the song!” The policeman laughed and called out to his companions and the other suitors.

“Hey! Everybody! This nut was singing!” and many laughed in glee. Then the policeman looked Orpheus right in the eye and said, “That ain’t gonna fucking work.”

Orpheus was devastated. Not because his ego was hurt, but because his song didn’t work. It was a perfect song. How could it not work? His song must be broken. He sat down on the side of the road cross-legged, and began to sing to himself.

Now, all you Mythological experts probably think that you know what is happening, but I assure you, I know nothing about mythology, so my story isn’t bound by traditions. Orpheus sang to himself a question of why his song did not work. He was attempting to use the magic of the song to determine why the song did not work. For a long time the song didn’t work. Then some teenage girl kicked him in the ribs and said, “Will you cut that crap out. She’s deaf, you loser!” Orpheus was devastated at first. This was the second time a song had failed him. I quickly interjected this line of narration that the second song brought the girl to him, so technically, it worked perfectly. Quite relieved, our hero sulks his way home.

Stripped of his secret weapon, Orpheus went to the drawing board and played tic-tac-toe, not finding any solution to his dilemma. To calm himself, he sang a love song. It went something like this:

                      "Perfection is a beautiful thing
                      And I should know of what I sing
                      For I have seen the light in you
                      And just assume I have it, too…”

He cried at the beauty of his song, or because the Celtics were playing so badly, he wasn’t sure which. Then he tried to think of what he could do to set himself apart from all the other suitors.  This thinking went on for quite some time. “Someone wise, “ he finally thought, “would simply pick a girl that wasn’t so friggin’ complicated.” So, he did just that and lived happily ever after.

But, our story does not end there! No! Orpheus had failed, and that had to be rectified. So he waited outside the house, with an ipod so he didn’t have to listen to the crappy incredibly indescribable suitor-banter, and waited for anything that would tell him how he could gain back his self-esteem. He saw a car pulling up and got an Idea. As the driver got out, Orpheus bopped him on the head, stole his clothes, and struggled mightily to get into them. Then he walked, with great difficulty in the tight clothes, to the door and held the pizza in front of the peephole. The door opens and he bounds inside.

The woman looks at him and says, “How much?”

Orpheus can’t answer because he is looking at a face peeping at him from the top of the stairs. He waves his hands to show that the pizza is free, then acts desperate and asks to use the bathroom. The woman points to the top of the stairs and our hero bounds up for reasons we don’t know. As soon as he sees the girl up there, he smiles brightly and asks her if she would like to see a mermaid. The girl’s eyes widen. She nods her head. Orpheus beckons her to follow him, and walks downstairs.


When they opened the front door, Orpheus opened his mouth and the most disgusting sounds ever made came out. All of the suitors and the police ran for cover, until there was no sign of them anywhere around. Then he offered his arm to the girl who reluctantly took it, and they walked to the beach. It was a dank overcast night. Orpheus pointed to the sky and began to sing. Within minutes, the stars were brightly shining and the breeze warmed. The girl looked at him with a quizzical expression, as if to say. “Did you do that?” He just shrugged and pointed at the ocean.

Then Orpheus made the most remarkable sounds. Like whales, tripping on acid, during a wild behemoth orgy. After a minute, a blonde head pops out of the water to see what’s going on. Then a brunette mermaid appears. Within minutes, there are a dozen or more mermaid heads visible. Orpheus starts to sing a love song, and the mermaids come very close to shore and push themselves out of the water so their breasts are visible.

Orpheus waves at them, and they turn around and swim back to sea. The girl stands up and waves at Orpheus to bring them back. He shakes his head no and says, “Their dad gets angry if I keep them longer than a minute or two. They get out of the water, follow me around, it’s a bad scene.”

With that, he picked up his autoharp and strapped it on. He sat down on a rock, and motioned to her to stand behind him. Then he grabbed her hands. With one hand he strummed the autoharp. He placed her other hand on his neck as he sang. Then he sang three powerful ballads. He could not see her behind him, but he could feel her hand moving around his neck, checking out every muscle and nerve. When he was done, he looked at her and said:

                  “Anytime you want to hear a song, let me know.”

Then he sang a sailing tune and walked across the water until he was out of sight, knowing not to look back.