Between Two Lungs: a fictional interpretation of a song by Florence + the Machine

Welcome to another Music Monday experience! Today, we’re diving in with a flash fiction interpretation of a song by Florence + the Machine! This particular story is a revision of an earlier post from several years ago, and though it isn’t currently a part of the world of novels I tend to write in, I’m sure it will eventually turn into one.

For now, though, enjoy reading while you listen and then let me know your thoughts in the comments below!







It’s a calming experience to run where everything changes.

My favorite was always the beach. When the tide is low, I could kick off my running shoes and run along the wet sand, my footprints slapping an imprint that would fade with the next kiss of the wave.

I used to like that no wave is ever the same; a dune can be blown away in a night; the remains of a sea life can be washed to shore and pulled back to the depths of the ocean within a matter of seconds.

The beach is a reminder that everything can change in an instant and nothing will ever be the same.

But then I met him.

He was the beach personified. He had eyes the same shade of blue ships set sail in and hair the color of sand.

We met last summer. He was a tourist, and I was the lucky tour guide he had booked as a joke.

“Who actually needs a tour guide for the beach?” he had asked.

“Old people mostly,” I had answered.

“What do you talk about? The tides?”

“Yes,” I had said. “And the local sea life, the most likely findings, the best places and times to collect… and sometimes the weather.”

“That sounds boring.”

“Some people prefer boring to silence.”

He didn’t respond, so he could prove his point. And I remember marveling at how I’d never met anyone as stubborn as the sea before he came along.

Later, I would learn he lived his life on the ocean, atop a sailboat his family had spontaneously docked at the only home I’d ever known. He referred to his parents as “The Nomads” because of their inability to stay in one place longer than six weeks. His life was an endless tide of coming and going.

“Who knows how long we’ll stay this time,” he’d said with a wistful glint in his eyes.

I would always find him at sunrise on the beach as I went for my morning runs. He claimed he couldn’t sleep until he watched the sun rise over the ocean.

“What do you do at night if you can’t sleep?” I asked him eventually.

“Think of you, mostly,” he said with a charming grin, and I blushed. “And sometimes I swim.”

“In the dark? Aren’t you scared?”

“What’s there to be afraid of?”

I knew he could never be mine to keep, but I waded into the uncharted waters he brought to my shoreline anyway.

On the Fourth of July, I found myself waist deep in the water with him, fireworks bursting in the night sky as we kissed for the first time.

My hair that night was soaked and sticking to my cheeks, but even caked in sand and sea, I’d never felt more beautiful and alive.

As the fireworks popped above my head and between my lungs, I knew he was going to change my life forever–even though I also knew our time together would never last.

One day, I knew, he would return to the sea and I would have to watch him leave from the shoreline.

But I never expected I wouldn’t get the chance to say goodbye.

THE GASP

A poetic interpretation of a song by Neon Trees.

A poetic interpretation of a song  by Twenty One Pilots.

A fictional interpretation of a song by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

A poetic interpretation of a song by WALK THE MOON.

A fictional interpretation of a song by Hey Monday.

There’s always a point in a scary movie when the protagonist hears a noise, and instead of running for their life, they go toward the noise, unarmed, unaware.
That’s how I felt the night of the biggest party of the school year.
It was my first party to attend ever, and I was pretty sure the only reason I was invited was because I was currently dating the most popular guy in school, Ken. Before Ken, I was just the nerd who spent all her time reading. But after helping Ken pass all his classes this semester, he asked me out on an actual date, and now I was reserved the best seats at lunch and invited to all the coolest parties.
But something didn’t feel right.
There was a movie-esque feeling to my life, and though I had always wished my life could be as eventful and predictable as one of my favorite novel-turned-movie films, I knew that real life wasn’t supposed to be this way.
Maybe I’m just pessimistic, but it seemed obvious to me that something was bound to happen. A fateful twist to my storybook life.
And I was right.
I’d lived my first fifteen years in perfect mediocracy. The only thing about my life that wasn’t so stereotypically average were my grades in school. I’d always excelled easily in school, but since it came so easily to me, I didn’t think it all that impressive.
I took the job as an afterschool tutor because I was hoping it would present a challenge. Teaching, for me, seemed to be much more difficult than doing the work myself. 
Ken came to me desperate to improve his failing average in time for the playoffs. I didn’t understand how anyone could be failing every single one of their classes, but during the few weeks I helped him, I learned.
Not only was he the basketball team’s key player, but he was also the primary caregiver for his disabled little sister at home. His father was non-existent, and his mother worked full-time, leaving him in charge of picking up his little sister from school and taking care of her. He was failing his classes because between the team and his family, he couldn’t find the time to dedicate to his schoolwork. 
Until he didn’t have a choice.
And that’s why he came to me, and forever changed my life.
The party was smaller than I imagined.
For some reason, I was expecting the biggest party of the year to be a wild, reckless mass of people, giving barely enough space to breathe. But instead, it was a eardrum-busting blast of music, and scattered clumps of people talking, laughing, and smoking.
“Want a hit?” One of Ken’s friends and teammates asked me, holding out the pipe.
“No, thanks.” I said.
“She doesn’t smoke.” Ken said, smiling before taking the pipe from the guy. “Brain cells.”
He flicked the lighter a few times, and inhaled deeply, sucking in the smoke. I tried not to picture the effect it was having on his lungs. Not to mention his brain. 
“That’s good stuff.” Ken said, handing the pipe back to the guy who gave it to him. He put his arm around me, and began leading me toward the kitchen. “Let’s get you a drink.”
I should have said no. I should have tried to steer him toward something less dangerous, perhaps something legal. But I always seemed to lose my voice around Ken. I didn’t want to disappoint him. 
So we drank. One sweetly spiked drink after the other. We drank, and Ken smoked and I fluttered from one group to another underneath Ken’s arm.
The feeling of danger was muffled.
Ken was my only ride home.
And like the protagonist in a horror movie, I made the reckless decision to do the opposite of what you’re supposed to do in a tricky situation: I agreed to ride home with him, even though neither of us was particularly fit to drive.
“It’s okay. I’ve done this a thousand times.” Ken assured me. “I’ll get you home safe. I promise.”
It was a promise he wouldn’t be able to keep.
Nobody was paying attention.
Yet it all seemed to happen in slow motion. The red light; Ken’s delayed reaction. He slammed on the brakes when we were already in the middle of the intersection. The truck smashed into his side, and I screamed.
Then I was waking up in a hospital bed.
Ken didn’t make it.
They say it was instant. No pain. But I didn’t get so lucky.
My legs were crushed in the accident. The doctor’s predict I’ll never walk again. 
No legs. No Ken.
A fateful twist to my storybook life indeed.
But I’m still here.
I’m still alive and I’m not giving up. My life has been changed, but it is far from over. Everything happens for a reason. And maybe I don’t know what that reason is just yet, but I will.
One day I’ll even look back, and realize it was obvious.

A fictional interpretation of a song by Passion Pit.

A fictional interpretation of a song by Fall Out Boy

A fictional interpretation of a song by Cute is What We Aim For

She didn’t drink.
At least that’s what she told herself. Just this once. She’d think. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and these were desperate times.
It started when she lost the ring. It wasn’t new, had been in the family for years, and was more valuable than she could ever hope to be. She had seen the way her sister-in-law-to-be had looked at her left ring finger the night they announced their engagement.
“You’re so lucky.” She had said, a glass of champagne in her manicured hands. “I always thought I would get the ring, but my dear older brother had to show me up yet again and be the first to get engaged!”
She had laughed, but it was the kind of laugh you weren’t supposed to laugh along with. It was the kind of laugh you were supposed to be afraid of.
And then she had lost the ring which was already bad enough. 
But it was only an omen for the trouble ahead.
Three days and one extraordinary fight over the lost ring later, she found her fiancé in bed with a man.
“I’m sorry.” He had said. “You weren’t supposed to see this. You weren’t supposed to know… Nobody can ever know about this, okay? I’ll still marry you if you want.”
I’ll still marry you if you want. She wasn’t sure what hurt worse: his cavalier attitude toward their marriage or the fact that their entire relationship had been built upon lies.
She called off the wedding, and moved out of his apartment the next day. She hadn’t lived alone in seven years, but she found she could quickly find company at the bar just below her apartment. A few drinks, and she wouldn’t even have to think about it. Or anything. She would only feel.
“Hey, you wanna get outta here?” The guy sitting next to her at the bar asked.
His features were blurry, his intentions were even more so, but she didn’t care. All she knew was that his touch on the small of her back was setting off flames of desire, and erasing her loneliness.
“Yes.” She said. “My place is upstairs.”
She took his hand and led the way thinking, he wants me. There’s a lot of guys here, but he wants me not them. And that was good enough for her.
They fumbled around in the dark until they found the bed, and afterward, before she fell asleep, as she lay naked in the stranger’s arms, she thought this is nice. I’m not alone anymore.
But in the morning the stranger was gone, leaving only his imprint on the bed and the smell of sex behind. She didn’t even know his name. She pretended not to care. And when night fell, she returned to the bar.
“I think you’ve had enough, little lady. You’re better off sober anyway.” The bartender said when she asked for her third vodka cranberry. “One of these days, you’re gonna get ‘cher self hurt real bad.”
“No, no. Just one more. One more is all.” She said. “I’m not drunk I promise. Just one more, one more.”

But it wasn’t just one more. It never was.