Millions

The truth is that he has already made me millions.

And I feel bad, because I don’t have any way to repay him.

#

This all began with such innocence. A trip on a bus – since before the making of my millions I couldn’t afford a car, or limousine hire, or a quick chopper ride – a seat behind mine, a couple of young men in quiet discussion.

But not quite so quiet that I couldn’t pick up the gist.

Not that I’m an eavesdropper or anything like that by habit. In honesty, I was just tired, it’d been a long and unrewarding day, and all I really wanted was to go home and sleep, just sitting in the bus with my forehead against the window, letting the sights and sounds wash over me with little thought, minimal notice.

There was just something about this conversation that caught my attention.

Maybe I should say a few words about me: I was at the time a supermarket worker, but also an aspiring singer and song-writer. By ‘aspiring’ I mean that I was full of hope, I was young, and I believed, and I had written a good forty or so songs, and maybe most of them were not too great, but at least some were all right. I had a new, yet weathered, guitar; and an audition for a song contest coming up in a couple of weeks. I was psyched about that, all these possibilities for all these songs playing around in my head.

And at just this moment, two strangers, sitting behind me, talking.

“Is that it?” said the first one, gesturing at a brown paper bag.

“Yup.”

“Care to show me?”

I couldn’t see clearly but he was taking something out of the bag, a small box, the kind that – at least in the movies – only ever holds one thing.

“How much did that set you back?”

“A couple of grand.”

The other guy whistles.

“But it’s Sonya. I don’t want to get this wrong.”

“You won’t, trust me. Now, what are you going to say?”

“You’ll laugh. You’ll bring it up on the stag night, and probably again when you say your speech on the day.”

“Oh, most likely. But out with it.”

“I’m not really sure what I’m going to say. But I think it’s going to be something like: Sonya, ever since I met you, everything’s been better. You already know that my life was in a bit of downward spiral before. It’s because of you that it spiralled back up. You don’t know how much I owe you or how much I just want to keep on having that, all the betterness that I get from being with you. I guess you kinda figure now where I’m going with this, so I just want you to say yes. It’s like you re-wrote my whole world. And I just want a chance to do the same for you.”

#

You Re-wrote My Whole World was a smash hit.

I had half of it written in my head before I got off the bus, I was rehearsing it under my breath as I rushed home and fumbled with my keys and fell down on my bed, pen and paper in hand, scribbling the inspiration down before it could dissipate into the air.

I read it over, I knew this was the one.

You, you re-wrote my whole world,

That moment, when I first became your girl,

You, turned me into something new,

Now I just wanna do the same thing for you.

And this was the song I took to my audition, this was the song that touched something in the heart of the judges. And then in the audience, and then in the heart of the talent scout in the third row who had a contract drawn up on his i-phone – I’ll send it to you, think it over, get a lawyer if you want, but get back to me soon, okay? The song that found a following, and radio play-time, and a position on the charts.

It was the song that got me started.

The hits that followed rapid-fire after it, the concerts, the interviews, the synopsis of a movie deal crumpled up in my handbag. And all these things ignited by this moment, by this chance encounter, this young romantic who is maybe a fiancé now, who maybe has this Sonya on his arm, maybe listens to this song, maybe hears himself in it, maybe doesn’t.

My muse, though I never heard his name.

#

That’s why I’m sitting here on a bus, travelling in circles, smiling back at the driver’s quizzical looks when I pay for another round trip – “the Bilbo Baggins special please sir, there and back again” – and why I have this envelope resting on my lap. There’s a card inside it, and a cheque inside that, for what I hope is a fair, even generous figure; the card has a picture of swans mirrored on crystal clear water, and inside it just reads: thank you for being my muse.

I don’t know if he travels this bus as a regular, I don’t know if he’ll travel it today. But maybe today, or tomorrow, or the next day – the driver will raise his eyebrows as I swipe my card yet again – he’ll take the bus home, and there I’ll be, and I’ll have a chance to tell him what he did for me.

Picture credit/discredit: author's own work