Gemotions

He stared at the stage, his gaze locked on the band. A young girl, barely out of her teens, was singing "Lonely Roads," his song. The crowd cheered, the music loud and bright. The lyrics, his words, seemed foreign in this upbeat context. He remembered the feeling when he’d written it, the loneliness, the isolation. It was supposed to be a lament, not a party anthem.

He felt the sweat trickle down his spine. His life was in tatters. He was a shadow of his former self. He wanted to shout, to stop them, to make them understand. But he was just a ghost, unseen, unheard.

He slipped away from the venue, the echoing music a constant reminder of his failure, the sound of his own song turned into something else.