Yay randomness in misplaced Physics class.
This is for Cal's Some Kind of Character contest, the third of five entries. The first number corresponds to the word in the table; the second to the photograph. The word is the one from the table.
[003-12: Scratch]
Jason held the fragile vinyl between his palms. The club's flashing lights illuminated the black disk every few seconds, before darkness swallowed it again. He could stare at the record all night, admiring the bumps and grooves that held the music of someone else's soul, the music that moved the dancers crowding the floor in front of him. He controlled the music; he controlled them.
He gently placed the vinyl record on his turntable, aligning the needle along the grooves. Spinning it, the amplifiers lining the club walls exploded into sound, and the single mass of bodies began to dance. Jason smiled as he watched them. He had always felt his calling in life was making other people happy. When the dancers were having a good time, he was having a good time. He was the best at his job, revered for his enthusiasm and his diverse array of music. Jason never brought the same set of records twice. It was all about keeping the dancers happy, encouraging them to come back night after night to see what the legendary deejay had next. His job was his life – Jason didn’t think he could live with himself if he slipped up even just once.
Jason danced a little in time to the music, pressing his headphones to his ear with one hand. He crouched down, his fingers running across the vinyls packed neatly into his metal carrying case. Each record was individually precious to him, each one was on par with his soul. He picked out the next record and gently slid it out of its case.
As he straightened back up, the record that had been playing in the meantime skipped.
Jason froze.
He prayed that it was a single skip, just one tiny imperfection, but he was horrified as the pulsing beat devolved into a cacophony of stuttering jerks. The people stopped dancing and turned to face him, over a hundred pairs of eyes confused as to why the music was on the fritz. A hundred pairs of eyes branding Jason with their confusion, their disappointment, their anger. His shame.
Jason panicked, throwing the needle off the offending record and replacing it with the one he'd picked out for next. Aligning the needle and giving it a spin, he breathed a sigh of relief as the dancers began gyrating again. Jason shut his eyes tight, trying to shake the feeling of a thousand angry eyes upon him.
He held the offending record up to the nearest steady light, scanning its surface. His heart skipped a beat when he saw a long, deep scratch cutting across nearly the entire area of the circle. How it got there was a mystery to him -- he always kept his records neatly organized, free of dust or any foreign objects. But somehow, one of his records had developed a scratch.
Despair rose in Jason's chest. He spent the rest of the night going through the motions, switching records when necessary, hiding in the shadows when he wasn't needed. He didn't dance to the music.
He waited until his shift was over and wordlessly packed up his things, said a few words to the bartender, and left.
At home, he piled all his vinyls and his turntables into his car and drove to a convenience store. There, he bought a tin of lighter fluid, some matches, and more sleeping pills than anyone would need in a lifetime. He drove to an empty lot, piling his records and equipment into the middle.
He doused the pile with all the lighter fluid, lit a match, and threw it onto the pile. It ignited with a powerful blast of heat, every single piece of Jason's soul going up in smoke.
In the flickering firelight, he swallowed as many pills as he could fit into his mouth. He swayed, and fell onto the bonfire.
