Rushing Whispers

    The road crew were still loading up equipment into the truck by the time the band, including myself and Sylvia, boarded the bus. The performance had ended about two hours ago and now we were on the road to Inverness, where we would play tomorrow.      I’d managed to keep Sylvia’s situation to myself today, despite Cameron asking me twice if I was alright. I had known my face would betray me, and it was only a matter of time until I told him.      By the time we got to the hotel it had just passed three o’clock in the morning. Cameron showered, while I opted to lay on the bed. When he came back into the room, he asked me again.      “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” he asked.      I lifted my head and saw his worried expression as he pulled on underwear.       “I didn’t mean to worry you,” I sighed. “It’s not me, it’s Sylvia.”      “What’s happened?” Cameron ...

    Tonight’s show in Glasgow marked five days before the end of the tour. Cameron and I had spent the day relaxing in the city, happily going to see some of the attractions the city had to offer.      Too soon it was time to get to the venue for soundcheck. The band performed two songs to test out the equipment’s connections and left the stage feeling energized.      Dale went right to the drinks table and poured himself a sizeable glass of rum. I wondered how he wasn’t on the floor as I saw him swallow half the glass in one gulp, before refilling it and wandering about the room.      Riot Men were back on the tour with us, having been the opening band for the English dates in July. After their performance the crowd was sufficiently excited for Amoeba, so when Cameron gave me a kiss before heading onto the stage, I wished him luck.      “Fry their hair,” I joked.      He winked at me,...

    We were already backstage at the venue in Edinburgh, for the first of eleven shows in Scotland, when I realized that both Dale and Willie wouldn’t speak to me. I had assumed that someone in the band would be irked by what had happened, and though Willie’s silence didn’t matter much to me, it was Dale’s attitude I found bothersome.      Before the band were due to get on stage, I pulled Cameron to the corner of the room.      “Is there a reason they won’t speak to me?”      “I don’t think they’d speak to me either if they had the choice,” Cameron noted. “I’ve cost them a night’s pay. And a lay as well, most likely.”       “They’re ignoring me because they didn’t get laid? ” I asked incredulously.      “Don’t fret over it.” Cameron kissed me and gave me a reassuring smile. “They don’t know.”      “And I won’t tell them.”      “Neither will I,” he assured ...

    The Scottish dates that would end the Missing Persons tour were due to begin in three days, and would last nearly two weeks. I wasn’t overly excited about it, though it would be nice to finish the tour and have some time to do nothing with Cameron, but I was admittedly worried about a few things.      I had been the reason that Cameron chose to cancel the last Dutch show, a second night in Amsterdam. He had sent everyone home, making his decision by my bedside. I spoke to Cameron about my worries last night while we lay in bed, and he comforted me.      “Do they know what happened?”      “No,” Cameron answered. “Only that you fell, and about your fingers.”      I knew that Lee had come by the room more than once to speak with Cameron, and I mentally made note of what Cameron told me.      “I won’t tell them, either. Not unless you want to,” he added.      I shook my head...

    After waking on my third day in the hospital, I was seen by the doctor again. A choice was given to me to either to undergo a short procedure that would extract the pregnancy from me, or to take a course of medication that would do the same. I chose the latter, but I wondered to myself, as I came in and out of lucidity, if surgery had been the better option.      Cameron stayed with me for the entire time I writhed in the bed. He’d told me that he hadn’t left my side since the ambulance brought us to the hospital, only rarely stepping into the hall for a few minutes at a time. I already loved him deeply, but my love for him grew during this ordeal.      I was released from the hospital four days after having been admitted. Without much delay, we booked a flight for the same day and returned to Scotland.      Once we had arrived back at the house in Cairnie, it was early morning. I took a much-needed shower an...

    We were in Rotterdam, for the first of two consecutive nights, and I had managed not to tell Cameron about my doctor’s visit for two days. I had a loose plan in my mind that I would tell him when we returned home. After all, tomorrow would be the last show before we would all fly back to Scotland, where we would have just over one week before another dozen dates that would conclude the tour.      I watched the show from beside the stage, trying to take in all I could. My mind wandered often, though. I couldn’t help but wonder how on in the world I would tell Cameron I was nearly ten weeks pregnant. Tossing my plan aside, I decided I would tell him at the hotel tonight.      I hadn’t noticed, but the performance was over. I turned to walk backstage but as the band slipped into the shadows one by one, there was a rush of people trying to get as close as they could to Amoeba.      I watched my feet as I tried to ...

    Amsterdam was the fourth city on the Dutch Missing Persons tour, with a show on October first and third. Thursday night had been a raving success; not only because of the band’s performance but also due to the appearance of Yan Jansen.      Yan was a popular Dutch guitarist, also in a progressive rock band, and his presence backstage hadn’t been taken lightly. Cameron was the first to speak with him but by the time Willie approached the pair, Cameron had already gained Yan’s praise as a musician.      Cameron and I had gone to our hotel room feeling good, after all, Yan was known as a talented and picky man so to be praised by him was something to be proud of. Yet, while Cameron spoke excitedly to me from the room, a deep sense of worry set in my chest.      The next morning I woke next to Cameron, the feeling still with me. He had most of his day planned as he was needed for some band business that would occu...

    We had slept in a hotel in Leer after the performance there last night, opting to use today’s day off to travel to Dortmund. The band would play there tomorrow, then in Düsseldorf before the final German date in Cologne on the twentieth.      In the hotel lobby, as we took turns checking in, something caught my eye. I walked over to the stand, covered in pamphlets and brochures about the area’s tourist attractions, and picked up one of the magazines. I laughed to myself and tucked it under my arm before following Cameron to our room.      I entered the room feeling grateful; it was more presentable than the last one we’d been in and had clearly just been visited by the cleaning staff. I placed my handbag beside the door and tossed the magazine onto the bed.      “What’s that?” Cameron asked while he took his shoes off.      “ Rock Galaxie, ” I answered. I sat on the bed and read directly from the c...

    I had been looking forward to today and Sunday since the German tour began; in fourteen days there had only had three without a performance so two days off in a row had been very anticipated.      Unfortunately for my nonexistent weekend plans, we’d been told three days ago that the upcoming Friday night show had sold out and the venue in the Northwest end of Frankfurt, was willing to pay thirty percent more than Amoeba’s usual rate for a second night. The band had a meeting that lasted only minutes, and agreed, leaving Geoff to arrange the details with the venue.      Tonight would be the second show, though the Dutch band hired to open each night for the next month had already gone ahead to Essen. A local band was asked to fill in and happily did so, putting on a decent show for the full house of raving fans.      “You know something?” I asked Cameron. We were sitting at the far end of the room, watching ever...

    Amoeba had smashed through the rest of the French tour in fine form; even getting positive reviews in the various Europeans journals and magazines that provided the masses with photos, reviews, and interviews of all the popular rock bands on tour at any given time.      Yesterday’s performance in Stuttgart had been the first Amoeba show in Germany in nearly eighteen months, and the crowd had definitely missed them. There was a second show at the same venue tonight, and then off to two nights in Munich and one in Augsburg before the month’s end.      Two writers from Rock Galaxie , a prominent German music magazine based in Stuttgart, were backstage with us tonight. There would be questions before and after the performance to cover multiple facets of musicianship, I was told. I had never been a big reader of magazines, mostly getting news of the music world from my local record store, but I was excited to see how artists inte...

    We arrived at the hotel in Paris at three o’clock in the morning, having left not long after the Reims show ended. Tonight’s show would be held in one of the popular Right Bank Parisian districts at a concert hall, with tomorrow’s performance taking place at a medium-sized club on the outskirts of the city.      When Cameron and I checked into the hotel and got to our room, I immediately asked him what had happened with Dale in the dressing room.      “I’ve been trying to figure it out myself,” he admitted. Cameron sat on the bed and shook his head. “I’ve never seen the man cry, let alone sob as he did.”      I sat beside him and put my hand on his. “He’s lost a child, though, even if it wasn’t his own.”      “Yes, he has.” Cameron nodded. “But the letter isn’t explicit. He showed it to me, in the room, before he spoke.”      I sighed, my head resting on his shoulder. “So, we don’t kn...

    Amoeba finished the English tour in fine form; after the last date in Brighton, we spent the nine-day break at Geoff's summer home in Eastbourne. We flew from Gatwick to the Lille airport two days ago, the band had been quite happy that I was able to communicate with the customs agents. Having spent all but the last ten weeks of my life in a province where the majority of people were French-speaking, and learning to speak the language by writing it, had given me the ability to simply modify my accent and be very well understood by most Frenchman.      The day after arriving, the band performed at a club in Lille, where the owner became very happy to meet me once he realized that none of the band’s members or crew could speak any more of his language than a simple “bonjour” and “bon soir” in greeting.       Tonight, we were playing in a concert hall in Reims that held just over one thousand people. We weren’t expecting a...

    It has been six days since the incident in Manchester. The mood within the group had shifted slightly after Friday’s show, but only lasted until we began to set up for the following day’s show in Liverpool.      Cameron later told me that he had spoken to everyone together, while I was in the bus looking for an item I’d misplaced, and gave them a brief and simplified version of what had caused me to act in that way. It put everyone at ease to know what had triggered it, though Willie still wouldn’t look me in the eye and we had barely exchanged more than a cursory glance at each other since.       Tonight we were in London, for the first of two nights at a fairly prestigious venue for a prog rock band to perform at. We were all backstage while Riot Men performed; either having a drink, smoking, sitting, or all three.      I glanced sidelong at Willie, who had just entered the room with a woman in tow, an...