What Was It?

Bob Dylan finishes a song and the crowd cheers. He thanks them and walks off stage, but the audience starts chanting “More! More! More!” Compelled by the encore, he sits back down and plays a new song, but then the audience goes silent. He plays another and receives scattered boos. He plays a third and the crowd begins to hiss like snakes. He puts the guitar down and begins to dance, but then the audience storms the stage. They throw Bob Dylan to the ground and start ripping him apart. They crack open his ribcage and pull out the heart, the lungs, the discs of his spine. They smash the guitar into a thousand pieces, which they gather like candy from a pinata. In his last moments, buried under the weight of his fandom, Bob Dylan sings ever so softly.

Matthew J. Andrews is a private investigator and writer from California. He is the author of I Close My Eyes and I Almost Remember, and his poetry has appeared in Orange Blossom Review, Pithead Chapel, and EcoTheo Review, among others. He can be contacted at matthewjandrews.com.