The Obsolete Pop Star

Being an obsolete pop star comes with its ups and downs. You wake up in the morning and no longer fear the paparazzi at your door, but you constantly worry about when your next pay cheque will be. The mad rush of getting to the studio at the crack of dawn doesn't exist anymore, and the joy of creating music no longer fuels your day. The silence settles where the noise used to be. You rely on a joint to send you to sleep, but time moves slowly, and the people you once spent your nights with no longer want to spend them with you. The hours stretch and drag. Other than the chaos you miss, the rest is history.

Your day now looks a bit like this: you sit up in bed. It's gone eleven o'clock in the morning, and you stare at the wall, wondering what you'll do with yourself. You check your emails for a response from the café you applied to work at, but there's nothing. Not even a rejection.

You look at the man in your bed and sigh.

He's the only positive thing in your life at the moment. Your love life is going well because now that nobody recognises you on the streets, people actually want to date you. Or maybe it's because you've become addicted to the brief distraction of another body beside yours. Either way, his name is whatever you want it to be. You met him at the bar last night, like most of the men you bring home.

He was sitting on a stool in the darkness with a pint of beer in his hand. You had your best dress on, the one cut a little too low at the chest and barely skimming the base of your arse. It's the dress that gets everyone's attention, but that night you were only interested in him.

He's a man of his word, he says.

He offers to buy you a drink and you say yes.

You talk all night, right up until the bar closes at one. Then it's your turn to make an offer.

"Do you want to come back to mine?"

He smiles. That's all. Then he guides you out of the bar with a hand resting at the base of your back.

It sends a shiver down your spine.

You feel excited, but not as excited as you would've been back when you were a singer on the road. Back when everything felt urgent. Back when every touch felt like it was competing with a thousand other things demanding your attention.

Now you're patient.

You take him all the way to your room and switch off the lights. The next few hours dissolve into a blur of pleasure, alcohol, and weed. The details disappear into the dark.

Then you wake up feeling like shit, and he's still there.

He's curled up in your sheets, breathing softly. He has no idea who you are or what you used to do, but that doesn't matter. You're free of questions like What do you sing? Can I get your autograph? Can we take a selfie? Are you who I think you are?

The list goes on.

For once, you're just a person.

And despite how empty every other part of your life feels, despite the unanswered emails and the dwindling savings and the aching absence of something that once made you feel alive, there's comfort in that. Being able to love without the fandom. Being able to exist without an audience.

It's enough to dull the loneliness for a little while.

It won't last.

You know it won't.

But for now, it's something.