In Utero

 'In Utero' was the albums name. Nirvana. 

Blake had found it cracked and gritted and opened slightly by the side of the road on one of his walks home from school. He had been just 11 then. He'd never seen a CD before. All his friends at that time had iPhones, Samsungs, Huaweis, and google phones, all chocked full of irrelevance and musical spectres. Streams of previews and promises, but never ownership. That was the way of the world back then, times changed quickly. People still collected vinyls but more for nostalgia, for show, for decoration, the vinyl itself rarely played. CD's in their own right, were dead. 

Lifting the cafetière and pouring the hot black contents into a mug, Blake found himself thinking of nothing.  Stirring as he did he clinked the spoon in time with Kurt's cracked pleading vocals. 'I've been clink locked clink inside clink your clink heart clink shaped clink box for weeks...'. Picking up his mug he moved over to his sofa bed (it took all of 4 steps), and sat carefully next to Lisa's rigid paled body. There was only one window in the bedsit, and outside rain pounded and cried and clawed tendrilled streams across the small window pane. Only light from the TV, illuminated the small room. Static, black and white, dotted and pixel patterned coursing across the screen. There was no white noise though, Blake had since turned the sound down, replaced instead with Nirvana, replaced with Kurt. He had removed the needle from Lisa's arm then, and had placed it on the kitchen counter next to the cafetière. Lisa hadn't moved of course, she rarely did after a hit. 

He sipped his coffee and stared at the static. He had known this day would come for a while so he just sat, and stared, and listened.  'I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black'. Lisa had been streaming for years now, nearly a decade. She often let herself into Blake's flat, stuck on an old VHS movie and had her hit. Blake had refused at first, disgusted, bewildered, and distraught by the cancer she was injecting herself with. Soon though he had realised that better here, in his bedsit, with a VHS, something concrete, than the alternative. Better here where her streams could find some purchase. Oft times,  she would come too in between hits. He would be sat next to her, with Nirvana in the background, and they would see each other, and smile, and they would be 11 again.  11, where they sat in their shared bedroom, huddled round an old Sony Discman, with one earphone in each, listening to Kurt's strangled screams of rape and love and abuse and anarchistic melancholy-  where his rage could be their defiance to the sounds of rape and love and abuse and anarchistic melancholy coming from downstairs.  

Blake took another sip of his black tar and stretched his left hand over to his sisters face. Cold. Their mother would be here soon. She had wanted to see her daughter before he called the hospital. Blake hadn’t argued, there was no point. 

Carefully, gingerly, with a shaking hand, palm to her eyes, he felt the lashes and stroked down shutting her sight. In the other hand he held his coffee. One warm and comforting, the other..? Their mother would not want to see her daughter staring into the abyss. 

His hand returned to his brew, to warm again, and he let his gaze drift from the television set to the object that lay on top. As he did, Kurt in his gravel, rang out his chorus. ‘Hey! Wait! I’ve got a new complaint. Forever in debt to your priceless advice.’ There, resting above, on top of the tv, was a cd case, cracked and gritted, and opened, slightly.

Blake turned his head to look at the lifeless body of his sister, then, back at the cd case. 

‘In Utero’, was the album's name. 

Nirvana.