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    Five Leaves Left
    Five Leaves Left
    Five Leaves Left
    Ebook93 pages1 hour

    Five Leaves Left

    By Courtney Seiberling

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Ten Short Stories that use Nick Drake’s 1969 debut album ‘Five Leaves Left’ as a launchpad and soon leave their birthplace far behind in an eclectic tour ’round the world.

    Each story portrays a unique interpretation by American writer Courtney Seiberling, you may have your own version.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCourtney Seiberling
    Release dateAug 23, 2015
    ISBN9781311253545
    Five Leaves Left
    Author

    Courtney Seiberling

    Courtney Seiberling is a writer, director, actress, and songwriter in Los Angeles.She received a BFA in Dramatic Performance from the University of Cincinnati – College Conservatory of Music, studied at the HB Studios in New York, and under Joan Scheckel’s Filmmaking Labs, Jill Soloway, and Jack Grapes in Los Angeles.The assistant to the director of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival official selection 'Una Hora,' a co-writer on Jamie Chura’s 'The Room So Still Sessions' album, and a collaborator with many artists across the United States and England, Courtney loves projects, executing and bringing them to an audience. theStations, www.thestationsproject.com, is her current one, an electronic experience of Sam Shepard’s one-act 'Cowboy Mouth.' Modeled after The Stations of the Cross, the story is explored in 14 parts.She is the author of 'Five Leaves Left' (Antar Press) and 'Sixteen', writer and producer of the short film 'Like the Penguins,' and director of the Check in the Dark band documentary 'Who Are We Now?' Her one-acts have been a part of festivals and reading series in Los Angeles and Pittsburgh.With the theater company Odds & Ends Productions, she wrote, produced, and acted in issue-based plays about body image and marriage, all selected and performed at the Cincinnati Fringe Festival.New York stage credits include: Halfway There, The Scarecrow, Out of Site...Out of Murder, and Grandma’s Getting Married.Los Angles film credits include: The Night Girl, Objects, Astronomy, A Dark Stroll. A Hapless Dance, and The Runner.Her blog, where she wrote about her experience of not buying anything new for a year, is http://www.yearofnothingnew.blogspot.com/. Her instagram handle, where she takes pictures of things she’s grateful for is things_im_grateful_for.You can contact her at [email protected] Web site is http://courtneyseiberling.wordpress.com/.

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      Book preview

      Five Leaves Left - Courtney Seiberling

      FIVE LEAVES LEFT

      Courtney Seiberling

      All text is copyright 2010 Courtney Seiberling

      Smashwords Edition 2015

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Originally published by The Antar Press 2010 and hand printed in a tiny quality at Antar Books, Walpole, Suffolk

      To Mike,

      who reminded me of the infinite possibility in all things.

      WHAT I DID.

      I wanted to take a writing class, but couldn’t afford one. So, I decided to give myself a project instead. This book was that project.

      My boyfriend gave me Nick Drake's studio albums one year at Christmas. I played them on repeat for months: in my car, at work, on my headphones…Images kept coming to mind and stories began to unfold. I saw characters I didn’t know in places I’ve never been. I realized they had feelings and desires and wanted to be put on the page. I found they had a lot to say.

      I’ve always loved music and the power of it. Music is the strongest way to connect our feelings with our bodies, our bodies to each other and our world. I love musicians who can make your heart bleed and yearn and sing out all at once. Nick was one of those artists.

      I decided to write a story for every track on his album Five Leaves Left. I found this album to be expansive, timeless, unfinished. It was also his first and seemed to fit with this being my first book.

      I’m not trying to explain the songs. You can do that for yourself. The stories are just a reflection of the experience Nick created for me. And my hope is that these stories create an experience for you.

      I’ve always been interested in how artists influence other artists. This book is for anyone who has ever been inspired, by anything really: a rock concert, a painting, a spider building a beautiful web, or a crab finding her way back into the sand. This book is for anyone who has wept because a song fit them so well or danced out of their body because they loved it that much.

      There is art and inspiration in everything. May you always look for it and be taken away like I was.

      Courtney Seiberling

      Los Angeles, Fall 2009

      BOOK ONE

      1. Time Has Told Me

      2. River Man

      3. Three Hours

      4. Way to Blue

      5. Day is Done

      BOOK TWO

      1. ’Cello Song

      2. The Thoughts of Mary Jane

      3. Man in a Shed

      4. Fruit Tree

      5. Saturday Sun

      BOOK ONE

      1. Time Has Told Me

      BLED, SLOVENIA

      It was the morning of her wedding day.

      Rosalie awoke to the slamming sound of the front door. Her mother, she’d assume, running out to the patisserie, to retrieve her cousin, to fulfill a variety of last minute errands that weddings provide anxious female family members. Rosalie rolled over, lethargic. She’d never been one for mornings.

      She lay with eyes half-open, wide enough to see the antique lace dress which hung over the top of the wardrobe. It had been her grandmother’s, contemporized and tailored to fit her slender body. She’d never worn a dress that fit her every shape and limb, her every length and bone. She’d never worn anything with lace. She’d never thought this day would come for her.

      Rosalie looked out the geranium-boxed window. She looked to all the places she’d been before this day; the men she’d shared a bed with, men who had taken small parts of her heart, pieces of her flesh and confidence. It was surprising that she had anything left to give, anything left to promise anyone.

      But her heart felt full this morning as her eyes traveled over meadows and hills. On the cobbled streets below, she recollected her brother riding his bike, her girlfriend picking her up for school in a beat up Skoda. She saw the life she once had before she’d left it to live in the many cities she’d called home, the places she’d met people she’d call friends, where she’d made mistakes and uncovered that many more joys, John the latest and most long lasting of them.

      Rosalie had met John at a friend’s photography exhibit. Their eyes had found each other again and again across a room as they’d become indifferent to the photographs. John approached her. She was wearing yellow. He was wearing his hair long then. He invited her to join him for a cup of coffee at a café just down the street. Rosalie had nowhere else to be, and agreed. They stayed up until dawn discussing better exhibits and noting each other’s statistics. She was an artist, mainly portrait, he, a film director, mainly documentary. She had a brother. He had a brother. Her parents still together. His divorced.

      Rosalie and John never spent a night apart after they’d met except for when John was away directing. If he was called away, he’d return to find canvases that Rosalie had painted to keep herself company. It was the only time she worked. She was a brilliant artist, and John had to remind her of it. When he went away again, he would come home to find more portraits, her last series gone with the rubbish.

      She’d go to his premieres. He’d encourage her work. This is how it was for years.

      Until one day, he asked her formally to be his wife. He’d been traditional, asked first for her parents’ permission, then proposed on one knee under a ceiling of stars.

      She’d said,

      Yes.

      Not even sure that the word was her own.

      Rosalie fingered her engagement ring. It was a habit more than anything else. She wasn’t used to wearing rings. She wasn’t used to a lot of the things that had been

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