Yesterday
/Erin: Hi! I’m Erin Kyan. This piece is called Yesterday. It’s a piece of sound art that blurs reality and fiction, sound design and script. Yesterday was made for a Late Night Lit listening party, as part of the Emerging Writers Festival in Melbourne in 2019. The brief for the evening was:
“What flashes of understanding, which moments of ecstasy and despair, what memories linger in the days, months and years stacked up behind us? From the mundane to the monumental, from last Wednesday to last century, the fuzzy memories of yesterdays and yesteryears will be brought into crisp, sonic relief by our stellar lineup of audio artists at this live listening party.”
To work with that brief, I decided to examine my own relationship with memory, with the moments from my past both big and small, and how those memories live in my body.
Content Note: While there’s nothing particularly graphic in this piece, there are moments of it that deal with family death and grief, anxiety, and PTSD. Please take care of yourself. Enjoy!
[FX: Cassette tape is placed into a player.]
[FX: Rewinding.]
[FX: Play.]
Interviewer: How do you feel about memories?
Erin: I have a complicated relationship with them.
Interviewer: Why's that?
Erin: Even my happiest memories make me feel sad to remember them, and I've never quite been able to figure out why.
Interviewer: Do any memories make you feel happy?
Erin: Sure. It's not like I don't feel happy when I remember happy things. It's just that I also feel sad.
Interviewer: What kind of sad?
Erin: It depends. If it's a sad memory then it's a nice clean and simple sad. But if it's a happy memory, it's a tangled, translucent sad that sits at the root of my spine.
[FX: Static fades in.]
Interviewer: That seems very visceral.
[FX: Static gets loud.]
Erin: Memory is visceral.
[FX: Static stops abruptly.]
[FX: Shining sound.]
[FX: Rewind sound, combined with a glitched loop of children laughing.]
[FX: Bass hit.]
[BG FX: The sound of children laughing and playing fades in.]
Interviewer: What kind of sad do you feel when you remember being a child?
Erin: I feel that as a dread in my gut. Like a looming cloud of inevitability.
[FX: A dark gloomy sound fades in and plays in the background.]
Erin: I had a pretty good childhood at home, I had a very supportive and loving family, but… outside the home…
[BG FX: Children laughing stops abruptly.]
Erin: Childhood was hell.
Erin: It was like a pressure, all the weight of violence and poverty and trying to hide blood from my mother.
[FX: Rumbling noise fades in, alongside an underwater bass sound. The pitch is slowly rising.]
Erin: So even when I remember the good stuff, it’s like being in a submarine. Sure, this memory might be nice, but if I open the door to anything else, the water’s going to rush in and drown me.
[FX: Water rushes in. The dark noises stop abruptly.]
[FX: Rewind sound, combined with a glitching loop of a man laughing.]
[FX: Bass hit.]
[FX: Car rumbling fades in.]
Interviewer: How do you feel when you remember moving to Melbourne?
[FX: Packing tape.]
Erin: Oh, that was a joyful time.
[FX: Young adults laughing.]
Erin: It was so exciting, so liberating, to move to Melbourne to be with people I loved.
[FX: Young adults laughing stop.]
Erin: But that’s a bittersweet memory now - I'm not in touch with any of those people any more. Despite how close we were at the time, our paths diverged a long time ago.
[FX: Car rumble rises in pitch, then stops abruptly.]
[FX: Forest birds and crickets.]
Erin: You know, the area I first lived in feels like it only exists in a time long ago, like the forest didn't age with me.
[FX: Footsteps in the forest.]
Erin: Whenever I go back it feels like stepping back in time, and my heart aches with nostalgia.
[FX: Footsteps stop.]
Erin: Apparently nostalgia doesn’t hurt for everyone. But it does for me.
[FX: Wind fades in.]
Erin: It’s like lead in my stomach and chains on my shoulders, pulling me down. Pressure, always pressure.
[FX: The wind gets stronger and louder until it stops abruptly.]
[FX: Rewind sound, combined with a glitched loop of a phone dialling.]
[FX: Bass hit.]
Interviewer: Do you remember your mother's voice?
Erin: I remember it, but not clearly. I haven't heard mum's voice since she died. My sister has a recording of her…
[FX: A phone dials, is picked up, and harsh static is heard on the line.]
Erin: ...but I haven't listened to it.
[FX: Hospital ambience fades in.]
Interviewer: Does it make you happy, to remember?
Erin: No, it's heartbreaking.
[FX: Heartbeat fades in.]
Erin: Even though she died years ago I still miss her so much.
[FX: Hospital sounds and heartbeat increase in intensity, then stop abruptly.]
Nurse: [In background, echoing.] She’s gone.
[FX: Rewind sound, combined with a glitched loop of a guitar.]
[FX: Bass hit.]
Interviewer: What about meeting your partner? Surely that doesn't make you feel sad.
[FX: A party with people talking and music playing fades in.]
Erin: It does, though. Because when I remember meeting my partner I remember how we both were at that age. How much promise we had. How happy we were.
Erin: I feel so jealous of my younger self, yet so protective at the same time. I was already pretty messed up at that age, but there was a lot more trauma I went through between then and now. Plus, trauma likes to reinforce itself over a time. It gets tighter and it gets sharper. That version of me… he’s like a completely different person. He’s so much freer, so much more trusting, so much more comfortable.
[FX: The sound of people talking stops.]
[FX: The music gets quiter.]
Erin: Why did he have to go through everything he did just so he could become me? Why did I have to go through everything I did and leave that kid behind?
[FX: The music speeds up and gets louder until it stops abruptly.]
[FX: Rewind sound, combined with a glitched loop of a man breathing heavily.]
[FX: Bass hit.]
Interviewer: How about something more mundane. How do you feel about the last time you rode on a tram, or the last time you went to the supermarket?
[FX: Supermarket ambience fades in.]
Erin: The last time I was in a supermarket… I was only getting a couple of things, but they were on opposite sides of the store and I wore out quickly and got frustrated.
[FX: Heavy breathing fades in, speeding up.]
Erin: I started getting anxious and I knew I had to just get what I could and go home.
[FX: A shopping trolley clashes and echoes. The breathing stops, as does the supermarket ambience.]
Erin: It was fine, I got what I needed, and I got home fine. But… my body really doesn’t cope with supermarkets very well these days.
Erin: So, yeah… I feel sad about that.
[FX: Cassette tape stops.]
[FX: Cassette tape starts fast forwarding.]
[FX: All the rising sounds used in the piece so far are layered over each other and over the fast forwarding tape. They rise until the tape stops.]
[FX: The tape player is started again.]
Interviewer: How do you feel about the future?
Erin: It varies. But overall, I'm happy. Despite what impressions I might have given you, I love my life and I'm really looking forward to what the future holds.
Interviewer: So you don't feel sad about the future?
[FX: Soft piano music fades in.]
Erin: How could I? There's no tangle of emotions tied to the future. It hasn't happened yet.
Erin: I never used to be able to visualize the future, you know. I used to think that inevitably, I wouldn't make it. I couldn't conceptualize a future in which I survived. I couldn't picture myself as an old man.
[FX: Piano music stops.]
Erin: But I can see the future now. And there's nothing sad about that.
[FX: Cassette stops.]
[MUSIC: Piano music continues]
Erin: "Yesterday" was written by Erin Kyan and produced by Passer Vulpes Productions for the 2019 Emerging Writers Festival in Melbourne. This short featured, in order of appearance: Lee Davis-Thalbourne, Erin Kyan, and Fox Cooper, with sound design by Erin Kyan. For more short works and podcasts by Passer Vulpes Productions, check out our website at passervulpes.com.
[MUSIC: Music fades out.]