keyword "bane" title "just say maybe" in misc. flash fiction

Maybe the characters in the classic-rock-radio staple story-song “Piano Man” wouldn’t be so depressed if they didn’t have to listen to Billy Joel. Maybe this guy Davy is completely happy with his naval career, maybe he’s even on track for an admiralty if he sticks to the plan, maybe he’s the one who killed Bin Laden and is selling the movie rights just as soon as the details are no longer top-secret. Maybe Captain Davy is only melancholy about the way his life has gone down so far because he’s currently stuck listening to Billy Joel. Maybe you would be too. You start to question everything about the decisions you made from day one to day now when your outcome is that you’re stuck listening to the concentrated consecrated suburban mediocrity that is the musical output of Billy Joel.

Maybe Paul over there in the corner never wanted a wife to begin with. Maybe Paul likes men or maybe Paul isn’t into the whole monogamy thing. For all we know, our friend Paul has some sort of rare hormonal deficit where romantic attachment doesn’t cause his dopamine receptors to light up no matter what the situation and he’s happy with a life of good platonic friends and reading a good book before bed. Maybe the only reason he’s slipping into a dank miasma of doubt desire and despair is that he’s forced to listen to the treacly low-effort factory-standard faux-working-class laments of a filthy little rich troll from the tawniest part of Long Island named Billy Joel.

Maybe John at the bar is completely happy he isn’t a movie star. Maybe he lived in Los Angeles for a couple years and saw how fame can sully a soul, ruin your ability to experience the simpler joys of life, how commercial can hollow you out and leave you with nothing to say except for the boiler-plate ballad clichés churned out by bog-standard frauds like Billy Joel.

Maybe that waitress will turn out to be an extraordinary politician. Maybe she’ll spur economic growth through a series of public work projects rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure. Maybe the businessmen Bill is judging so harshly have health problems and getting stoned is prescribed therapy for their chronic disorders.

Maybe this is usually the happiest bar on Earth, full of the most positive folk you could ever meet, just stopping by for one drink after a long day of changing the world and only suffering these five minutes of wavering ennui and recrimination because these are the minutes they must slog through the soulless middle-of-the-road bane-to-complexity that is the work of Billy Joel?

“Scenes from An Italian Restaurant” came on Mr. Rogers’ car radio once and that was it, the eternal optimist got so depressed, he drove off a bridge right then and there. I know that’s not how his death was reported but there was a big cover-up due to the fact Billy Joel has more money than God. What a terrible human being.