One of the ways I’ve planned on promoting the release of my debut novel, Toxicity, is by coming up with a massive soundtrack that captures the spirit of each chapter. There are 50 chapters total, along with a three-part prologue. So, to get straight to the point, let’s begin, shall we?
SONGS FROM THE UNOFFICIAL TOXICITY SOUNDTRACK
TRACK 1
“Fade to Black” by Metallica
PROLOGUE PART 1
“Wherein We Learn of Goat Curses”
Toxicity begins with Maddox Kane’s first day in prison. Maddox is one of three protagonists to be found in the novel (we’ll get to the other two in future blog installments). He has just been sentenced to a ten year stretch after being pulled over with a trunk loaded with drugs and automatics.
You see, in addition to being a new professional ballplayer for the Chicago Cubs, Maddox was also a certified gangster for the Chicago mob. And before you ask, I have no idea if there are actual certificates to being a gangster, but I have to assume there is. However, thanks to prison, both of those professions are abruptly terminated. Now Maddox finds himself trapped, forced away from his two greatest loves: baseball and his family.
No, make that three greatest loves: baseball, his family, and his sweet, sweet cocaine.
Kicking coke is a pain in the ass. Maddox learns this on his first day in the joint as he experiences the worst withdrawals of his life. Sitting in the prison cafeteria, sweating to death and losing his mind, Maddox realizes how simple it is to lose everything by a single, uncalculated action. All it takes is one fuck-up to ruin everything.
This feeling of absolute regret and horror, this “I really fucked up” punch to the gut, that is the same punch found in Metallica’s “Fade to Black”. It is a suicide song. A song for someone who realizes they have lost it all, and time is going to pass on by without him.
LYRICS
Life, it seems, will fade away
Drifting further every day
Getting lost within myself
Nothing matters, no one else
I have lost the will to live
Simply nothing more to give
There is nothing more for me
Need the end to set me free
Things not what they used to be
Missing one inside of me
Deathly lost, this can’t be real
Cannot stand this hell I feel
Emptiness is filling me
To the point of agony
Growing darkness taking dawn
I was me, but now he’s gone
No one but me can save myself, but it’s too late
Now I can’t think, think why I should even try
Yesterday seems as though it never existed
Death greets me warm, now I will just say goodbye