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Album: Lena's Leavin 

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Track List

SIDE A

1. ​Down to Portland (The Introduction)

2. ​The Things That I'm Gonna Do (The Promise)

3. ​Bad Signs Born Today (The Warning)

4. ​Lena's Flood (The Rush / The Metaphor)

5. ​Another Flood at Lena's (The Hubris / The Peak)

6. ​Till The Next Life (The Discovery / The Crash)

​SIDE B

7.  The Cultural Center (The Search - Instrumental/Tag)

8.  Empty Arms (The Panic / High Energy)

9.  You Look Lost Still To Me (The Resentment / The Cost)

10. After All Of That (The False Recovery)

11. What Will Never Be (The Relapse)

BONUS

12. The Dream (The Hallucination / The Swing)

13. The Realization (The Awakening / The Scream)

14. The Requiem (The Goodbye / The Voicemail)

HIDDEN GEM

15. It's Always Flood'n at Lenas (Fernando's Secret Sauce)

 

LENA'S LEAVIN' "THE STORY"

by Fernando 21+

 

SIDE A: THE RISING WATER

01. Down to Portland

Our protagonist enters the story as a man on the rocks; his girlfriend's taking a break and she's headed down to Portland to take a break and do some dancing, drinking, romancing—all the things you need to do to get the sad sound of the "Lovesick Blues" out of your mind, out of your head. He starts off her journey angry, upset about the things he thinks that she's going to do, coming up with all kinds of ideas in his head about what's going to happen. But by the end, he's sitting in his bed alone on the first night and he realizes, more than anything, he just misses her and wishes she would come home. It's at that point he realizes, "I better smarten my act up before she gets back and come up with a plan."

​

02. The Things That I'm Gonna Do

He prepares for Lena's return. Convinced he needs a gesture of his commitment to her, he writes a list of things he's going to promise to do for her upon her return. Still unsettled about her impromptu trip to Portland, he muses to himself about how she better start appreciating the things he does for her, or maybe some other girl might instead.

​

03. Bad Signs Born Today

A storm front hits the Pacific Northwest. The protagonist is across town visiting his grandparents (where his grandfather’s aching knee predicts the rain). Lena should be back by now, he thinks, as his grandfather looks out the window, rubbing his knee which has gone stiff because of the dropping temperature outside. As the sky turns green with stormish intent, he tries to call her, but the phone rings endlessly with no answer.

​

04. Lena's Flood

Lena has returned from partying and dancing with her friends in Portland. Finally, she returns his call to let him know she's back and can't wait to see him. She says, "Hurry over, I'll be waiting in bed for you." Eager to see his love, he races back to their home. As he drives to her, he hums a tune with the lyrics "It's flooding down at Lena's" as a metaphor, representing her excitement to see him. He also muses about needing to hurry over before she gets sick of waiting and calls one of the guys she inevitably danced with in Portland.

 

05. Another Flood at Lena's

Out running errands and still in town as currently he does not have work. He once again gets a call from Lena; she mentions how damp it is getting in the apartment and that he should hurry home. Again enthralled by the idea of Lena waiting in bed for him, he misinterprets her words, misled by the song about Lena's flood once again in his mind. He fights the ever-worsening rainstorm as he heads to see Lena. Arriving to the apartment complex where Lena and himself live, he finally notices there is a lot of standing water in the parkade. "I must have not noticed this," he thinks, "I guess I was caught up daydreaming about the flood at Lena's." He walks out of the parking garage and into the storm and towards the lobby doors. Now soaking wet from the rain, he thinks to himself, "What's a bit of rain? I have something wetter than this waiting upstairs for me," clearly the weather hasn't dampened his excitement. He laughs to himself, mocking the imaginary "fools" from Lena's past weekend in Portland he perceives would love to be in his place.

​

06. Till The Next Life

He enters the apartment building. The air in the complex is humid and the walls appear to drip with moisture. Arriving to the 6th floor, he is confronted by water flooding the entire area. He rushes down the hall to see Lena but she is nowhere to be found. He throws the door open, and the silence hits harder than the thunder. The apartment is empty. The water has seeped into the walls. Her closet is bare; no note, no clothes. Lena is nowhere to be found. Crippling thoughts enter his mind: "Lena is gone and she ain't in this lifetime," he thinks in despair.

​

SIDE B: THE AFTERMATH

​

07. The Cultural Center (Instrumental)

In search of Lena, he drives to her favorite speakeasy, "Cultural Center." She loves this place because it reminds her of home back in Lviv, Ukraine. She always describes her hometown as the Cultural Center of the country. Arriving at the establishment, he thinks he hears her voice amongst the crowd, but in reality, it's just voices in his mind. His fears and worries are now toying with his emotions, starting a series of thoughts that will inevitably lead to hopelessness.

 

08. Empty Arms

Now back at a motel he's staying in currently because of their flooded apartment. The adrenaline of the search has worn off; in its place, a manic pacing of the motel carpet eventually ending in a sleepless shuffle through the night. With his mind racing and directionless, he tries to play away the absence of Lena on his guitar, but the physical absence of her body in the bed is driving him to the edge of insanity.

​

09. You Look Lost Still To Me

Exhaustion turns to bitterness. He looks at the ledger of their love—the car he bought her, along with other constant gifts and all the drama that comes with having a girl who's the center of attention wherever she goes. He tries to convince himself that she was "lost" and too expensive, and that he is better off in her absence.

​

10. After All Of That

Returning to the apartment briefly to collect anything of his that may have survived the flood, he decides to purge the apartment of any remaining trace of Lena. "There's not much left in here after that god-forsaken flood had its way with this dump," he laments, "but whatever's left, I'll make sure it's good and gone... just like her." He takes down the second clock on the wall—the one set to "Ukraine Time" that she used to know when to call her mother. He decides he is done holding on to love for someone who left him behind. "Thank the lord she's gone, I finally have my freedom back," he thinks to himself. As he continues to clean, he reminisces about his mother's advice of what to do when moving on from a tough situation: "One foot in front of the other," she always says. He continues to clean the apartment, not yet willing to admit to himself that this is not a much-needed clean after a tragic event ruined their love-filled home, but a desperate attempt to clean his soul of the stains left behind by her disappearance.

 

11. What Will Never Be (The Black Napkin)

Night falls, and the "freedom" that he once rejoiced in starts to feel like a prison. He sits in the dark staring at the apartment key Lena left behind, alone with his thoughts and a glass of Scotch sitting on a black napkin. "Somehow this black napkin is the only thing that flood didn't destroy," he grumbles, "this and that vintage answering machine she thinks is so cool." Scoffing back the final bit of Scotch in his glass. He had found the napkin on top of the lid of the tall white recycling bin Lena kept in the kitchen, the same bin the answering machine was inside of. Normally the answering machine sits on the kitchen counter beside the bin. After sitting at the motel desk for a while, he concluded she must have been throwing out some recycling when the floodwaters breached the apartment; in a panic, she probably knocked it into the bin, with the lid falling shut by the thud of the big old answering machine crashing into it. Continuing the scene in his mind, he figured the napkin must have fallen out of her jacket pocket during the rush to escape the flooding apartment. "I guess it got lucky and landed on top of the bin, safe from the rising water." Often she leaves her jacket on a stool next to the bin. She likes to sit and read her books there while she's baking or waiting for dinner. "It makes sense a napkin of all things would survive; her pockets are always stuffed with them," he chuckles to himself, remembering she often gets a nosebleed when the weather dries up and how often he had passed her a tissue when he noticed it starting. "She must have put it in her pocket one night while she was out dancing," his drunken grin turning to a scowl as images of her out dancing with those Portland fools entered his mind's eye. The nighttime hours carry on and so does the drinking; the grief and three-quarters of a bottle of Scotch has left him drowning once again in the "if-onlys" and "what-ifs" of their past years together. The downward spiral reaches its inevitable bottom with the realization that cleaning the house didn't fix the hole in his chest. "What a fool I am," he thinks, "you can't fill a void by emptying it further of the thing that filled it in the first place." Having finished the bottle, he thinks about the lost love of his life, Lena. "She's really gone this time and all I have left is this stupid black napkin and useless old answering machine," are his final thoughts before the liquor's numbing grasp lays him to rest.

​

Author's Aside:

​"There's only 3 steps left to reach oblivion."

 

​This was originally supposed to be the end of our hero's descent into oblivion. Lena's left the building, people. Our fool of a friend did what no man ever should and took the love of a good woman for granted. They say you don't know what you got 'til it's gone, but what good is that advice when you've already lost it? .... A wise old man once said, "One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them." At the time of hearing it, though, I didn't realize he was talking about a wedding ring.... We have 3 additional bonus tracks left in our story; that means 3 more chances at finding his way to a proper conclusion for our lost hero. Will he find his precious Lena and complete this anthology of disaster? If he's lucky he might even get his own ring of power, or will he continue on his path... There's only 3 steps left to reach oblivion.

12. The Dream

Passed out, drunk and hopeless, his mind takes pity on him and eases the pain for a moment. Not realizing he is dreaming, he rewrites the ending. A warm sun in the sky parts the storm clouds, floodwaters recede, and in their place, a feeling of hope fills his heart. He heads down to the Cultural Center and finds Lena sitting at their regular table, her favorite flat white in hand. She looks up and says, "Where have you been? I called you. The storm water washed all the maple leaves from our favorite tree in the park into the street drain; they backed up so bad it flooded the whole building." He just smiles and says, "Sorry, the storm made getting across town impossible." "You're always late," she says. "If death ever comes for me, I'll make sure to send you to retrieve it." He smiles, his heart warmed by the dryness of her eastern European humor. "Let's go dancing tonight," he says. "I know just the place. After all this cold weather, a good dance will warm us right up. You can finally start teaching me some of those moves you always talk about." Lena beams in excitement and says she'd love to. They sit at the table as Lena finishes her coffee and he shows her his notebook full of all the things he is going to do for her. Everything is perfection; this is the golden moment he'd been longing for since her disappearance. His pain now erased, he continues to dream into the night.

​

13. The Realization

The morning light shines through the window, warming his face and coaxing him out of his sleep. Waking up crumpled forward in a chair, his face on the desk in the motel room, he sees the empty Scotch bottle on the floor. "What's going on? Where am I? This isn't right. Why am I not in bed in our apartment? Where's Lena?" he thinks. Dazed and confused from passing out drunk the night before, it starts to sink in: it was all a dream. "I didn't find Lena, we never went dancing, but if she's not here how am I going to tell her about all the things I plan to do for her?" Standing up, he peels the black napkin from his cheek and stumbles over to the motel bed. Laying on his back, he stares at the ceiling, wishing he could go back to his dream. "Please come back Lena, my sweet angel, please, please, please come back to me," he cries to himself. All he can think now is, "That's it, Lena really did leave. She's gone and she won't be back in this lifetime. What the hell do I do now?"

​

14. The Requiem

A week later, having not left the motel since the night of the dream and still drinking himself to sleep every night, he wakes to the red flashing light on Lena's old answering machine showing a missed call and a voicemail. "Guess I was passed out drunk again and missed a call." He sits up and hits play on the answering machine; it was a message from Lena. A chill came over him and he began to sweat; maybe he was finally going to hear the truth. Maybe she was calling to say "I'm sorry" for everything—the betrayal he felt after her Portland trip, all the rides around town and the gifts she never appreciated—but in reality, none of that mattered if she would just come home. "I don't need an explanation, I just need Lena. The warmth and brightness she brought to my world was irreplaceable; she was the #1 thing that made me happy in the world." He thought back to a letter he once wrote her; it ended with "today my life finally begins," in reference to the earlier pages where he wrote about how her presence in his life has freed him from things that once bound him. This was supposed to be the ending, but he followed up with an additional page referencing back to the bindings he once had, with a metaphor of being a bird in a cage released, and how now with her he can reach any height, higher than he ever could without her. "Isn't that cruel irony at its finest," he laughed to himself, amused by his own self-inflicted tragedy. "The thing that I once thought had set me free might now be the very thing that will clip my wings and banish me to oblivion." With nothing left to do but face whatever was waiting for him on that message, he reached over to the machine and pressed play.

​

Lena's Message:

"Hey... I... I know you’re prob’ly sleepin'. I didn't wanna wake you up. You looked... you looked real peaceful for the first time in a long time." She paused for a minute; he could hear the heaviness of her breath. "I can’t do it no more, baby. The water... it just took too much. It took the house. It took the pictures. I feel like it took us too. I tried to wait. I swear I did. But the silence in that apartment, the silence between us... it started to sound louder than the storm did." She pauses again; the recording crackles, like she's outside and the wind is blowing into the phone's microphone. "There’s a bus leavin’ for Portland in twenty minutes. I’m gonna be on it. Don’t come lookin’ for me. Please. Just... let me go. Go back to sleep, baby. Have a good dream for me. I loved you. I really did."

​

Unfortunately for him, this story doesn't end happy; Lena is gone and just like he thought, she's not coming back in this lifetime.

 

Let this story be a lesson to you all: appreciate the things you have and never take the one you love for granted because you never know what life has in store. One day something might tear through your life and wash it all away.

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