Track 03
I couldn’t find him. Many hours had passed since I first started looking in the morning. It was almost night time now and the sky had turned a purple-y shade, clearly unsure whether or not it wanted to give me more pity points via daytime safety. To make matters worse, at some point during my search… I forgot to search! My thoughts liked to do this thing where they drift so far off the stratosphere that they enter some other dimension (inside my head). I often journey to that world when I get bored or distracted by food, hunger, and/or starvation. So now I was on some unknown street on the outskirts of urban-land without food or shelter or a sense of direction. Why did I think I could find one blend-in-type-of-guy in a city setting, with zero leads on his whereabouts?
I did have my sync card with me, so it’s not like there was no hope – advantages of carrying around a pocket instead of a purse. The only problem was that I haven’t seen a shop or convenience store in the past hour. I now deeply regretted dining at a vending machine as soon as I left the hospital, as opposed to all the little cafés and fast food joints in the area. I thought I turned back to all the civilization decades ago, but I felt like I just got further away.
What time is it anyway? I dug my phone out of my sweater. Oh yeah… its dead-phone-o-clock. I forgot. If it wasn’t dead-phone-o-clock then I would’ve had a GPS running right now.
With perfect timing, my stomach grumbled. It must have been half past global sadism hour. I groaned. I should ask someone how to get out of this place before it gets fully dark. I also felt kind of faintish, like if someone were to push me over I might not get back up, it was only a minor feeling though. Still, I was starting to wonder if it was a good idea to prison-break my way out of a hospital without having an understanding of my body’s condition.
I began to look around for any sign of a potential helpful human. In my search, I discovered a sketchy gas station, a sketchy convenience store, a sketchy drug store, and then an out of place music shop named [I need a name], with an appreciated ‘open’ sign over its door. To be honest, its sketchiness level was only slightly below the rest of my options, but I needed to convince myself that this was a good idea. Therefore, it wasn’t sketchy at all.
I strolled in and a little melody broke out above me, in the form of a chime. If that didn’t already calm my nerves then gazing at everything they were selling did. There were spacious rows of vintage cassettes, classic CD’s, and digital, make-it-yourself, playlists. Along the front of the store were actual ancient phonographs. Seeing them made me feel as though I stepped into a museum accidently. Even the lighting rained down from spotlights, as one might find at a theatre of some sort.
There was a straight open path to the cashier desk, but no one was there. I allowed myself to be distracted for a while longer. In one whole corner was a small, but impressive selection of dazzling musical instruments. Guitars, keyboards, multi-coloured microphones dangling from evenly spaced wires, and a massive harp! – that I somehow missed. A shallow ramp had to be taken to get to that section of the store and extending out from the railing were folders of music scores. The glossiness of every item in that corner drew me in, inching my feet forward.
“Hi there.” I jumped out of my trance, almost screaming in the process. A tall woman holding a few boxes that blocked her face emerged from behind a counter.
“Um…h-hi.” I hesitated, though I doubt she heard me. I made my way over.
She made a little noise of exertion as she plopped the boxes down on the counter and stuck her hands on her hips. Then she peeked out at me. “Oh! Hi there. Welcome to [I REALLY NEED A NAME] it’s been a while since we’ve had new customers.”
The woman was beautiful. She had long wavy black hair that flew down to her back, two would-be side bangs looped down and around into the flow of her hair. On her left arm was a full scale tattoo of everything music related you could think of. An entire treble clef spiralled from her shoulder to her wrist, and all throughout the score were instruments and band logos and discs.
“Oh, I’m not-…” I didn’t want to be rude by staring at her tattoo forever, so I looked away, but then my eye caught sight of a wall of headphones. “…not a…uh . . . customer.”
“Really? You look like a customer to me.” She rested an elbow on the counter and sat her chin in her palm while smirking in my direction. “What can I help you with?”
I tore my vision away from the wall and mentally smacked myself. “I just need directions back to the main roads. I’m kind of lost.”
“Is that all? That’s no fun.” She checked her inner wrist watch and flicked an eye outside before continuing, “Hang on, I’ll draw you a map.” She must be closing shop soon.
She reached down for some paper and pulled a pen from her pants pocket. While she was busy, I snuck one last peek at the wall of headphones.
To be honest, until I saw that wall, I had forgotten about the guy with the headphones, AKA the guy who saved my life, and the reason I wound up here in the first place. I wonder if he shops here… I wasn’t going to ask, but I didn’t want to regret not asking. I tapped my toes indecisively on the inside of my sneakers.
All of a sudden my mouth started blurting all the things I was trying to supress. “um, do you, by any chance, have a customer with messy black hair and, lively coloured headphones with a long red cord, who wears striped wrist-warmers, and an open short-sleeved jacket, and has bags under his eyes – very dark eyes – and pretty much looks like a (slightly attractive) cyberpunk who you shouldn’t mess with…” this wasn’t a creepy observation, so I don’t know why you’d think that.
The shop owner was shocked at first by my sudden outburst – so was I – but mid-way through my rant she went back to resting her chin in her hand and gave me a little smile.
“Unfortunately, I’m not allowed to disclose any information to you about my other customers, not even if they exist or not.” She folded the map and held it between her two fingers at me.
“Right… sorry, forget I said anything.” I reached for the paper. She moved it away.
“-But maybe… if you keep visiting my store, as a customer, you may find whoever you’re looking for. Although I made this map for you to find your way out of here, it’s also a map to bring you back, so promise me you’ll return, and you can have it.”
Wow, she’s good. I just witnessed the act of a true saleswoman. She actually blackmailed me in a way that made me want to return.
“Haha, fine, fine, I’ll come back, I promise. This place is super cool anyway so I was bound to find my way here again eventually.”
She shifted the paper back towards me and let me take it this time. We grinned at each other. I feel like I could easily get along with this lady, even though she kind of intimidated me.
Just then, the cool door jingle played its tune from behind.
“Axel~ you’re back so soon?”
“What do you mean? It’s always the same time on Fridays.”
I spun to see who she was talking t-“AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!” I screamed and pointed at the face of the boy who walked in. He flinched, nearly dropping the plastic bag in his grasp. Headphones, hair, bags, a punkish fashion sense; all the same. The only difference was the way he looked at me – like I was a psychopath.
But I wasn’t… one of those...
...just so you know.