If music be the food of love, sing on.
I believe that life only has a set number of endings. The coveted happy ending, the one all the fairy tales and Nicholas Sparks novels try to shove down our throat, pretending that it’s the world’s biggest red pill we have the bittersweet ending, the best one that most people can realistically hope for, and the downer, the actual red pill of them all.
I’m not actually a cynic, just a realist. In reality, the bittersweet ending is the one most people will get. Its use in media and art isn’t as high as most would like for the sole reason that it resembles life too much to be enjoyable most of the time. We go to the movies, read books, watch TV, and listen to music to forget the bittersweetness of life, not remember it. Still, I almost wish there were more bittersweet endings in the media, if only to demonstrate how the world actually is to those who think they can get a happy ending.
The happy ending, the thing people covet the most out of life. Get a good paying job you enjoy, find a spouse, get married, have kids, grow old, and die. Who doesn’t want that? A lot of people do. It is the traditional happy ending after all. There are other variations of it, of course, but the point stands thus: there are only a limited a number of happy endings available, and not everyone will get one. It’s a basic law of the universe. You either have to be lucky enough, tenacious enough, or evil enough to get one.
Yes, evil enough. Plenty of bad people have good things happen to them while plenty of good people have bad things happen to them. Another basic law of the universe. The universe is fair because it is unfair to everyone, in its own way. The asshole prince rear ended my car? I still have to pay for it. It’s perfectly unfair to me for having to pay for damage he did, and unfair to him for getting off free. Unfair, and thus, perfectly fair.
Of course, no one is ever promised a happy ending out of life, it’s just assumed that you’re guaranteed one. Shame no one ever bothers to read the fine print. Like a terms and conditions contract everyone just agrees and moves on, never really seeing what they signed up for.
I suppose, in a way, that’s how I met Vinyl: I just happened to agree to a different set of conditions, and she her own. The only real thing we had in common is we both hit agree to the terms of our lives.
We both ended up in college a year late for two very different reasons. Myself, I took a gap year and moved out west for a bit before coming back home. Home. What a funny word. It’s amazing what a few months in Seattle will do. After high school, like all the others, I couldn’t wait to get out of town.
When you get away from it all it gives one a certain perspective on things. I think many people in life hate to admit the simple truth that no matter how much they want to get away from home, some part of them will forever be in love with it. You can’t really escape your past. So I entered Canterlot University a year late and it went about as well as I expected.
✧✦✧
“What the what?!” The TV droned. “It appears that Captain Spitfire Pegasi tied the knot with her longtime boyfriend, Doctor Campion Stone, today in a private ceremony near their home on the shores of Lake Paramount just outside of Canterlot City. The couple had been dating for a while beforehand, attending various events and enjoying the nightlife together.
“You all know Spitfire herself recently was appointed as Captain of the Royal Flight Team and Doctor Stone as the mind behind the fusion reactor breakthrough a few years back as well as one of the founders of Type I Industries so it seems that these two couldn’t be more different but, and this is hard to believe, the two have known each other since they were kids! They grew up just outsid-”
“Shut the fuck up.” I groaned killing the TV. I frowned and pulled my bag over my shoulders. I was already going to be late for the first day, my damn alarm set for the wrong time, again. I smiled. I could practically hear my mother telling me to wake up earlier and be a bit more responsible and yadda yadda yadda. Still, she would have been right.
I didn’t exactly feel too guilty about it. It was a Gen Ed class so as long as it wasn’t for my major I really didn’t care. I never really understood why universities required general education requirements. Probably just another way to squeeze money out of students instead of just letting us focus on what we were really there for.
To be completely honest, I could probably be done with my degree in three years were it not for these stupid classes. Hell, I already was. Unfortunately, there were only a few small caveats standing in the way of that. One of them being an introductory physics class.
I stumbled out of my dorm, just barely managing to pull on a sweatshirt before making it out the door into the subzero air. I hated January. And February. And pretty much any month that didn’t have an average temperature above a good 60 degrees. I liked cold like I liked country music: in that it remained somewhere far away from me where it wouldn’t assault my senses and suck my soul out through my fingers.
Still, I managed to make it to class only about five minutes late. Thankfully, it was a large amphitheater styled lecture hall so my entrance was barely noticed. At least I hoped. The syllabuses were being passed out and I managed to snatch one or two up as I sat down.
“-Homework will be worth 20 percent of your final grade, Tests make up 50 percent and that includes the final, and the other 30 percent is your lab class that meets every Wednesday. Any questions so far?” The teacher asked.
I frowned and glance down at him. He was a bearded man who stood a little taller than I would have expected and dressed far too suave someone of his stature and profession had any right to dress. Then again, Campion Stone dressed pretty nicely for a scientist. But then again, he was married to Spitfire so there was that.
He continued to drone on about what we were going to be learning about but I had honestly checked out a few minutes after I finished skimming over the syllabus. Everything he was saying was in the damn thing so there was little point in reading it. Hell, most of the other students had checked out too, at least the ones who had bothered to show up. There were always the assholes who would never show up for class on the first day. And to be completely honest, had she not walked through that goddamned door fifteen minutes after class had started, I probably would have lobbed her in with that lot.
Victor Hugo said about love at first sight,
“The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories, that it has come to be disbelieved in. Few people dare now to say that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other. Yet it is in this way that love begins, and in this way only.”
This… this…
This was not that.
She looked absolutely like fucking hell, in both a good and bad way. Cobalt blue hair with electric blue highlights and everything, spiked in every which way in something loosely resembling a bob. Purple lenses that were more like goggles covered her eyes. A pair of red headphones rested atop her unkempt mane. A white jacket lay unbuttoned over a red, almost skin tight shirt. A pair of grey skinny jeans and red sneakers completed her outfit.
Overall, her garb looked fine. Her face however didn’t. Clothes could cover a far lot more than just private parts. Hers, however, weren’t doing the thing she wanted them to. Her outfit was completely on point however, it’s just that she looked like a teen angst vampire that just crawled out of the casket. Her skin was pallid as could be to the point where I began to wonder if she should have been in a hospital rather than a lecture hall.
Still, she managed to quietly make her way over to one of the empty seats still left and plop herself down in it with a sigh. A few coughs escaped her and she removed a small inhaler from her pocket and took a deep breath followed by a few pills downed with a small bottle of water. Her breathing once again under control, she proceeded to allow her head to fall down onto the surface of her desk with a semi audible thud.
I frowned. Well, she had at least made the effort to get to class. Still, she looked like she was closer to death than most people would ever get to be in their entire lives. Had I not known any better, I’d say she’d lost about forty percent of her blood. Yet somehow she’d managed to get here, still alive and I would assume somewhat well.
At the moment, however, she seemed to have a greater interest in napping over paying attention. Which I could understand for today. Nothing important really went on the first day. The most we could really expect is a page or two of introductory notes. Nothing too damning to miss. Still, a decent work ethic was something to be cultivated and, at least to me, that involved putting in effort to show up and pay attention, even if it was something I had little interest in.
The rest of class went as expected. Nothing really important and a few lines of notes before we were dismissed. The blue haired girl was still sleeping as we began to file out. I walked down the steps of the amphitheater towards the door. I found myself stopping near her seat. The teacher had already checked out and most of the other students were already gone. I sighed and gave her shoulder a nudge.
She jumped and sat up, her glasses falling a bit from her face, revealing a pair of cerise irises.
“Hey, uh, class is over so you might wanna wake up.” I said.
She frowned and pulled her phone and glanced at the time.
“Shit,” she groaned. Her voice was something interesting. It was vaguely boyish with a smooth almost smoky quality to it while still remaining something decidedly feminine. Strange but not exactly unpleasant to hear. “Uh, thanks dude.”
“You’re welcome.” I resumed my walk towards the door.
Soon enough I was outside. I had about two hours before my next class so I decided on moving somewhere quiet in the Student Center. There was a lovely spot that I knew of near the top of the third floor lounge, nice and quiet and away from the noise of the rest of the building. The only reason people ever really went up there was to sleep, study, read or have sex. Still, it remained essentially abandoned, at least it was that way during the hours I found myself there.
I found one of the few beanbags that wasn’t stained with some ungodly bodily fluid and flopped down into it with a sigh, setting my bag down next to me. I’d been coming here since my freshman year and was eternally thankful for the quiet refuge it offered. I suppose I could use the time to catch up on some reading. I removed a book from my letter bag and opened it to a bookmarked page.
I had just gotten back into the story when the sound of footsteps echoed up to the small lounge. I scowled. No. This was my place! My sanctuary! This is the only real quiet place on campus outside of the occasional dorm and the library! Who in the fuck was coming up here anyway?!
I glanced over the top of my novel just as a head of blue hair peaked up over the edge of the railing. I relaxed slightly. At least it wasn’t some horny couple looking for some place to fornicate. It was that weird girl from earlier who slept through class. She still looked a bit pale and just about as exhausted before she flopped down on one of the stained bean bags across from me.
I frowned. “Uh, hey, uh you might not want to sit there?”
She looked up, her purple lenses hiding her eyes.
“There’s a stain on that one if you catch my meaning.”
Even with glasses covering her face, it was impossible for her to hide the sheer amount of dread and disgust that fell across her face. Instantly she sprung to her feet.
“Ew! Ew! Ew! That’s NASTY!” she shouted before promptly kicking the beanbag with enough force to launch it to the edge of the stairs. She dropped her bag and stomped her way over to the edge of the staircase and kicked the offending object down the steps.
“That’s disgusting!” She coughed, returning to her bag and removing an inhaler and taking a breath. “Are there any clean seats up here?”
I smiled and pointed at one of the few unused bean bags in a corner near the far end of the balcony.
“Anyone using it?” she asked.
“You now.”
“Thanks dude.” She said pulling it over to her bag. She did a quick double check for any offending body fluid stains before giving a sigh of relief and flopping down in her seat. She leaned back and let out a tired groan.
I marked my page and closed my book. “Sleep well?”
“Yeah, can’t you tell?” She said sitting up. “Wait a sec, you’re in my physics class aren’t you?”
“Guilty as charged.”
“Major?”
“Journalism. You?”
“Music production.”
“Sounds fun.”
“Eh. It’s fun enough.” She said pulling a laptop from her bag. “So what’s a journalism major doing in a physics class?”
I smiled. “Probably the same thing a music major is doing in one. At least, when she’s not sleeping.”
“Wise guy, huh?”
“When I can be. So… rough night huh?”
“Gee, how could you tell?”
“Well no offense but you look like you belong on one of those ASPCA commercials with Sarah McLachlan.”
“Smooth talker too.” She smiled. “You must be a real Casanova with the ladies.”
I laughed. “Jasper Harper.”
She smiled back and removed her glasses, clipping them in her collar. “Vinyl Scratch.”
“Vinyl? Interesting name you got there.”
“About as interesting as Jasper.”
“Fair enough. So, what’s up with you dropping dead in the middle of class?”
“Oh, uh, I do gigs and stuff on the weekends for extra money.”
“What do you do?”
“I am a good old fashioned Disk Jockey. But I play a little guitar on the side with a small band when I get the chance. Brings in a little extra cash and its fun so why not? Just the hours suck sometimes.”
“I can tell. You crashed the moment you walked in the door.”
“I got in late, you know? Ever have a late night? And at least I showed up.”
“Yeah, you do have that going for you. What time did you get in?”
“Like 2:00 in the morning. Didn’t get to bed until about 3:00 so… yeah.”
“Gig, I’m guessing?”
“Yup. We played a small show in this hole in the wall out in the city. I had fun so it wasn’t all bad. Just waking up in the morning makes me want to die at times.”
“I hear that.”
“So what do you do?”
“What do I do?”
“Yeah. Job? Volunteering? Internship? Girls? Boys? Something?”
“I am quite unextraordinary.”
“Bullshit. Come on, you have to do something. You know? Anything really. I told you my shit.”
“Well, I do a little bit of writing for the school paper. Pays a little bit. Enough for pizza on the weekends and stuff like that.”
“What do you write?”
“Whatever I feel like. Sometimes I do opinion pieces but mostly it’s just minor investigative stuff. Interview some asshole or find out what the deal is with the town budget, boring stuff.”
“Sounds boring. Could fall asleep just listening to you talk about it, you know?”
“Yeah. Sometimes I fall asleep writing the damn things.”
“So you crash too, huh?” She smiled.
“Not as hard as you did this morning. But sometimes if I’m having a long night.”
“I can only imagine. So, you play any instruments at all?”
“Eh, uh, not really, at least right now. I used to play piano a while back but I kinda just stopped. Probably rusty as all hell now.”
“What? Dude! Why’d you stop?!”
“Eh, personal reasons. I guess I just didn’t have the time to do it anymore.”
“Well that sucks. I enjoy classical music every once in a while.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Really? You?”
“Why’s that so hard to believe?”
I motioned around my head. “You just don’t seem like the type.”
“Oh, I see what you’re getting at. Yeah, I do like my electronic stuff, house, techno, dubstep, I love it. But I do enjoy some rock every once in a while and a little bit of classical on the side when I get the appetite for it.”
“How often is that?”
“Eh, once in a blue moon, really. My roommate plays the cello so I kinda have to like classical on some level. Most of it’s a bit boring and slow for my taste but some of it I can really get behind.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. I like Ode to Joy, mainly the last few minutes of it and the outro. I enjoy the fast pace of it. That and, I don’t know, it just seems like a happy song, you know?”
“Yeah. That’s a good one. One of the more well-known classics.”
“What about you? What’s your music taste?”
“Anything that’s n-”
“-not country,” She finished with a laugh. “Am I right?”
“Oh yeah.” I smiled. “If I had a glass I’d raise it.”
“I’d drink to that.”
“Amen sister.”
“So what do you listen to? What does a journalism major have on his phone these days?”
“Anything. I have some pop songs, the few that don’t make me want to sing into Kurt Cobain’s microphone, some electronic stuff, a bunch of good old fashioned rock and roll, with some emphasis on the classic stuff, and uh, I think I have a few movie soundtracks on it too.”
“Classic stuff huh? AC/DC?”
“You know it.”
“Favorite song by them. Three, Two, One, Go!”
“SHOOT TO THRILL,” we both said.
I smiled. “Good taste.”
“Well, Back in Black is a close second for me though I’m a bit of an oddball with that one. Though I hope you don’t think it immodest of me to say so but I can sing a mean cover of that song.”
“Which song?”
“Shoot to Thrill.”
“I’d pay to see that.”
“Well maybe you can drop by a gig one of these days. It’ll come up eventually.”
“I’d like that. Haven’t gotten out of the house in a bit if you catch my meaning.”
“Well, we’re in the same class aren’t we? I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot of each other, you know?”
“Yeah. Should be fun.” I smiled.
And so that’s how it started. Every day from then on was a little brighter. I almost began to look forward to physics. It became routine. I always got there a bit early, she would always saunter in sometime after and pick a spot somewhere in the odd halfway between the bottom row and top and just slightly over to the right of the center. I always found it funny. Her unofficial official assigned seat in the class was perfectly positioned in the spot where she would least likely to be called on and least likely to be noticed if she were absent. Sort of genius really. I wasn’t sure how the second part of her plan would work, considering she always showed up, but as for the first part, well, I was called on far more than she ever was.
After class, we would walk together to the student center to our own little sanctuary far from the noise and prying eyes of everyone else. Sometimes we’d talk, shoot the shit about just about anything, others we would get a head start on whatever homework, and sometimes, like today, we would simply enjoy the silence.
Silence. The moments that people remember are the loud ones, full of life and fireworks, passion and fire, but the ones that really make all the noisy ones worth it are the quiet ones. The moments that are the most appreciated are always the quiet ones, the peaceful ones, the refractory period that exists between the climaxes of life, yes, silence is good, silence is golden.
Vinyl never really said anything of it but I could tell she enjoyed the quiet like I did, at least in her own special way. It took me a while before I figured out just what it was.
“Hey, are you coming this Friday right?”
I looked up from my paper. Vinyl had her nose buried in her laptop like always, no doubt working on another mix or track of some kind.
“Coming to what?”
“I’m in the talent show this Friday. You coming?”
“First I’m hearing of it.”
“Really? I could’ve sworn I told you.”
“Nope. But I’ll show up if you want me to.”
“Well, duh! I did just ask you, didn’t I?”
“Alright, I’ll be there.”
She perked up. “Awesome! I think you’ll have fun. I’m going to be covering Shoot to Thrill.”
“Just you?”
“No. I got a band backing me up.”
“Really? Your normal group?”
“Nah, I called in a few favors and got this on campus group to help me out. Pacing Pluto is their name. They don’t usually do classic rock stuff like this but their more than competent.”
“Why not go off of a track?” I asked.
“Where’s the fun in that?”
“Well it would be a bit easier for one.”
“Eh, fuck easier. Where’s the life in that?”
“Life?”
“Yeah, life, you know? There’s a difference between a recording and a live show. Maybe one sounds better but stuff done in the spur of the moment, improvisation, I don’t know, you just can’t get that in a studio.”
“I suppose. But what about you?”
“What about me?”
“You’re a DJ, you do mixes and stuff. That’s basically studio.”
“Well, I make my shit on my laptop. But really, for any of my gigs where I just DJ without any of my original stuff, I generally just make a list of songs and go.”
“That seems risky.”
“A bit. I kinda practice and play around with it a bit to see how it all fits but generally, I just go and freestyle it whenever possible.”
“You have an actual set of turntables?”
“Of course! What do you think I am? Some sort of laptop DJ?”
“No, I guess not. I suppose I would be more surprised if you didn’t.”
“Damn right. So are you coming or what?” She coughed, closing her laptop.
“Yeah, I’ll be there. Can’t stay I’ll stay long after you go up but I’ll be there.”
“I guess that’s fair. But I think you’ll have fun. I’m doing a cover of our favorite song.”
“Which song?”
“Guess.”
“I hate guessing.”
“Fine. Shoot to Thrill by AC/DC. I’m gonna be singing.”
“Really? You’re gonna be singing that of all songs?”
“Yeah, why? I told you I could sing it.”
“I’ve just never heard anyone other than Brian Johnson himself do that song any justice.”
She offered a smile from behind her shades. “Trust me. You’re gonna love this, I guarantee it.”
“You guarantee it?”
“Yes. Why you wanna put money down on it?”
I smiled back. “How much?”
“Twenty bucks good?”
“Yeah, sure. I’m in.”
“And one more thing.”
“What?”
She gave a devilish grin and held out a hand. “Loser buys dinner.”
I scoffed with a smirk to match hers and grabbed her hand and gave it a firm shake. I leaned back in my seat. “Alright. Deal.”