//------------------------------//
// A Different Path 
// Story: The Cab Ride and a Night Train 
// by Penguifyer 
//------------------------------//

Vinyl sat at a table at home sipping a cup of coffee. The eerie silence in the morning felt empty. Sure, she enjoyed blasting her sound system late at night with no Octavia to bother. But she did miss waking up to the singing cello melodies in the morning.
“Wait,” Vinyl said to herself. “Isn’t she supposed to come back today?”
Octavia burst through the door, carrying a box on her back. “I’m home!”
Surprised, Vinyl jumped out of her chair and fell to the floor.
Octavia trotted up to the table and plopped the box on it as Vinyl rubbed her eyes. “Give me a heads up next time, will ya?”
“Sorry, it’s just…” Octavia opened the box, revealing an assortment of LPs, cassettes, and even some sheet music. “You have a record player, right?”
“How else do I blast music at two in the morning?” Vinyl sassed, noticing Octavia’s disheveled mane.
“Sorry, mind’s a bit out of it right now.”
“You complain about it almost every day!”
“I didn’t have a record player at my hotel, okay? I haven’t listened to any of these yet.” Octavia pulled out a few of the records as Vinyl stood back up and levitated them to herself.
She rotated the albums upright and squinted at the titles. “In C? Drumming? Music in Similar Motion? What kind of music is this?”
“I don’t exactly know either, which is why I’m dying to… where is it?” She fished around the box before pulling out a black album. “Got it!” She looked around the room confused. “Where is the player again?”
Vinyl leaned over Octavia. “Come on, you live here!”
“I don’t go to the other side of the room that often.”
Vinyl sighed. “Behind the synthesizer.”
“Thanks!” Octavia trotted out of the room. “I might mess with that too.”
“With what?” Vinyl asked as she trotted after Octavia.
Octavia loaded a disc onto the player. “The synthesizer.”
“Who are you!?” Vinyl yelled, tugging at her mane.
Octavia flinched from Vinyl’s yell. Taking a second, she let out a deep breath. “I should explain myself.”
“You better.”
Octavia sat down. “When I was in New York, the academics and professors kept trying to sell me this atonal and unpleasant music, like my piece but orders of magnitude harder to listen to. Then I met a composer driving a taxi. That alone confounded me, but after talking to him and thinking about it for a few days, I think I get it now. There can be just as much beauty in the simple as there can be in the complex.” She pulled an LP out and fiddled with it. “But more importantly, innovation can require not just failure, but sacrifice. But if you love what you’re doing, that sacrifice won’t be that bad.”
Vinyl sat down and tilted her head. “Okay, I kinda get it. But what do you mean by all of this?”
“Well, I think I’m gonna change some things. I don’t think I’ll stop performing, but I want to break up with the critics and schools. If I have to pick up a side job, so be it. I’ll deal. Moreover, I don’t know exactly what music I’m gonna write and I don’t know who my audience will be. But if I love what I make, I hope someone else will too.”
Vinyl paused. “And here I thought you’d come back with a few new ideas.”
Octavia looked away. “Tell me about it.”
Vinyl laughed and trotted to the record player. “Hey, you’ve piqued my interest in this music now. I mean, what kind of music does a taxi driver write?”
Octavia squeezed the album sleeve as Vinyl levitated a record out of it. “Just be aware that it’s a bit repetitive.”
“Come on, you call my music repetitive. I’ll be the judge of that.”
“As in, it’s an opera that’s over four hours long and each scene lasts twenty minutes.”
“Sounds like a normal concert of mine, minus the ‘opera’ part.”
“Just understand it’s different.”
Vinyl ignored her and plopped the record into the player. An arpeggio blasted out of the speakers, gradually changing texture and meter.
“This is an opera?” Vinyl asked.
“It is, believe it or not.”
“I mean, is that a synth I’m hearing?”
“I think.”
“Huh, sounds like something I’d make.”
“I kno… really?”
Vinyl held her hoof to Octavia’s mouth and let the music continue. After a minute and a chord change, she smiled at Octavia.
“You know what? I kinda like it.”