Soylentville: (Faith 3/1.)

by Gabriel Wolf

  And I always do that indeed (I mean to try to make money) because I always listen to reason. (I’m not the hot-headed one who never listens to anybody and who already slaughtered eight children of her own, bashing their heads in with various kitchen accessories and over-sized electronic devices from around the house!) So, the only way that I was able to make real money is to record other people’s music, and I did it without a single complaint. My own music didn’t worth a penny, even if I was absolutely convinced about that somewhere deep within, a millionaire rock-star is buried inside my personality. He’s buried very deep. Unfortunely.

  Moreover, I felt like not just a rock-star is buried there, but a very seriously professional writer too. I know that it sounds too much but that’s how I roll! This is me: a crazy, evil genius who’s a pro at every existing profession, talented in every possible form of art and some day he’s gonna destroy the whole world… or maybe save it?… or maybe he’ll never do anything interesting ever, because he just doesn’t have to… because that’s how cool he is! A handsome devil! Numerous times I vowed that someday I’m gonna write about my life, my calvary, my unfair sufferings. I swear, I’ll write about all these, it’s gonna be a novel trilogy with thousands of pages about faith, a cult classic, monumental, mystic space opera! There’s gonna be space in it and planets and the entire story will be set in the distant future in a scary-ass alien world and stuff like that! Fuck yeah! Okay… well, maybe it won’t be a space opera, but a smaller space musical with less characters. Or in the worst case it’s gonna be a bad novelette with 40 pages.

  But despite the many vows I have never written any space operas, space musicals or even a bad novelette about all this. Fortunately.

  Now, back to the studio!

  Usually I was the one who recorded the albums for the two most famous bands in Soylentville. The other two music studios were wasting their time with untalented nobodies.

  For example, I was working with the band, called “Cannibal Warmachines”. They played “neo Mozart-ish clone-disco”. They were a very nice and kind couple and I never understood why had they chosen this name for their band. I never really liked their music but they were indeed very cute guys. I truly enjoyed working with them. Altough the girl was a little bit mentally defective and retarded. Sorry for the politically incorrect word but she was really ass-dumb! Most of the times she was wearing hospital nurse uniform without any reason, because she never worked in a medical facility. She was some sort of a “hospital-punk” or whatever the fuck she called her own style of clothing. She was wearing a living snake twisted around her arm as a pet, and also as a part of her clothing I guess. Her other arm was altered by genetical surgery for unkown reasons. That arm looked like a leg of a big-ass bird, like an eagle or something. She had huge, black talons at the end of each disgusting scaly fingers. Aside from that she was actually a cute little chick. Well, at least she never clawed my eyes out with those fuckin’ talons of hers. Her name was Feng. She was M-Asian.

  The other even more famous band was the “Light of Love”. It was a homosexual trio, they were real, actual cannibals and it wasn’t easy to tolerate their everyday habbits. They adopted children, then butchered them one-by-one. (This is why this child slaughtering thing disturbed me, when Nola was doing it. It’s a loathsome, dirty, bloody business.) After butchering their children, the trio usually ate them too. Once they were eating one of them during recording of their new album. They used that entire recorded material to make a bonus disc for their stupid album! That album was actually pretty famous and popular, but I never understood what did that bonus disc had to do with their original music style. They played “retro death-planet sounds” music and their last album was about the sounds of Venus. I never understood why had they put that stuff on the album: an entire hour of cannibalistic eating, crunching sounds with echoed burps at the end. They considered this artistic choice evident, I don’t know why. It had to have sense. I never understood this occult shit, neither the alternative, nor the so called esoteric form of art. But they were clearly right about that choice about making that bonus disc. Whatever sort of fuckep-up psychos these people were, they took their music very seriously, just like I did. The only difference between my music and theirs was that their music was listened to by actual people. Mine was not listened to by anybody else than me.

  Tim was the leader of the Light of Love band, and also the leader of the homo trio and the head of their twisted, surreal family. He was truly a famous guy in the music business and was indeed a great talent. He often tried to give me instructions about how to make a real music album, which is not only about painted faces, staring dumbly in the distance, about making meaningless theatrical poses or about energies coming form other dimensions. He tried to tell me to make something that has actual meaning spiritually, mentally or at least contains some fucking melodies. He told me to stop composing and writing about my made-up “dimension behind the mirror” (just like Nola, Tim also never believed it was real) and stop singing about my own galaxy of “Gore”.

  But I didn’t listen to him. I had a concrete, almost touchable vision about my own success. I already lived it through in my mind when it hasn’t even happened yet. This was some sort of an intentional projection of my future to manipulate my fate, to make things happen just the way I want. So, I had a very tangible picture of my success, vibrating on the projector screen of my imagination, and I filled this screen as painter every single day with the nightmareish images of my desires. The only problem was that despite this grandiose ability of imaginative fantasy, I never had a single idea for even a childish melody. Just as I also never had any ideas for a novel trilogy that I could write about faith and about my life.

  That’s a fact. If I had any, I would be probably writing the 24th page of this novel right now.

  When I stepped through the door into the studio that morning, Kathy was already sitting by her desk, drinking coffee, black as always. She was my only colleague, business partner, co-owner in the company and maybe my only extisting fan too.

  “Rough morning?” She asked smiling. She was (seemed) always happy, I really respected her for that. Because I knew that it couldn’t be easy for her. To wear a persistent smile if someone got as much abuse and violence at home from both of her husbands as she did. So, I respected her for being kind and trying to look happy all the time.

  “Oh, Kathy! Don’t even ask! You know… Children stuff… I’m so fed up with the whole thing! This time she just grabbed the coffee maker and… Ah! Fuhgeddaboudit!”

  “Need a flute? Can I give you anything?”

  “No, thanks. I can’t even think about sex right now. It would do nothing else than remind me of children again. Maybe tomorrow, when I’ll spend the night “working” again. You know… on Fridays we always close later, he-he” I winked at her. “The missus totally fell for that crap about the overtime.” I told Kathy. I mean I lied to Kathy. Because I always lie to everyone, my wife isn’t the only fortunate one who sufferes the consequences of my “nice” personality.

  “Sure. I can easily wait until Friday.” She laughed kindly, and she also lied to me of course, just like always in situations like these. “But chop chop! Lover Lights are almost here! They said they would come by 9:15 today, so get your shit together and put this place in order!”

  “Okay, but stop calling them Lover Lights! Tim hates it for some reason. Someday he’s gonna knock your head off for that. You know the guys’s crazy, right?”

  “Don’t worry about me dear, I can protect myself. You know the shit I’m dealing with at home on a daily basis…”

  “Yeah, you’ve got a point there.” I smacked with my mouth, imitating a kiss and I entered the soundproof room. I checked if I installed the new ion-condenser microphone properly into its vibration-proof holder yesterday before leaving. “Where has the new mic disappeared to?!” I shouted angrily to Kathy. “It was right here yesterday! I remember that I installed it!” But Kathy didn’t hear a word of thi
s, beause meanwhile the door of the sound proof room closed behind me and I only argued with the black walls illustrated with stars (which I believed to be fuckin’ scary).

  In truth, I immediately knew where the new microphone disappeared to. Kathy stole it obviously. This was a returning game between us, like a well-known bad joke in a cheap, old sitcom. She stole things on a regular basis, then she let me search for them sometimes for entire months. Sometimes she even helped me in the search, and many times we ended up having sex at the end of the day. Ours was a strange work relationship but I enjoyed it. I think she enjoyed it too. If she didn’t, well, I don’t care about it too much. My priority in all relationships was being happy and not thinking about other minor details. (‘cause those are just gonna give ya a big-ass ulcer!) I always say that.

  These sorts of games were pretty common at our workplace. The Cannibal Warmachines for example broke into the studio last month and stole our sofa from the waiting room without any reason. I instantly knew it was them, because Feng, the female member of the band left her stupid nurse cap on the floor. (I told you she was stupid!) She possibly dropped it in the heat of the action and it fell next to the front door under the lock which they possibly broke with a crowbar. To be honest it was a pretty lousy job. They seriously suck at breaking and entering. But I just laughed about the whole thing. I knew they didn’t mean anything bad, because we also didn’t mean the stealing game with Kathy. It was just for fun. The lying game between us was also just for fun.

  From one of the bottom drawers I dragged out an old, cheap-ass microphone. It was in a teribble shape but still functioning. I didn’t say anything about the disappearance of the new one. Maybe later I’ll take revenge for it or we’ll just find it together as usual… with a little body search included, he-he.

  The Light of Love arrived at 9:20 with a few minutes delay. Only two members were present. Tim, the leader and Mikey, who was responsible for the hologram-terror experience in their performance. Spider didn’t come.

  “Is Spidey late again?” Asked Kathy kindly.

  “No.” Tim responded with a straight face. “I think he’s dead. Today morning the workers at the post office fucking shot at us. Last month we received too many fan mails again and it started to piss them off. They didn’t seem to be too happy about it. It’s very annoying. Spider got shot six times, I thought he didn’t make it. We made a run for it and left him behind. Honestly we don’t give a flying fuck about him.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry” said Kathy with the tone of honest sympathy in her voice. She was good at this kind of acting. She really did it authentically. She (also) wasn’t the deeply emotional type, so in these situations she just acted like she was very sympathetic just for the fun of it.

  “No biggie, we can keep it rollin’ with two members almost the same way. That string-slider shit that trims the atmosphere and pressure, isn’t that hard to handle. Mikey can deal with it too. Do not think that Spider was the biggest ace in the band, or something!” He smiled full of confidence. And I hated him for it.

  “I know the two of you can also make it of course!” Agreed Kathy encouragingly, still full of sympathy. “Lover Lights are the coolest band ever! Yeah! I know that!” She smiled… but this time in a bit different way, with a tiny mocking tone in her voice.

  “What?!” Tim turned back angrily towards Kathy. He was already on his way to the newly installed crappy old microphone, when he was shocked by her unfair words. “Do I really have to hear this? After a morning like this? How dare you to use that homophobic nickname for our band again? We are the Light of Love, I already told you hundreds of times! Not some faggot sounding Lover Lights shit! You know that you’re starting to dangerously piss me off, right?” Tim shouted totally out of control.

  “So?” Kathy asked. “What’s gonna happen when you’ll be pissed off? Will you piss off the rooftop or what? Tell us what cha’ gonna do?” She asked back on a surprisingly aggressive tone, almost as bravely as a huge, hairy man would do, with gigantic balls overloaded with testosterone. “What’s gonna happen then, loverboy?”

  “This!” Tim did an insanely quick movement upwards. He previously unbuckled the steel violin bow from the crazy, homemade musical instrument he was holding. Now he was using it to stab upwards with its pointed end with terrible accuracy right towards Kathy’s naughtily protruding chin. Half scared to death I jumped between them to stop Tim from stabbing Kathy in the neck!

  I mean I tried, because it was already too late! The stabbing movement was so lightning fast that I didn’t have any chance to grab his arm to stop the killing blow!

  With that violin bow Tim stabbed through Kathy’s head as easily as someone’s making shashlik out of soft, spicy meat chunks and vegetable slices. The pointed steel tip entered under her chin and it even pushed itself out a little on the top of her skull. It cruelly tore some red hair for itself while forcing its way out of her skull and now the hair was glued there sideways onto the tip by thick blood. It looked like a bizarre bloody flag of a miniature revolution blown by the wind.

  When I finally reached them from ten feets, Kathy was already lying on the floor and Tim was pulling out the pointed, stainless steel violin bow from her head. The girl was resting there, eyes wide opened, she was lying on the fluffy surfaced carpet (used for sound absorbing). The brave expression was still there on her face. It was a pretty scary sight actually. She died so suddenly that she didn’t even have time to realize what happened. Maybe out there in the world behind the mirror where she ended up (as I believed), she still thinks she’s alive and doesn’t understand why the world changed so quickly around her. Poor girl, maybe she doesn’t even know what happened and where she is. Just standing over there uncomprehendingly, helplessly, like the lost soul of a dead newborn child. Maybe I should go home and check her sight in the bathroom mirror for a last time (in the studio there weren’t any mirrors intentionally). Maybe I could see her for a last time before she disappears. Poor Kathy disappears forever into the endless void of the Gore Galaxy.

  “You, miserable twat!” In my anger, I raised my voice to a level where the last word was already a terrible roar. “How could you…?! Who do you think you are?! I really liked her!”

  “What?” Tim looked at me confused at first, then the confusion was slowly turning into panic-stricken fright. “Man, are you really serious? Are you really bitching about a little slut like that?”

  “I’ll show you how serious I am, you untalented wretched nobody!” The bud of my frustration sprouted out this way … the frustration of the lack of a successful career as a musician. Although I liked this girl more or less, but the thing that made me really mad was that Tim always lectured me about music composing and conceptions about music creation. He always rubbed my nose in their success.

  And now he just stabs my business partner in the fucking face!

  My only fan!

  She even listened to one of my songs once!

  And she listened to it fully!

  Until the final chord! That’s something!

  I’m not gonna leave that unpunished!

  I tried to grab him with elemental force and put him into a deadly bear-hug, but he was so fast that I only grabbed air with my big hand. Normally I was a calm, meek person. I usually lived out all my aggression through my music and art, but to be honest there’s a slight chance for that sometimes I could seem a bit scary for others. With a weight of 275 pounds, I had a shaved head and a body fully tattooed from top to bottom, I could look scary to some unsuspicious people. That body of 275 pounds containned not more than 1 single pound of fat. This optimal body fat percentage was the result of… well, it was genetic luck too, but it was also due to the precalculated enhancement of the InfraB test-tube program. All of us has special features like this, all the people that were born here. My wife for example has extremely good body… I’m sure Dave’s very proud of it.

  So, I don’t know how scary I looked in that moment, but I was able to scare Tim to
death (to his own fucking “death planet”) with a single movement when I reached out to grab him. Before I could grab his collar, he was already running out of the studio with comically long steps. He just reached the empty space of the missing sofa in the waiting room that Feng and her loverboy stole last week. In that moment, it occurred to me that he’s gonna slip on the nurse cap that was left there and Tim’s gonna fall on his ass painfully. But Kathy picked the nurse cap up a long time ago. When she was still alive. With this thought once again I arrived to my non-existent, imaginary novel about my life. If I had ever written it I think I would be on about page 31. This would be the scene where the (not very) likeable protagonist would lose his (remaining) sanity forever. It’s too bad I never wrote that novel, it would haven been full of suspense with great surprising twists. I could’ve written about a lot more. For example, about the following events:

  So, Tim has vanished. Mikey still stood there stunned, but it seemed like he was not planning an early leave from the famous recording place called, Finsterniis Studios.

  “You fucker!” I pushed out the first two words that was able to crawl out from my snapped brain clouded by an unstoppable blood-stream Tsunami. He also reacted quite quickly, because before I would have started walking towards him, he already replaced his passive, non-existent movement with a very active, lively one. Namely: now he also ran like a fucking lunatic!

  “Run baby! Run, run, run!” I laughed histerically. “Run faggots! I’m fed up with all this! Let the end of the world come, but this time for real! This was my only fan you lousy lices!! Why should I compose music anymore?! For whom?! What does make sense anymore? What’s the meaning of a miserable life like this?!”

  I kicked over the microphone stand and with the same swing I kicked into both mixing tables, that costed me a fortune. (They costed my wife’s entire heritage from his father if we want to be absolutely accurate.)

  “Let The Dark Side of Chaos come! (Which was by the way also the title of one of my beautiful unreleased songs.)” With this battle-cry I grabbed the violin bow that was dropped by Tim during his miraculous escape and I smashed the biggest light bulb on the ceiling with it. It broke into pieces and exploded with a loud bang. Then again, I smashed the other remaining three bulbs with the bloody bow. Then complete darkness fell on the studio. I threw the bow towards Kathy’s dead body because I didn’t even know where she was lying anymore in that darkness. Lying with her brave expression, that froze icily onto her cute face, while thick and warm blood was flowing out from the fresh holes in her skull and neck. Blood was flowing onto the fluffy, cream-colored carpet. Normally it absorbed sounds, now it thirstily absorbed Kathy’s blood.