While She Breathes

“Luke, there is no way in hell you’re going to drag me to another one of your shitty clubs today.”

Kai slid over and settled his tray opposite mine in the cafeteria. He sat down, a little too heavily, and I heard his metallic butt hit the chair. He winced.

“Cop put a bullet up your ass?” I asked and he scowled at me across our burgers. It was funny because he used to be a police until a mission went awry and someone did shoot him multiple times in the buttocks.

Not that it mattered now. Kai had fully functional legs after his surgery. One of the bullets had split his spine, so they replaced it with titanium alloy and carbon-fibre composites and while they were at it, they gave his damaged derriere a complete make-over. My pal Kai now rocked a shiny, metallic armoury on his ass.

“I’ve dealt with too much of Monica’s crap this week. Who schedules me for three days straight of financial management? If I have to see another cheque on how much we spend on lube and oil, I’ll shit myself.”

“It is kind of your job big guy.”

Kai scowled, his dark hair standing straight up. Kai was a walking red-man. It was clear that if you worked at The Machina- the multi-million company working under the government of Bio Gaia, you had to dress to impress. Usually it wasn’t hard to make an impression- neat hair, a pressed shirt and a pair of ironed pants with proper shoes. Kai dressed to kill- always arriving at work and pissing off the security guard with his shirt tucked in halfway into tight pants- and his jacket draped over his shoulder like he was the president of one of those underground brothels.

That guy might have had a bionic bottom, but I suspected that they might have replaced his skin with titanium alloy as well. Kai was a modern day punk. Tattoos graced his arms- just barely concealed by his coat and work attire and he had a tongue piercing. I knew that only because he set off the security alarm once by forgetting to remove his metal stud before undergoing the security check at work.

But regardless, Monica- our head of finance, kept Kai because he was one of the best and most efficient finance managers to ever grace the company.

Me? I was Machina’s left-hand man for business and project management. Left-hand because when things in the big company went awry- for instance if our client companies were pissed or unhappy, I was the one who went down to sort everything out.

And everyone knows you use your left hand to wipe your junk.

“Why do you even stick around Luke? Do you honestly like hanging out with cocky old robot dudes at those clubs or are you secretly prostituting yourself for Machina?”

I rolled my eyes. Kai was obsessed with the idea that The Machina was a big, corrupt organisation. He was way into conspiracy theories- completely making him a solid, hard-edged punk. And being his good friend, I was notoriously known as the Conspirator’s right hand man.

Left hand man of The Machina, right hand of a psycho guy who looked like he could be plucked out from an Anime- that was me.

“Give me a break Kai.”

“Yeah you and your iron-man heart totally deserve a break from that shit music you listen to at the Promenade.”

I cringed. Part of what made me bionic were my ribs- which were completely reconstructed after being shattered into smithereens, and my heart. I was one of the minority whom the Heart Project (also affectionately termed by Kai as the ‘Tin Can Project’) worked on.

My heart is basically a biogenic power source, powering my whole body. It’s been that way for 18 years, and people still talk about it and it makes me feel like a freak of nature.

“The music’s not that bad there.”

Kai glared at me like I had just slept with his mother. He was literally the only person I knew who still kept those old-school record players, and he invests quite a large sum of his salary on Vinyl that he actually listens to. Kai’s vinyl collection was almost antique- and he had everything, from a limited edition of The Beatle’s Twist and Shout (1964, still in mint condition), to a Kanye West album from 2016.

I admit, it was a little weird listening to rap from his record player- but once I confessed that I would go to a Hatsune Miku concert over a Rolling Stones concert (he has that on vinyl too), Kai was deadest on changing my music taste for the better.

It wasn’t that I hated old school music, it was just that I didn’t like it very much.

I don’t like the flaws in old-music, which by my standards- is anything before 2018 when Laser-Pop became the new world-wide trend for music. Laser-Pop, as stupid as it sounds- is the music staple nowadays in Bio-Gaia. It was named after the seamless and precise nature of lasers, because any song released today wouldn’t even be considered to chart (on the Billboard charts) if it was anything less than perfect.

By perfect I mean, pitch perfect vocals, clean beats and a smooth bass line. Music is never live now. Musicians aren’t merely artists who can strum a guitar or hold a note, like they used to be. Musicians are scientists and sound engineers- geniuses who manipulate and formulate a unique humanoid voice using only encoding and some creativity. Singing was all done by a vocalizer- Yamaha still being the leading company to produce crystal clear voices just by tapping a few buttons.

It was great, I mean, as far robotronic music goes

Concerts and shows with live music became irrelevant, and today, they are hard to find. I’ve never been to one, but Kai has. Kai feeds off old school music. And when I blithely told him that I found the breaths that traditional singers take before singing absolutely distracting to a potentially catchy song, Kai called me a mind-numbed idiot.

Which I guess made sense, because despite being part metal, humans do still need to breathe. But who am I to judge? Music was never my forte, I had my preferences but I also knew that they were far from classy or impressive.

I wasn’t that big of a music junkie, Kai was.

“I don’t even know why you go there Luke, other than that their Sangrias are basically heaven in a glass.”

I shrugged, Kai was right. The Promenade, aside from their pulsating and blearing music, served up amazing Sangrias.

Kai looked at me, not caring that his burger was slobbering all over his plate. He narrowed his eyes and shot me a disgusted look.

“You get drunk way too often for your own good dude. Why can’t I have your job?”

“That is not true, I am very good at what I do.”

Kai scoffed, but I knew that he agreed. As management, it helped that I could remember the names of people easily- matching their faces to their names even if I had only seen them once. It also helped that unlike my friend, I dressed to impress. It wasn’t really hard if you kept your words clear and simple, moved on when they were happy and milked the sincerity when they weren’t.

Thinking of it, I did sound kind of like a prostitute.

“Uh yeah sure Luke. Go ahead and get drunk while making 7 grand a month.”

I laughed and Kai set his burger down before defiantly looking at me.

“Are you free tonight?”

“Come on man, I’ve got places to be-“

“Shut the fuck up. Your last girlfriend was 10 months ago.”

I grimaced. Kai was 29 and he was already settled in with his fiancé. I was 25 and I couldn’t even get into a proper relationship for the life of me. Women were always an enigma to me, and most of the time I didn’t understand the one who happened to be my girlfriend. It was always a touch and go thing, and call me a dick, but I was pretty well-versed in being a clueless boyfriend.

“Ditch the Sangrias, I wanna bring you somewhere with real music- you need to get away from that crap you pass out to from alcohol intoxication.”

*

“Trust me, you’ll like her.”

I scowled. We were literally sitting at an old alleyway, outside a perfectly good coffee shop with plush seats and pillows, not to mention air conditioning.

“Not as much as Sangrias.”

“Don’t be a wuss, plus you haven’t really heard live music before, have you?”

He was interrupted by a small bell ring, and I stood up hastily to grab our coffees. I was slightly irked that Kai always got to do this to me- push his own style over mine.

“One Americano and one Latte!”

I smiled at the barista and she grinned back at me before her eyes trailed down to the opening of my jacket.

“You’re a –“

“Yeah.”

She pursed her lips in a manner that suggested that she was impressed and I shrugged it off. Trust these women to be impressed by a glowing light bulb in my chest.

“What’s your name?”

“Whitney, yours?”

I liked Whitney, she was cute. But I generally liked anyone who bothered to talk to me like I wasn’t a freak. I settled talking to Whitney for a while because too much of Kai made my head hurt.

It didn’t take long for me to notice that the café slowly emptied, and Whitney- so caught up in our conversation that when the door suddenly swung open, she snapped back into barista-mode.

“Sorry Luke, I have to move more chairs outside, I think Riley’s here.”

I smiled and watched her scurry off. Holding both cups in my hands- I realised that I must have been engaging in conversation with Whitney for too long because Kai’s latte was almost luke-warm. Cringing, I stepped out into the night air and was greeted by a collection of pastel-green tables and chairs lined up neatly outside the coffee shop. The seats were filled, and I looked over to Kai who waved at me impatiently.

“What took you so long?”

“I was talking to the barista,” I said lamely and Kai rolled his eyes.

“You’ll like her, trust me. She always comes here on Fridays and does her thing.”

“I thought performing on the streets was illegal?”

It was true. Bio-Gaia had a strict no-piracy rule and had her metal hand clamped strictly over any artistic expression whatsoever. It was something we all had to deal with, as much as I didn’t like it.

“Nope. She’s licensed to busk here, I mean the coffee shop manager allows her to anyway.”

I glanced sideways and saw a girl with dark brown hair bending over a guitar case, her face and head shielded by the curtain of waves that tangled around her shoulders. People were all engaged in coffee or conversation, a cup or a slice of cake sitting between them and I wondered how good Riley was. She didn’t have a microphone, neither did she have anything to amplify her sound-and the whole situation struck me as both boring and ridiculously striped down.

"Stop pouting Luke.”

“I completely regret coming here.”

“You haven’t even heard her yet!”

“You know I don’t like old-school music!”

“Uh Kai?”

I stopped talking and looked up. The guitar case now empty, and the girl was gone. She didn’t run off per say, she was standing in front of our table and looking down at me.

“Oh, hey Riley.”

I regarded her coolly. I wasn’t about to be ashamed of what I just said, because I really didn’t enjoy, neither did I appreciate the art of music.

Up close, she was a medium-sized girl who didn’t look like much. She was in a white dress with black tights, sheathed with a khaki parka because it was slightly breezy. She sniffed once and wrung her lips sideways, before looking right at me for a few seconds before her eyes darted distractedly away.

“Ignore my friend.”

She laughed dryly and engaged in small talk with Kai. My friend had apparently been frequenting this coffee shop for the past month, something which he coincidentally left out when he declined to go for dinner with me.

“I better go, I’ll talk to you later.”

“Sure thing Riley.”

She turned and walked back, picking up the guitar she had laid next to her case. Her movements were precise- drawing something from her right parka pocket and wedging it between her lips as she shrugged on a strap with a floral print on it, letting her guitar hang on her shoulders before she supported it with one hand, and pried what looked like a piece of plastic from her lips with her other hand.

She didn’t give an introduction, didn’t say her name, didn’t even say the name of the song. She just started strumming her guitar- the strings giving way to her hands as she thrummed them lovingly. It was a gentleness which produced a sound that was hollow and empty.

There was no beat, no bass, not even a distinct tune on the guitar- but people quietened down anyway. I scrutinized Riley careful, watching the way her knees bopped inwards and out, and the way her shoulders moved with her arm. She didn’t seem to be looking at anyone, just straight into the coffee shop- like she knew that it wasn’t very impressive what she was doing on the guitar.

“Do you have a thunder storm I could borrow?”

Then her lips opened, and her eyes flickered close for just a moment before opening again and looking at the woman sitting in front of her.

It was funny how the first line of her song asked for a thunder storm when her voice could have summoned sweet and glorious rain fall.

“Cause I have a ship and I’d like for you to keep my pieces.”

That was the line that got me because the words rolled off her tongue like the way sand slips through your toes when the sea pulls back into where it belongs. The guitar was still there, like a feathery downer cushioning the poetry that slipped away from her like she had plucked them right out of thin air.

I was sitting opposite Kai who had his feet cocked up on his knee and watching her through half-lidded eyes. His feet bopped with the swaying of her hips, she moved forwards and backwards- his feet went up and down accordingly.

When Riley tipped her head up, it was the most beautiful thing I heard because when she sang the first note of the chorus- I barely even noticed the unintentional intake of air through her mouth.

“If I had a thousand miles in my feet.”

Another breath, and I noticed.

Maybe it was the humanity of it all- the way she seemed to sigh into the next line, reminding herself to breathe or she might just seem to float away into wherever she was singing from.

“I would march on the spot when I got to you.”

Her high notes were scratchy, but she sang them with her smile playing at her eyes not caring if she came out of breath. As she continued, I found myself wondering who she wrote the song for- and if it was for a guy that she liked, that guy was one lucky dude.

I always thought music was about production, perfection and careful policing of words to make everything flow. But here she was, singing a song that didn’t have rhymes, running out of breath only slightly and playing a guitar that buzzed every once in a while when she carelessly strummed a string too hard. I couldn’t believe it could be so simple, and sound so easy.

Man, screw Hatsune Miku. This girl was in the most humble outfit, but she made me forget about the flaws of being human and that we were in fact capable of great, beautiful things. While I listened to her, I forgot about how she refused to look at me and I forgot about the robotic mannerism of basic eye contact.

I looked at her until she finished her song and never looked away, not even once. And when she was done, my Americano was cold.

*

“Luke, if you really like her-“

“What?”

“You haven’t said a word in the past hour.”

I kept quiet for a moment and Kai shot me a look so smug that it should have bothered me, but it didn’t. I was glad, and ridiculously appreciative of him bringing me here.

“She’s good.”

I said it because it was a fact, and it felt weird because it wasn’t like I knew what good music was.

“Told you.”

“Who was the first song by?”

Kai shrugged.

“I don’t know, I never asked.”

“Are you serious?”

I turned to her and saw her pushing her guitar case against the wall she was backed up against and silently pulling the coins and notes that she had received in the past hour out from it. Her hair was back over her face again, but she wasn’t that normal to me anymore.

“Go ask her, if you must know.”

“Okay.”

I was pretty insulted that Kai looked genuinely shell-shocked at what I said, but I really liked her first song. It was my first time experiencing something like this- the sudden lust of wanting to store her little voice into my iPod (generation 10 by the way). Ignoring him, I pulled out a ten dollar note and walked over to her.

She stuffed the neat little stack of notes into her pocket and gathered the loose change before standing up and turning to see me looking at her. I looked at her for a moment and offered the ten dollars to her like it was a conciliatory reward for being an asshat. She looked down at my hand and up at my face.

“You’re really good.”

“I thought you didn’t like music.”

I frowned. I technically said ‘old-school’, but looking at her- maybe she was just like Kai, anything Laser-Pop wasn’t considered as music to them.

“Well. I’m a changed guy.”

Slipping the note into her parka, I noticed her take a step away before I looked at her face again.

“The first song, who was it by?”

“Oh, um.”

She flushed, a scarlet shade gripping her cheeks.

“I wrote it.”

“Really? Is there anyway I could download it?”

I didn’t mean to sound like a creep, but I thought I did before I looked at her bewildered expression.

“You liked it that much?”

“Yeah… It was um, different from what I usually listen to.”

She cocked her head to the side and for the first time, regarded me like she wasn’t shy or trying to avoid steely eye contact.

“Well, I could record it and email it to you.”

“For free?”

“Yeah, I mean why not? You gave me ten bucks anyway.”

I laughed, and she smiled back at me- her eyes lighting up the way they did when she sang.

“I’d like that.”

Then her phone buzzed loudly and she picked it up, giving me an apologetic look before picking up her guitar and walking into the coffee shop.

Walking back to Kai, I watched her press a cupped palm over her lips as she conversed with the person who called her. Her eyes gave nothing away, and I watched as Whitney gave her a concerned look. She put down the phone, picked up her guitar case before giving Whitney the loose change and a small hug.

Then she hurried out of the shop and left.

Without my email address.