London Harmony: Feel the Beat

By Erik Schubach

Self publishing

P.O. Box 523

Nine Mile Falls, WA 99026

Cover Photo © 2015 Yurka Immortal / Karramba Production / ShutterStock.com license

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, blog, or broadcast.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Manufactured in the United States of America

FIRST EDITION

ISBN 978-0-9909806-6-7

I was sitting in my office I shared with Vanessa, finishing up some paperwork to get the promoters paid for Tabby Cat's record-breaking world tour. I grinned, wondering how such a small woman could make such huge sound, I guess that's why JW stuck her with the Pipes nickname.

The sudden squealing from the 'pit', the open space outside the doors that held the desks of our few workers, took me by surprise. My blinds were drawn so I couldn't see what was going on, so I stood and made my way to the door. I couldn't stop the huge smile that claimed my face for its very own as I saw the gorgeous six foot two tall woman with her beautiful Pacific Islander features and complexion, who had invaded our realm.

She was currently hugging Fran, Vanessa's teenage sister who helped out in the office after school, in a silly side to side hug. Fran's feet were dangling off the ground in the grip of the Amazon princess.

Diane and Larry were turned in their chairs, watching the shameless display with grins on their faces.
Graaawl, I want a hug too!
So I motored on over as the tall woman set Small Fry down. In a graceful motion, borne of years of practice, she brushed her shiny black hair back over her shoulder with a sweep of her hand, and it hung down to her sexy butt. I'm straight... ish, but I know when a butt is sexy.

Fran was asking, “I didn't know you were visiting Lizzie! When did you get in? How long are you staying? Does June know?”

I laid a hand on Fran's shoulder. “Slow down Small Fry, let her at least try to answer.” Then I added to the tall one, “Hiya Liz!” I grinned as June’s baby sister smiled down at me. We squealed and duplicated the display from earlier as Elizabeth Harris-West dangled my feet off the ground and swayed from side to side.
Mmmmm hugs! I could live off of hugs. Hugz iz gooood.
I could hug people all day, but JW says that it may be creepy.

She set me down and smiled down at me. “Hey Zilrita, how's my favorite goth?”

I grinned over at Fran and said in a silly manner, “You hear that? I'm her favorite.”

Fran crinkled her nose at me, then Lizzy countered, “My favorite 'goth'... Small Fry is my favorite sorta-little-sister.” Then she locked eyes with Fran. “Good Lord, when are our sisters ever going to seal the deal?”

Fran sighed then took a deep breath and shrugged. That was the question around here. I had December in the office pool. Two people who obviously love each other as much as June and Vanessa are going to have to make it official one day.

Then I tilted my head in question, silently asking the same tidal wave of questions Fran had. Liz just chuckled in her easy way with that perpetual smile of hers. “I have news for June that I wanted to share with her personally. An email just wouldn't do. Is she in her office?”

I squinted an eye. “So you fly almost five thousand miles to tell her? Where's Jeremy?”

She tilted her head with a warm grin. I loved how just hearing her husband's name made her happy. She responded with, “Brazil, he was sent down last week to install a network and connect them to the main office in Seattle. He'll be back home in a few days.”

She looked toward June's office.
It must be really important.
I said, “They're down in studio two, overseeing the first session of their latest find, Abigail Addison. You wouldn't believe how that woman can ad-lib, I've never heard anything like her, it will blow your mind.”

She did a silly about face back toward the stairs, her raven hair fanning out behind her from the motion as she started walking, Fran and I by her side. Small Fry looked up to her. “We're not supposed to spy on the sessions.”

She gave a crooked smile as she looked at us as she took the steps two at a time, making us scurry to keep up. “Then why are you following me?”

I shrugged with an evil smile. “Because we always spy, Fran and I are evil that way.” She wrapped an arm around each of us and dragged us up to the studio door.
Oooo, hug!
She let go and then quietly opened the door and we all peeked in.

She got that look on her face that she always had around her big sister, a look of awe and pure unadulterated love. We watched as June and Vanessa swayed and danced to the amazing creation that Abigail was forging with her voice in the isolation booth. I was sort of mesmerized to see the woman who just stood in front of that microphone with her eyes closed and lived the music instead of singing it.

That Vanessa had discovered Abigail's talent a few weeks back, was one of the happiest accidents for our label here at London Harmony. She sort of embodies the entire reason June started the studio. I had sat in rapt fascination as Abigail had recounted it all for me the other day as we signed all the paperwork.

I woke up to the sun on my face, and a warm body pressed against mine. I grinned and stretched then wrapped my arms around the golden retriever and made a silly satisfied sound. “Ahhhhhhh.” Then smiled as I released him. “Come on Sir Percival, you know you're not supposed to be up here,” I teased. I felt him wriggle and turn then lick my face.

He made a little whimpering sound that left me seeing a violet burst in my vision and the warm ripples pulse through me. I prodded his ribs and wiggled my fingers in his long velvety fur. “Out, out, out you silly boy. It's Saturday!” I could hear my own excitement in my voice as bright purple and blue waves swam in front of me and it felt a little charged and spiky. I couldn't help it, I was so bloody excited, so I gave my service dog one last hug before he hopped off my bed.

This was our morning ritual. I know I'm not supposed to let him sleep on the bed with me, but he's more than simply my helper, he's my best and most loyal mate. I slipped out of bed and stretched again. Then proceeded to trip over my bag on the floor, where I had dropped it the previous night, instead of hanging it in its proper place when I dragged my exhausted butt to bed too darn late.

I landed with a thud and a red burst that felt like a crinkled ball of paper being suddenly crushed in my head. The gift of my synesthesia, most of my senses are cross-wired in my head centered around my hearing. Though I'm mostly blind thanks the fight I had with ocular cancer when I was ten, I see sounds, and to some extent feel and taste them too.

I grabbed my bag and heard Percy whimper. I grinned in his direction and quipped, “Nice, you could at least have warned me.” I stood with my bag and stepped to the left, I could make out a bright greenish blur in the sea of other blurs with my one good eye. It was my lime green coat hook on the wall by the door. I hung up the bag and scratched my side idly.

The soft purple pink of my mother's voice rippled up the stairs. “Abigail, are you right?”

I rolled my eyes, she's so overprotective. “Yes mum, just tripped. Be down in two shakes.” I was going to be glad to get out on my own in a couple months. A girl of twenty-three shouldn't still be living at home. My income from busking had turned a corner the past couple years and was enough to support myself comfortably.

I was thinking about sending out some demos this year to various studios. Maybe one may take a shine to my unorthodox music, then I wouldn't have to depend on public performances and the odd jobs singing backup for the local bands. I just know that no matter where I go or what I do, it will be in music. I have a completely unique experience when it comes to singing. I can see, feel, taste the music and it always caresses me like a lover, letting me block out the sounds of the world around me that are always chipping away at my psyche.

I started walking toward my loo and Sir Percival was suddenly there, leaning against my leg, guiding me. I grinned and dropped a hand to his head and scrubbed his ears. “I think I got this silly boy. Go downstairs for breakfast, I'll be down soon. I pushed him a bit and he took off, padding across the floor, the sound feeling like drops of water in a still pond as the blue ripples spread out in my vision. I grinned, he's my knight in shining armor.

I grabbed some clean knickers and bra from my bureau on the way to the loo. Then I showered, letting the sound of the falling water envelop me, I caught the beat, I couldn't help it, it is there in the world around us every day at all times. Most people don't make the effort to hear the music that surrounds us.

The tapping of the water on the floor of the tub, the hiss of the shower-head, the sharp sound of the water streams hitting my body. I started adding in some purples. “Bop bop bop, ooo ooo ooo, huuu unh mmm.” I drummed on my thighs. The combination feeling like ocean waves crashing onto the rocks of a secluded beach. I started swaying and dancing in the shower and I sang. Humming between lines of a chorus I ad-libbed to my impromptu song.

My body and soul getting swept away in the torrent of feeling and color. I opened my eyes and the perpetual foggy blur of the world swayed when I did and bounced as I hopped on my toes. Satisfied with what I created, I shut off the shower and grabbed a towel to dry off and put on my knickers and bra.

I stepped up to the mirror, a bright spot in the haze. Then I reached up and pulled down my lower eyelid on my left eye and gently prodded the base of my prosthetic eye and it lifted and I took it out. It was feeling a little scratchy in my socket.

I ran it under the tap for a minute, gently wiping it to get any sediment off of it. I'd have to get it in to be polished next week or so. I dropped it into a little paper cup and squeezed some saline solution into the cup from the bottle next to my glasses, then swirled the cup gently. I let it soak as I dried my hair by feel and combed it out.

After replacing my eye and dripping my medicated eye drops in my right, I grabbed my glasses that I was so embarrassed to let people see. There are times I have thought of not wearing them and just letting Percy be my eyes. The spectacles felt so heavy, the glass was as thick as the bottom of a beer bottle. I pulled them on and the world became clear around me.

I tried to remember if what I saw through my one eye was as clear as I saw before my cancer. I think it isn't as bright and things farther than ten meters or so are blurry still. But the vibrant colors of the sounds around me make up for any differences there may be.

It wasn't until just before my diagnosis when I was nine that I realized that not everyone saw and felt sounds like I did. The doctors that had determined I had synesthesia had, by a stroke of luck, noticed something not right with my normal vision.

They caught the ocular cancer by pure happenstance, it was an aggressive form and the chemo and other treatments fought it off, but not before they had to take my left eye. My right eye has cataracts that they don't want to operate on until the pressure in my eye decreases, that's what the eye drops are for. That hasn't happened in over ten years so I'm not holding my breath. In a matter of months, I went from seeing the world as a normal girl to being virtually blind.

The Magoo jokes and endless teasing I went through in secondary school after that, left me a bit cynical that there were actually kind people in the world. Children can be the cruelest. But I found music. Music makes everything else seem inconsequential. My mum enrolled me in every music program she could find. She was happy I found something that made me happy.

She enrolled me in the McClellan Music Conservatory program for two years when I graduated. I never knew there was so much more to music than I had already experienced. I here tell that that phenomenal songstress, Tabby Cat, hailed from there last year. That woman has some lungs on her.

I took the time to look myself over. I thought I was cute except for the tonne of glass perched on my nose. I liked to keep my chestnut hair bobbed at my shoulders and my hazel eye looked like it took its highlights from those locks.

Not many notice my left eye, but I do, I see it like a beacon because I can see the size difference in the pupil. They size it for the most common light environment. But anywhere else, when my pupil dilates or constricts the left one remains constant. Giving me what I call my goofy eye look, one pupil is larger than the other, not to mention it is not cloudy like my right. But as I said, most people don't notice, they don't seem to see past my glasses, which they try to ignore.

I apprised myself. Tall and sassy, and unfortunately just about as flat as a board. I saw splashes of sharp blue color around myself and realized I had started tapping my fingers on the counter, finding a beat. I smiled and started humming to it as I got ready for the day. It was supposed to be an average spring day so I'd need my jacket if I were going to be standing outside all day.

I carefully tied the black fabric bracelet on my wrist. It had my father's birthstone, topaz, hanging from it in a silver ringlet. I've worn it every day since the day my mother gave it to me, right after the first time I had asked about dad. I lightly brushed the stone with my fingers.

I turned and snagged my studded leather jacket. Hey don't look at me like that, it's sort of girly, not all punk like some, and grabbed the handle of my rolling equipment case. I thudded down the steps, red spikes and deep thrums coursing through my body from the racket. Percy was at the bottom wagging his tail. Now that I had my eyes on, I smiled at my beautiful boy. His golden coat almost sparkled in the sunlight streaming in from the window of the front door.

I left the equipment by the door and ruffled his ears, and he darted off to the kitchen with me. I followed the smell of eggs, sausage, and coffee. I stepped next to my mother at the stove and kissed the offered cheek. “Good morning, Mum. It smells great in here.”

With the kiss, she said, “Mwah!” Then she pulled the skillet off the heat. “Morning, love.” She took in the clothes I had picked out today, grunge chic and nodded. “Going out there today I see.”

I nodded with a grin and made a silly sliding dance move. I said over dramatically as I laid the back of my hand across my forehead, “It can't be helped, the music is trying to break out of me. I need to set it free.”

She chuckled and motioned toward our little kitchen table where she already had place settings out. “Well sit so I can feed that music. I swear you get your drama from your father's side of the family.”

I crinkled my nose at her and sat with a smile. I've always wondered what sort of bloke my dad was. He was military and died in Afghanistan before I was three and I don't remember a bloody thing about him. Mum always has a good word to say about him, and she says it with such love, I just know he would be the sort of man I'd be happy to have as a father.

We sat and discussed our plans for the weekend as we ate. I just knew it was going to be spectacular, weekends always were.