Album cover by Timothy Weaver
To Live As If You Were Dreaming by chaosmachine
Track 0: Uh
Koi zipped up his black baboon-fur jacket and stuck his hands in his pockets. When that did not seem to be enough, he breathed steam into his hands and stuck them back in, unintentionally sliding his index finger into the ring of his keys.
As he did not have a hat with him and did not wear earmuffs, he decided to warm his ears with some music. With trembling, vaguely brown fingers he popped the ear buds into his ears and pressed Play on his Walkman; an unkind combination of synth-y syrup and thin, piercing vocals entered his head as a K-pop mix cd spun in his pocket. He closed his eyes and nodded to the cheap candy.
Kowie was his favourite musician. That was how he had missed his bus. He had placed two Kowie songs in a row at the beginning of the cd – ‘Life in Bars’ and ‘Bean Beanie’ – and the trance it had put him in prevented him from noticing the bus pull up. By the time the songs had ended and the spell had been broken, the bus was long gone. He compared the time on his Casio F-91W to the arrival time of the next bus on his tattered, barely legible bus schedule and realised he would be walking downtown. Luckily downtown was only twenty minutes away by foot, which also meant he would be listening to a lot more K-pop before returning to the painful incompetence of reality.
Koi stepped out of the yellow light of a streetlamp and into the blue tint of night, the hairs of his baboon-fur jacket glistening as brilliantly as the clumps of snow around him. A chorus sung in English rushed breathlessly into his ear: ‘Oh, and the days of your life.’
A red-and-orange maple leaf, caught by a sharp, sudden wind, found a place to land on top of Koi’s head. He unwittingly wore this hat to the Homosexual Starfish where his friends had long been waiting for him. He hoped they would see him through the glass, the partition separating the world of overpriced coffee from those who could not afford it, but they didn’t so he went inside.
He unplugged his ears and said ‘Hello.’
Ryan had a piece of Scotch tape pasted across his cheek that Koi pointed at and laughed at but did not bother asking about; the absurdity of it was more entertaining to him than any explanation could ever be. Nancy and Dana sat with Ryan, but they lacked any such point of interest.
‘I guess you missed your bus?’ asked Nancy, who had her mouth and most of her nose buried in a cup.
‘Uh, yeah,’ Koi answered flatly, jamming his ear buds into his pocket. He then pulled out a ratty Kleenex and wiped his nose with it. ‘What’s the band we’re seeing, again?’
‘Pornographic Cabbages,’ Ryan reminded him. ‘They’re from Kansas.’
‘I see.’
‘They’re kind of cheesy, like that Chinese stuff you listen to,’ Ryan added. ‘I think you might like them.’
‘It’s live music,’ Koi said.
Since nobody knew what this comment meant, they did their best to ignore it.
Koi sat down beside Dana, but not so close that their bodies were touching; ensuring this was a very deliberate millimetre of space situated between Koi’s baboon-fur jacket and Dana’s Baby Blue 2 one. He wiped his nose again and set the boogered Kleenex on the table.
‘Is there an opening band?’ Koi asked.
‘It’s not much of a band, but yeah. Two guys called Architecture. They make electronic music. I think they’re supposed to be good, but it’s kind of strange that they’re opening for Pornographic Cabbages.’
‘You told me Pornographic Cabbages use a drum machine,’ Nancy cut in.
‘Onstage they have a live drummer,’ Ryan said. ‘Pornographic Cabbages are great. This is my first time seeing them. I have no idea why they came here.’
‘Architecture is a cool name for a band,’ Koi said.
‘Yeah, but they’re not a band,’ Ryan said. ‘Anyway, I have your ticket in my pocket. You owe me eight dollars. It can wait, though.’
Dana opened a pink sugar packet, the tiny crystals scattering onto her delicate fingers.
‘I like your hat, by the way,’ Nancy told Koi.
‘Hat?’
She smiled at him.
‘You know,’ she said.
‘Uh.’
‘Do you seriously not know what I’m talking about?’
‘No,’ he said, not even bothering to think about it.
Dana replaced the torn sugar packet and licked her fingers. She tried looking out the window, but the combination of bright, artificial lights inside the Homosexual Starfish and darkness of night outside made it impossible to make out anything other than her own reflection.
‘When are we going to the club?’ Koi asked.
‘What time is it?’ Ryan asked back.
Koi checked his watch.
‘Ten.’
‘Doors opened an hour ago,’ Ryan said. ‘We might as well go now.’
Nancy and Dana concurred. They fought their way past a crowd of incoming patrons until they found themselves outside. They also found that Koi was still trapped inside, waiting for the flood of students to subside before making his escape. Since that would take forever, Nancy went back in to retrieve him. When Koi rejoined his friends he was holding a tall latte.
‘I don’t know how it happened,’ he told them.
It had begun raining while they were inside, a light rain of intermittent spits and kisses. The stray raindrops felt comforting as they pattered on Koi’s hat, though he was still entirely unaware that he was wearing one. He walked with Ryan and Nancy in the rain until they realised Dana was not with them; they turned to see her getting out change for a homeless man with a hunchback, lazy eye and overlong beard.
‘Dana, no!’
Nancy rushed over to her and led her away by the wrist, but Dana still managed to give the homeless man a quarter as she was being dragged to safety.
Covering the boarded-over windows of a long-ago closed-down movie theatre were layers upon layers of concert posters. Koi made out ones for Drowned Radio and Japanese Bonus Tracks, bands too large for him to afford or be interested in. He also spotted one for the show he would be seeing tonight, the poster depicting the exposed midsection of a cabbage. He doubted he would enjoy them – he rarely enjoyed bands Ryan was interested in – but he was not about to turn down his friends. He only turned down his friends when an obscure video game was released and he needed to spend a week or two saving the world.
‘I’m starting on a new Nerd Wave story,’ Ryan said. ‘It’s going to star Koi. It’ll probably have zombies in it and aliens in the background. I suppose I can put anything I want in it. Koi will never read it. Right, Koi?’
Koi made a sound of affirmation.
‘Look at the line at that club,’ Nancy said. ‘I thought Halloween was last week.’
In front of a nightclub exploding with pink lights was a line of about twenty people dressed as Nineties goths. The self-deprecating yodelling of Morris Lee poured out of the clubs’ speakers like bad milk and Nancy made a face.
‘What, you don’t like the Cemetery Greats?’ Ryan asked incredulously. ‘They were the Beatles of the Eighties. Most of the bands you like were influenced by them.’
Nancy continued making a face. She glanced at the line again as they walked past and spotted Dana trying to give a quarter to a bewildered goth. She grabbed her friend by the wrist and once more led her to safety, safety being the completely harmless company of Ryan and Koi.
‘Should I have my ticket now?’ Koi asked.
They were standing in the doorway of Phone In Sick, the club where Pornographic Cabbages and Architecture were performing. Swedish dance music played over the club’s PA. Ryan pulled the tickets out of his pocket and handed them out.
‘Your health card should work as ID,’ Ryan told Koi.
‘Are you going to drink?’ Nancy asked them.
‘Probably,’ Koi said.
As soon as they stepped into the club and gave the man with tattoos their tickets, all of the lights in the club shut off and the music came to an abrupt stop. The effect was akin to Koi’s notion of death, the sudden cessation of everything; it was also like shutting his eyes after keeping them open for a long period of time.
The door closed shut behind them. Koi walked into Nancy and Dana tripped on Ryan’s foot, hitting the edge of a wall with her shoulder.
‘What’s going on?’ Koi asked. ‘Am I going to see a giant face?’
He expected the lights to come back on. They didn’t, but he could make out intermittent flashes of red LED lights some distance ahead of them. He supposed that it was the stage.
‘Am I dead?’
A pounding beat ruptured the speakers and altered the rhythm of his heart. The beat quickly evolved into something that skittered like a lesser monster from some film. While this beat brutalised Koi’s body, the glitched-out sounds of a thousand skipping cds massaged his ribs and spine. Every once in a while there was a flash of blue amongst the red, and this blue was bright enough to illuminate the sharp, bearded features of two nodding heads. The heads were nodding behind a mountain of machinery. They were twin gods shooting lightning down from the heavens. Koi looked into the darkness on either side of him for Ryan or Nancy or even Dana for some type of explanation. Why was this happening? Why wasn’t anybody singing? Why did he feel like he was turning into an entirely different person? A snake of midi melody wrapped itself around the ruins of beats and electronic noises and slithered into his soul. He shivered out of fear and awe. He almost felt like crying.
There was a lull as an ambient wash swept away the beats and reminded him to breathe.
‘This must be Architecture,’ he heard Ryan breathe beside him.
‘Oh my god,’ he heard Nancy whisper.
The beats returned and Koi’s knees buckled. He used Dana to help prop himself up. He didn’t even know he was doing it – there was nothing but darkness and Architecture for the rest of the set. Dana could have been a wall or a pillar or some complete stranger; all that mattered to Koi was that he focused every fibre of his being on the miracle being set before him. It was like an entirely new genre of music was being created before his blinded eyes.
‘I, uh,’ Koi faltered, his stuttering adding further texture to the undercurrent of glitch.
Dana pushed a quarter into his mouth and kissed the baboon fur of his jacket but it may as well have been some passing air. Forty minutes into the set every sound and notion – every beat, burst of static, melody and twitching sample – that had comprised Architecture suddenly declared war on the unsuspecting crowd, unloading ammo until no rounds were left and the crowd had collectively climaxed with the music. The lights came back on and all that remained was the sweet tang of rape. Architecture had vanished from the stage.
Koi opened his eyes to the poster-covered door of the club. He pulled the quarter out of his mouth, looked at it and then placed it in his pocket.
‘I must’ve changed direction at some point,’ he said.
‘Not that it mattered,’ Ryan told him. ‘They played in the dark. Anyway, I can’t wait for Pornographic Cabbages. Let’s go get some drinks.’
‘Did you like it more than your K-Pop?’ Nancy asked Koi.
Koi made his affirmation sound.
‘Really? I’m glad the night won’t be a total waste for you, then.’
Koi made his affirmation sound again. He unzipped his jacket and accepted a glass of beer from Ryan.
‘I thought they were all right,’ Ryan said. ‘I mean, don’t get me wrong – I was blown away by what they were able to accomplish with those computers. Those were Apples, right? But they could’ve used more bass. And there’s still something to be said for vocals and, you know. It sounded kind of like a malfunctioning machine playing an old Atari game and pissing itself because it’s having so much fun.’
‘I liked that about it,’ Koi said. He downed his golden liquid and then set the glass on the counter. ‘I’ve never heard anything like it before.’
‘I need to get some air,’ Koi said.
‘Yeah? The Cabbages will be on in about thirty minutes. I think you have time.’
Koi nodded and pushed past his friends to the front of the club. The tattooed man was still there and opened the door for him.
‘It’s a shitty night,’ the tattooed man said.
Koi nodded. The air was moist and opened up his skin. He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked up. He started crying. He did not know why he was crying. Why was he crying? Was it Architecture? Ryan? Nancy? Dana? Who was Dana, anyway? As far as Koi knew, she was either a very large fairy or a very short elf. She did not react to things in the same way other people did. She did not judge. Instead she hardly breathed a word, making her presence known merely by existing and offering an inherent sweetness to the harsh worlds of others. She could not be human. She was blonde and did not make any sense.
Koi cried because he did not know if he was living in a reality marred by absurdity or an absurdity marred by reality. He blew his nose on a soggy Kleenex. While dabbing his nostrils, he again looked to the sky.
A deep, pure, futuristic blue tinted the world of office buildings and decrepit clubs. As the buildings rose higher into the sky, the deepness of the blue lessened, becoming a solid, clinical shade that encompassed the entirety of heaven. It was as if the city had suddenly drowned in solidarity, each element working to achieve a certain warmth despite the chill and a striking, comforting familiarity through the beautiful strangeness of it all. Yellow and white lights patterned the windows of the buildings but somehow even these were blue. Cars coasted the streets like vessels of fate, their red lights acting as sharp cuts in the fabric of reality. Their headlights yellowed the rain-slicked roads. But Koi still found them blue.
He understood why Architecture had played in the dark. In the dark, everything became the same. The experience became a shared experience – everyone heard the same sounds, felt the same vibrations, all without the distraction of trivialities such as motion, of who was wearing what and why they might be wearing it. They had become the sound of the night sky, covered in clouds, reflecting the magical, artificial blue of the world below.
He dried his eyes with the palms of his hands.
‘Still raining?’ the tattooed man asked when Koi returned.
Koi made his affirmation sound. He found his friends at a corner with a counter where they had set their drinks: Dana was sipping water out of a plastic cup, Nancy had somehow coaxed the bartender into making a flamboyant lady drink for her and Ryan was on his second or third beer.
‘Are you feeling any better?’ Ryan asked.
‘Uh, I feel good,’ Koi told him. ‘I just needed air. What’s that thing?’
He pointed at Nancy’s drink.
‘I call it a Rainforest,’ Nancy explained. ‘There’s a slice of every fruit you can think of lining the rim. There’s not even a spot to put my mouth.’
‘I see.’
Spare twangs popped the PA and the ensuing feedback caused Nancy to hold her ears. The drums were tested and the microphones were tested and the other instruments were tested too. Ryan suggested they move closer to the stage to watch the sound check.
‘I have an idea for a band,’ Koi said as they watched the members of Pornographic Cabbages demystify their music.
‘I have one, too,’ Ryan cut in. ‘It’s a band called Sound Check. They come onto the stage, test their instruments, create feedback, say “1, 2, 3, 4”, create short riffs, tune their guitars. Their sets are ten minutes long at most. They walk onto the stage and don’t say thank you when they leave.’
‘That doesn’t sound like a very good band,’ Nancy said.
‘I want to make my own music,’ Koi said.
The sound check garnered scattered applause. The members of Pornographic Cabbages then left the stage so they could return to it seven minutes later, as if they were not just there. When the band came back, everyone clapped, even Koi who did not care. Pornographic Cabbages thanked the crowd and introduced themselves as Pornographic Cabbages; for Koi, it was just another concert, to begin in the same way and end the same way. It had nothing on Architecture. They were just people on the stage, not formless gods.
‘They’re just people,’ Koi muttered to himself.
‘What?’ Ryan asked.
Koi smirked.
When the band had finished their first song – an eighteen-minute disco-punk epic – they were drenched in sweat. All Koi could think about was Architecture. How had they made their sounds? What kind of equipment did they use? Was it a mixture of hardware and software?
‘This is pretty awesome, eh?’ Ryan asked Koi.
Koi nodded, and the Cabbages dove into their next song. For Koi, however, they had become background noise. The band was standing on a stage right in front of him, their sweat splashing onto his baboon-fur jacket, banging on their instruments in the most tribal fashion, but his mind was somewhere else entirely. They could have been covering a Kowie song and Koi would not have noticed. It was only when his back began to hurt from standing for so long that he again became aware of his surroundings.
‘We were Pornographic Cabbages,’ the vocalist shouted into his mic, his spittle speckling the air. ‘Good night.’
‘I’m going to the washroom,’ Koi told Ryan through the boisterous applause.
‘You’ll miss the encore,’ Ryan said, dismayed.
The crowd was already chanting the band’s name. Koi shouldered past members of Pornographic Cabbages on his way to the washroom. The washroom was barely lit, and its only light – located above the well-stained sink – flickered. He pissed beside the band’s drummer and could smell the cereal smell of the drummer’s sweat and urine.
Koi thought about Architecture and whether or not they had their own special washroom to go to, or if they went to the washroom at all. Going to the washroom was so low and human, Koi felt. He would not be able to urinate if one of the guys from Architecture was gracing the urinal beside him instead of a Pornographic Cabbage.
After the drummer shook off the last drops and zipped, the drummer left without washing his hands. Koi washed his hands for thirty seconds while he thought about this.
Koi's Story Continues In Track 1: The Nerd Wave
Track 0: Uh
Track 1: The Nerd Wave
Track 2: Playing Koi
Track 3: She had said the only words that could have affected him totally and truly
Track 4: A Sudden Loud Knocking
Track 5: A Two-Man Play to Be Performed on a City Bus
Track 6: Now It's Summer
Track 7: Study of a Drawing by Bobby Myers
Track 8: Loose Change
Track 9: Foam
Track 10: The First Person
Track 11: Please Be True
Track 12: Title Track