Album cover by Ray Jones
NKS2 by Saskrotch
Track 4: A Sudden Loud Knocking
An early morning for Koi was noon. His employer – a man he had never met in person, and probably never would – woke him up at 10am with a phone call. His employer wanted to check on the status of the website templates that Koi was supposed to be working on. Koi rolled out of bed, threw his housecoat around his body for decency and answered the phone, his responses ranging from resentful grunts to resentful sighs.
‘Upload them to the ftp site as soon as they’re done.’
‘Mm.’
For someone so tied to the internet, Koi thought it strange that his employer preferred to conduct business over the phone. Koi remembered the days when telephones were considered impersonal; now the phone was the most personal form of communication that his boss had at his disposal. He looked forward to the day when emails would be as personal as knocking on somebody’s door.
‘Okay, Koi?’
Computers were already personal to Koi, and had been since he was first introduced to them in elementary school: with their constant needs and wants, the way in which they readily accepted all of one’s secrets, the way in which so many people all around the world masturbated unashamedly in front of them, a person’s computer could be closer than friends and family.
All of this passed through Koi’s head as he pretended to listen to his boss.
‘Uh, okay,’ Koi said, and then he hung up the phone.
He was not sure if his boss had more to say – he only knew that his grunts had been turning into nods, which was more than enough reason for him to go back to bed.
Bed was where he thought of Vasilisa. He had given up on electro-punishment since meeting her, instead pouring his effort into ambience. His goal was to capture the ethereality of the experience in track form, hopefully with the side effect of summoning her back into existence. This had been going on for about a week now, and during that time he had changed his name to the Whoosh Man.
The Whoosh Man gazed up at his ceiling. An angelic, soothing synth sound whispered incomprehensibly but empathetically in his ear. He realised that a short ambient loop he had created was playing in the background, and most likely had been ever since he had put it together at three in the morning.
He reached for his keyboard in the hopes of mashing some key that would turn it off. Instead he knocked over a stack of Teleport Records cds, and the resulting crash made him sigh long and zombie-like.
He sat at the edge of his bed and picked up the fallen jewel cases with their abstract digital designs. A used Nuptial Squid EP he had found at a record store downtown gave him some pause: its cover depicted a warped photograph of Nuptial Squid’s face, elongating his teeth into comical fangs. Koi had not actually listened to the cd yet.
Figuring he might as well start the day now that he was in a state somewhat resembling being awake, he turned off his ambient loop and popped the EP into his computer’s cd-rom drive. The subsequent sounds that seeped out of his computer speakers were ambient loops of a different sort: this ambience was dark, threatening and foreboding, an overcast sky on a day of dread, with low-level synths rumbling in the horizon. Every now and then static crackled on the surface like the burnt-out electricity of souls. It was the soundtrack to his worst days, and he turned it off before the EP could make it to the second track.
‘I guess that’s the last time I ever listen to that,’ he murmured definitively to himself before tossing it to the floor.
He then stepped on the cd as he headed yawningly into the kitchen, where he made some eggs, carefully frying them until they were more crispy than egg. The yolks reminded him of the skull’s glowing eyes.
Trevor Noirchild was still alive and so was Haskell. He had yet to look into the plagiarism charges that had been levelled against Ryan, but he didn’t really care to. And, as far as he knew, he was not quite famous yet, though Architecture had apparently heard of him. He wondered how long it would take for Baba Jaga’s prophecies to come true. He hoped never, but there was a tiny, irritating part of him that expected them to happen; he had tried killing off this minuscule part of himself with liquor, but that had only made its high-pitched voice stronger and louder. Since then he had done his best to remain sober and sceptical. He made his eggs and ate them.
‘Damn it,’ he said quietly to himself. He then scraped the leftover crumbs into the trash and placed his dish in the dishwasher.
After pacing his apartment for several minutes, he sat at his computer and worked on a new track. A nostalgic hum grew out of it that reminded him of his high school days; at fifteen he had been at the peak of his awkwardness, and that warm, fondly-remembered place was the place the track took him to.
A phone call woke him up at 3pm. He groggily lifted his head from his desk, a pencil and two staples falling from his cheek and leaving corresponding shapes in his skin. He made a mental vow to stop paying his phone bill.
‘Mm,’ he grunted into the phone.
‘Koi, this is Poe. I’m playing a gig at the Whack tonight. I want you to come.’
‘“The Whack”?’
‘It’s the bar right across from the Greyhound station.’
‘Uh.’
‘It’ll say “The Whack” in big letters on a large sign.’
Koi paused the conversation as he tried to picture this.
‘Just show up, please. This is my first gig ever, and I’m trying to make sure the place is filled out with friends. The show starts at ten. Okay?’
Koi was still trying to picture the building and its sign. He vaguely recalled seeing big letters on a sign across the street from the station the one time he took a Greyhound to Toronto, but he was not entirely sure that they spelled out ‘The Whack’. There were about twenty different buildings in that area that Poe could have been referring to.
‘Goodbye, Koi.’
Koi failed to notice that the call had been disconnected; it was only after another minute of thinking about the mysterious building and its sign that he realised that Poe had said goodbye. He left the receiver off the hook and yawned at his living room window.
Koi used the window as a way of spying on the world outside. He looked down to see if there was anybody waiting at the bus stop and somehow recognised the top of Haskell’s head. He ran down the building’s first-floor hallway and dashed into the bitingly-cold air outside, only then remembering that he was wearing nothing but his housecoat. Haskell turned to look at the source of the sudden noise behind her and, after it seemed like she was about to choke on her own giggles, burst into laughter.
‘What the hell are you doing, you idiot?’ she called out teasingly through tears.
‘Ah, crap.’
‘Did you think you were going to miss your bus or something?’
‘Uh. Yes?’
‘It hasn’t come yet,’ Haskell said smilingly.
‘Uh, okay. I guess I should go get dressed, then.’
Koi turned back to his building.
‘Ryan said you lived here, but I couldn’t find your name on the buzzer list.’
He stopped.
‘I, uh, changed it to the Whoosh Man,’ he said, turning back to her. ‘I’ve been making ambient music lately.’
‘Ah. You know, I heard you tried making electro-punishment. Apparently it’s better than anything Taylor has made in the past few years. I don’t see that as being very hard to do, but the way people talk has got me intrigued.’
Koi reached into his pocket for something to dab his dripping nose with but found only lint. He sniffled self-consciously.
‘Uh, it wasn’t anything special. I’ve just been sticking to ambience.’
‘I see.’
Haskell looked him over while he adjusted his housecoat. His bare feet were touching snow and small black pebbles had stuck to his skin. She could also make out goose bumps on his honeyed flesh.
‘Maybe we should go inside?’ she suggested.
Koi’s eyes flicked back and forth nervously.
‘You must be freezing, and I want to hear what you’ve been making since that night you came over.’
‘Uh.’
Koi eventually relented, but only after he had thought about it for what felt like far too long to Haskell. He believed that, if anything, having a girl over at his apartment would make for a good story.
‘I could, uh, show you some loops I’ve been working on.’
He reached into his pockets again and again found nothing but lint.
‘Er. I don’t have my key.’
‘Someone will open the door for us,’ Haskell assured him.
They headed into the claustrophobic lobby of the apartment building. Haskell accidentally elbowed Koi twice in the nose in a forceful attempt to turn around, wishing to face the buzzer list; Koi said ‘Snarfl’ or ‘Blarr’ depending on the blow, but even so Haskell failed to notice his stuffed-up cries of pain. She hit a buzzer at random and soon the intercom crackled to live.
‘Yes?’
‘It’s Koi,’ Haskell said. ‘I forgot my key.’
‘What the hell is a Koi?’ sputtered the intercom before dying into silence.
‘Okay, I guess you’re not popular,’ Haskell said as she pushed another button.
‘Nub,’ Koi somewhat said as he clutched his mucus-filled and throbbing nose. He was facing the wall opposite Haskell and had no clue as to what exactly she was doing behind him.
‘I’m just pressing buttons,’ Haskell said to the next static-riddled voice that answered. ‘Could you please let us in?’
There was a lengthy, crackly sigh and then the door buzzed open for them. Within the freeing expanse of the first-floor hallway Haskell noticed that blood was flowing over and between Koi’s fingers, the blood dripping down his chin and into the quiet mystery within his housecoat. She looked at her hand and saw that splotches of blood had spattered onto her skin, and then she pulled the back of her jacket towards her in an awkward parody of a twisted mannequin and saw that blood had stained it red.
‘Why do you have to be such an impossible dork?’ Haskell asked Koi.
‘Uh. Dorry.’
‘“Dorry” isn’t going to cut it.’
She whimpered at the ruin of her new jacket. Koi sighed wheezing through the already-caking blood and snot.
‘Diz ib by abardmend,’ he said in front of his door.
Haskell opened the door, pulled off her jacket and then made sure to keep the soiled garment at arm’s length as she looked for a sink. She ended up washing the blood out of her jacket in Koi’s kitchen.
‘Uh,’ said Koi apologetically.
‘It’s coming out,’ Haskell said. ‘It’ll be fine.’
Koi nodded awkwardly and then sat on his couch. He looked at the blood on his hand. The way the blood had dried and blackened on his already-dry skin made it look like he had contracted some rare disease. He pressed into the skin on his hand and the blood crumbled and fell to the ground, becoming nameless dust to be vacuumed by Koi on another day. He sighed into his hands and then rubbed the red cake from his nose.
‘Oh my god,’ Haskell gasped.
Koi immediately looked at her in a fit of worry. He was certain that he had done more damage to her jacket than he had originally thought.
Haskell was standing in the kitchen entrance. She was looking at his apartment for the first time, and Koi began looking at it for the first time too.
‘You’re a total nerd,’ she said. ‘You’re pathetic.’
She continued to say these things as they looked over his apartment, wondering how much of his living, breathing life had been wasted. The evidence weighed heavily against him: on his walls were too many posters for science fiction films and videogames; most of the major consoles released since the original Nintendo were crowded around his tv; cases for cds and dvds were strewn about the apartment as if some robber had broken in but was unable to find anything worthwhile; handpainted models lined his shelves and action figures had been arranged in complex dioramas.
‘How,’ Haskell said finally, having exhausted her reservoir of abuse.
Koi shrugged.
‘I can barely breathe. I have to get out of here.’
‘Jeez,’ Koi said as he watched her stumble out of his apartment. He made sure to lock the door after her.
This, he felt, was as perfect a time as any for ambience. He returned to his computer and pulled up the last file he had been working on, then let it play on repeat while he showered and dressed. Everything he thought about then became a sound file that he could use: Haskell became a high-end texture while the Blade Runner poster over his dresser became a low-end rumble. Once he had accrued enough ideas to continue working on the track, a sudden loud knocking interrupted his barrelling train of thought.
He figured it was his landlord out hounding for rent money, so he got out a wad of bills and opened the door; he did not even bother peeping through the peephole. Haskell was standing with a pained expression and her arms were set vulnerably at her sides.
‘Jesus, Koi.’
‘Er.’
‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you. I don’t know why you are the way you are or why you do the things you do. You’re a total dork and a total idiot.’
‘Uh.’
Koi wished he understood why it looked like there were tears forming in her eyes. Haskell was unlike any person he had ever met before, and there were a few good qualities he could see in her beyond her physical appearance: he had to admire her honesty, for one thing. Not even Ryan had been so cruel to him, and he had not felt so totally abused since his high school days.
‘You’re probably the greatest electronic musician to ever live,’ she said.
Koi dropped his wad of bills. Haskell bent down to help him pick it up.
‘You’ll have to bring your ambient tracks to Taylor,’ she told him once she had caught his eyes. ‘He’s on a few net labels. He can help you find an audience for your tracks.’
‘Er, okay. What’s a net label?’
Haskell pressed the bills into his hands as they stood back up.
‘A net label is a record label, only without the records or a physical location. They’re usually free and allow people to download whole albums – the idea is that you’re not actually going to make any money, but your music will be advertised online. Taylor has made a lot of fans that way.’
‘Interesting. Uh.’
Haskell casually brushed her eyes with her hands, whisking away any tears she had been storing. Had she intended to cry for him, herself, her jacket? Koi hoped that it had been anything but him. He did not want to be pitied for having found his own happiness.
‘Do you, uh, still want to listen to a track?’
Haskell sighed some relief.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes.’
They listened to the track in reverential silence, Koi happy with his accomplishment and Haskell in awe of it. Haskell closed her eyes and melted into the stars behind her eyelids.
‘Uh, I have to go see a friend of mine play at a club tonight,’ Koi said as the track neared its end.
Haskell opened her eyes. The visualisation on Koi’s media player faded away, its swirl of green becoming empty black. She shivered. At that moment she desired nothing other than the pressing warmth of a hundred sweating bodies.
‘What time do they start?’
Koi's Story Continues In Track 5: A Two-Man Play to Be Performed on a City Bus
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