Orb Fiction
Symbiosis
“Xave—” Ryn’s leaned away from the mic to project his voice over to him acoustically, mid song, “—whadda we do?”
Xave’s praying to every god he’s ever heard of as the first sweep of drizzle specks the keys of his synths. He’d had no qualms scheduling this gig under a summer sky, and the forecast of even a few hours ago had assured their safety. Fate—judging by the rapidly-greying heavens—has other ideas. Too late to teardown now. And the audience remains grooving stalwartly.
“We go down with the ship.”
As is normal in the industry, this gig pays a pittance against the band’s equipment, which is worth more than their vehicular assets combined. But since most of it’s Xave’s… well, it’s his call. Possessed by the spirit of the Titanic’s doomed conductor, the show will go on to a watery grave. Xavier's reached a zenlike acceptance on his insurance-claim doom when he sees two men alighting the hill stageward with with a massive roll of black tarpaulin between them.
What proceedes is a remarkable feat of communal engineering. The two who’d brought the tarp hold it down in front of the stage, while the tallest of the audience organise to flick its leading edge over the towering PA. Still more sets of hands reel it out over the stage. It’s majestic, enough to cloak the band in its entirety—none of whom even care about the sprinkles of random debris shaken from the plastic. It reaches all the way to the ground behind Ida's kit, and just like that, their outdoor concert’s transformed into the world’s tiniest nightclub.
Inside, it’s a tornado of noise. Polyethylene doesn’t so much muffle noise as it does reflect it. Heron—in an unprecedented gesture of philanthropy—turns his guitar down a bit. Though now he’s pinned to his amp, a bigtop centerpost to clear their canopy from its heat. While everything else here runs solid-state cold, his rig’s indulgently old-school, with incandescent vacuum tubes as its heart. So be it, he thinks, until a lanky guy materialises from beneath the tarp and shoos him, takes his place.
“You worry about the music, bro!” A gold incisor flashes in the man's grin. Perhaps the bass clef tatted proudly on the obverse of the guy's wrist is what instills Heron with the confidence to trust him.
Three figures—two women and a man—act as tent-poles around Ida’s kit, so plastic doesn’t choke the cymbals. She beams at them, unself-conscious of her wolfish teeth, and they beam back, too keen to worry about their hearing. It's hard not to laugh, even while she plays.
More and more people join them, whether it’s to help or just to seek shelter from the rain. Soon nobody can take a step in any direction. Xave takes an instrumental, and if it didn’t feel religious before, it does now. There’s spellbinding vulnerability in a good synth solo, and at these quarters it’s electric, multiplied by the energy of so many bodies. A larrikin wiggles his fingers, a mirror mimic in front of the keyboard array. He daren’t touch anything, though, since to threaten the magic would surely jeapordise one’s immortal soul.
The song snaps closed, and their guardians’ cheers drown the rain's applause.
“Can I just say,” Ryn drawls to the mic, “whoever’s tarp this is, I owe you a drink.”
On they go. The shower clears after two songs, and the tarp with it.