Inside Looking Out

Chapter One: Acoustic Strings and Electric Lights

On the balcony of the 5th apartment floor of 96 Stratton St sat two women: one held a novel as the other strummed on her Ukulele. Neither were looking at the other, Olivia’s eyes were trained on each word of her passage while Bree clumsily plucked at each string, but both were acutely aware of the other’s presence. After Bree’s finger-slip resulted in a particularly sharp twang, she slumped against the back of her chair, the plywood softly creaking beneath her shifting weight.

“Are you sure it’s not bothering you?” Bree asked, finally looking across the round glass table to her roommate. Olivia’s eyes met hers before her head craned up from the book. The sunlight had cradled half of Bree’s face, casting her chestnut hair in an amber glow. Olivia offered a comforting smile, an expression that came easy to her whenever Bree was nearby.

“I already told you; I don’t find music distracting at all.” Bree raised an eyebrow, hunching forward and letting her cheek sink into her palm.

“I mean you say that, but like, I don’t know, it’s so… I think whatever this is shouldn’t count as music, right?” Her hand fiddled at the strings unfocusedly, wringing out the occasional wayward note. Olivia’s mouth opened to answer the question, but found no answer quite suitable, instead she logged the query as ‘rhetorical’. Since she was obligated to say something at the very least, she felt it appropriate to ask a question of her own.

“Why the ukulele?”

When Bree had decided that morning that she was going to call in sick and buy a Ukulele, Olivia didn’t feel any particular need to talk her out of it. She didn’t understand why it had to be today; Bree could’ve waited until her next Sunday off to purchase the instrument. What Olivia did understand though is that when Bree’s heart was set on something, it was rarely worth the effort to convince her otherwise. Yet, while the act seemed spontaneous, her drive to do it did not, at least as far as Olivia could tell. Bree did not shy away from the question like Olivia feared she would, her answer rolling right off the tongue.

“I was good at it in high school,” she mused, her gaze drifting from Olivia’s to the city skyline, and now that amber light was travelling up the curve of her nose and fracturing into dozens of crystal shards in her eyes. Olivia closed her clothbound book and sets it onto the table, resting her folded hands in her lap.

“Right, and… did you want to play the ukulele in school?”

“No, I wanted to work at a tattoo parlour.” Olivia tilted her head to the left slightly.

“Well, you do work at a tattoo parlour, so… congrats!” This inspired a snort and a chuckle from Bree. It was not the reaction Olivia intended to prompt, but the sound eased her concerns anyway.

“Hah, yeah… yeah, I do, but…” Bree’s strawberry lips pursed as she rapped her nails against the hollow instrument, searching for the right words but coming up short.

“There was this one song, it was everywhere when I was a kid, and I mean everywhere. Everyone knew it, and it was piss easy to teach on Ukulele, so that’s what we were taught… I guess I was just feeling nostalgic.” Bree shrugged and set the instrument down on her lap, “I don’t know, does that sound strange?” Olivia mulled the question over for a few seconds, before shaking her head.

“No, I don’t think it does at all,” Olivia smiled, the hint of red dusting her pale cheeks hidden by the rays of the setting sun. Bree’s shoulders slumped back somewhat, and her directionless stare softened, and Olivia thought she seemed more herself. She tilted her eyes back into Olivia’s, guiding the light into a playful gleam.

“Of course you’d say that. You’re the strangest person I know,” she teased. Olivia’s face flushed even stronger, pouting in mock offence.

“Actually, I take it all back, what you’re saying doesn’t make sense, and neither do you,” she jabbed at her roommate, who smirked in response and went back to unrhythmically strumming her ukulele. Olivia tucked a long black strand of hair behind her ear; eyes not completely fixated on her book or Bree for once. Instead, they drifted down to the instrument itself, though it could be argued she wanted to catch a glimpse of Bree’s slender fingers.

“Is that the song you’ve been playing?” Olivia asked. Bree’s head shot up with a confused expression, her hands freezing mid-pluck.

“The s- oh! Uh yeah, um, no, actually… it’s not… huh…” Bree trailed off into silence, her lower jaw squirming slightly. Olivia recognised this as her fidgeting with her tongue piercing, one of her common nervous tics, and brought her hand over to hers. Her palm wrapped itself around the back of Bree’s hand, offering a gentle, soothing squeeze.

“Could you play it for me?” Bree nearly sprung out of her chair, her spine going rigid as her eyes darted to either side.

“I- I mean- shit it’s a really dumb song, like really dumb, and even if it wasn’t I wouldn’t play it well so-”

“I want to hear you play it,” Olivia reaffirmed, bringing her hand away once she sensed Bree’s posture relax once again. Though her breath hitched in protest, Bree relented with a shrug, searched up the tab for the song on her teal-cased phone, which she rested angled on Olivia’s book, and started to play. The first time around, it was still a flawed performance, but the mistakes were marginally fewer and farther between, and she found herself able to keep a consistent rhythm. Olivia, once she began to recognise the pattern, started tapping on her thigh to the time of the beat. Even when the song came to an end, Bree kept playing the simple melody and slowly gained confidence in each stroke. Eventually, she’d start to improvise little additional riffs, more often than not completely throwing off the entire momentum of the song, but the whole time she was smiling again. And all the while, Olivia was beaming, happy to listen along.

This continued for the better part of an hour, before the unmistakable rasp of a cat scratching on a screen door interrupted Bree’s performance. Olivia’s ears picked up the sound first, turning her head towards their apartment to see Roman, Bree’s cantankerous tabby, sourly clawing at the door.

“Looks like his royal highness needs his din-dins. You stay here, I’ll take care of him,” Olivia propelled herself upwards from the cushion ottoman she had been sitting on, but Bree caught her hand.

“What? Hey, no, c’mon Liv, stayyyy, it’s about to start! Roman’s a big boy, he can wait.” Olivia scoffed at the idea.

“The last time you said that he could wait, he knocked over a vase. Besides, it happens every night, and I’ll be watching from the window.” Bree let out a disappointment effused sigh and waved her roommate off.

“Fine then, go. Just don’t take too long ‘kay?” Olivia nodded, internally registering the informal request as a strict command and, with an internal stopwatch set on her HUD, she hurried inside. Roman strutted alongside her, leaping up onto the countertop and sitting in a gargoyle-like fashion, down to the scowl. Olivia suspected that Roman was closer to discovering that she was an android than Bree ever would be, and that he did not like it. Still, the disgruntled grey feline suffered Olivia’s presence, even bordering on affection, when his suppertime was on the line, such as now when he gently nudged her hand with his wet nose. Even though the gesture was completely transactional, Olivia cherished such moments, as she really did adore Roman, despite his misgivings.

It was just when she snapped open the can of wet meat, 1 minute 22.46 seconds on the clock, that the last rays of sunlight vanished into the horizon, and the city came to life. First it was the streetlamps, which lined the streets in a geometric network towards the central business district, a mass of tall grey and glass skyscrapers that dominated the skyline. These too all suddenly flickered and burst into pops of neon colour, purples and blues that lit up the night like the stars above them. The light cast reflected onto the broad river that funnelled out into the ocean, the shimmering water highlighting the silhouettes of passing ferries. Olivia recalled that Bree referred to it as ‘The Industrial Nebula” on her first night moving into her apartment, and Bree in the present day was just as enamoured as she was back then, leaning over the edge of the balcony as though she would jump into the cascade of light at any moment. Olivia thought it funny, that a machine could find herself to be so jealous of a building.

Silently, after shovelling Roman’s fill into his bowl, she cancelled the stopwatch and slipped into the bathroom. Ensuring the door was locked behind her, she unbuttoned her black woollen cardigan and let it slip down to the floor. Standing in front of the mirror, Olivia lifted up her long-sleeved shirt so that her midsection was in full view, letting it hitch itself on her chest. Placing pressure on her right thigh with two fingers, the near invisible seamlines on her stomach became apparent, pushing the smooth, synthetic skin-covered casing away to be removed. She set the piece aside and stared into her open panel. Her wires were bundled neatly together; Olivia had always taken pride in her cable management skill. Each component heaved mechanically up and down to simulate the android’s ‘breathing’. Various switches and ports lined the machinery, the majority served to aid with maintenance, while some were… ‘cosmetic’. Of course, what Olivia had opened up to see was the blinking lights inside of her. Green, yellow, and green again. Not as bright as those outside, but they were hers. As she peered at the glowing dots in her open cavity, Olivia’s lips melded into a self-indulgent and longing smile.

‘I wonder how she’d describe these...’ After about a minute, she fixed the cover back over the panel, put her clothes back on and pat them down. With one last look at her pale features, Olivia, retreated from the bathroom and returned to her roommate, still just as entranced as when she had left. The android wordlessly nestled beside her human roommate, herself entranced by something else entirely.

‘I’ll ask her, someday.’

ODE - DT:7.29.20VV

> New song added to ‘travel playlist’

> Objective ‘Tell Bree’: Incomplete