The band entered their second year of university, and for the first few months, everything was the same. Everything was in their proper places, no need to think about them, no need to solve some kind of problems (since there weren’t any). It is that time when everyone was chilling to their max, as if after a prolonged, petrifyingly tedious fight, that drained almost all of their energy, sanity, and other metrics that define who they are and how they function.

As the days of the summer and those first few months of the university, the band can be said, was put on pause. “Tenant” still kept on living, yes, with a new album planned to be recorded in winter, after the semestrial exams, with its concept being a mix of their own thoughts and the ongoing issues of the modern world. But when thinking about the new days of constant work, they felt tired, they felt like they needed a minute of silence, – and so, silently, solemnly, and unanimously, they decided to pause their activity for the band and do their own things.

Trent went out of the game first; he was the first who decided to step back and do some session work he had, he was an example for his bandmates to follow. In this period Trent looked quite tired, but with this tiredness came a strange unseen benevolence. As if he had forgotten any kinds of disputes that were going on in the band and Trent’s personal life, as if he had let go of any stereotypes that bounded him to his knees, making him unable to stand up at his full height and show off who he was and what he had inside his huge technological brain.

It was that time his two little YouSnoot channels (one about technology, the other about his contributions to the band) were shining like crystals underneath the mud. So much so that he managed to secure some kind of a respectful income. People liked his attitude and how he would joke on the technology channel and his subtlety and conciseness in the music channel. One can say that he had successfully divided himself not only in two but in three – his technological self, his musical self and his real self, that he showed to his friends.

And not only on the internet Trent secured a victory. His personal life has gone through a lot of bound-breaking changes. And all of them felt like some kind of shackles snapping with each and every change, each and every victory Trent has achieved, with his content creator career success being the first one out of the myriad. Trent never believed that he could change that much in that short span of time, he was stubborn and unchangeable, but as something twisted inside his mind, pulling the last bounding string away, he was completely free to change himself in the way he found preferable.

Somewhere around July, when everyone was already at their own things, leaving the band aside for a moment, Trent was playing for other bands, for the sake of getting a lot of cash and not working a single day. The adage “Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life” really worked for him: he never felt tired, even with a rough schedule of two one-and-a-half-hour long shows per week across the city. More so – Trent felt more alive with this kind of constraint, he felt like an author in containment of the law, who could do everything inside this containment, as long as he didn’t break it. His head was at ease with this tensity, and he even managed to find new ways of playing guitar that he, for sure, will implement in “Tenant”.

One of the bands that he was playing in was called “The Copilots”, a typical nu-rock group with elements of heaviness (that at first seems unnecessary, but after listening feels just in the place). Everything in the band was speaking about being established: the genre, the merch, the logos and the album covers, even the bandmates – everything felt like it all had a particular pattern that was found and used for many, many years, and will be used for many, many years in advance.

The band itself didn’t care about symbolism or any other “nerd bullshit for music nuts who don’t have anything else to do rather than jack off while listening to academically correct pieces that were made so that people wouldn’t know what fun is” (said by one of the members in one single breath). The band was one of those bands that prioritized fun over everything – and, somehow, made their little (ignorant and childish) mindset work.

Prioritizing fun showed some positive results: with “The Copilots” working on the material they found fun, they also found people that could share this fun with them, from a new bandmate to a little, but loyal fanbase. The higher echelon of musical society also noticed their fun and even managed to share it with them, making one of their albums win a small, but significant award, that decided the fate of the band for decades onward. One can say that they are too lucky, but they never knew how troublesome the beginning was.

The band’s factual leader, a male dino named Kris, began “The Copilots” as his personal passion project, his way to cope with what he experienced. He didn’t know how to make music, nor did he know what to do if he made any, but as the image of his project grew slowly and steadily inside his head, he began to learn how to make music. His plan was to create something that he could relate to in each and every way with no exceptions – a task easy on paper, but almost impossible in execution.

Half a year later, as something was already formed for his project to show off to others, he caught the attention of a couple of musicians: a male dino drummer named Heathcliff and a female dino guitarist named Damon. It was them who persuaded Kris into turning “The Copilots” from a maladaptive coping strategy into an actual band – everything remained the same, but with the band being able to show off, Kris could secure some additional cash. After two months of persuasion, Kris gave up and agreed.

Almost immediately, the band decided to hold a show, to show everyone who they were. For Damon and Heathcliff, everything was clear and fine, but Kris, as the days closed in, became more and more nervous and paranoid. As if with every day passing by something was taking his sanity away. So much so that two days before the show Kris decided that he had had enough of this insanity and took his own life at the age of twenty-six. A tragedy to behold.

Of course, this had hit Damon and Heathcliff into their guts. They’ve withstood the punch, still desiring to play the show, but now they weren’t that sure if they would succeed. Their only solutions were either trying to find a guitarist outside and convincing them to play for the show or call out to the biggest musical community for help. With no hesitation, they went with the second. Their hope hung low, like a sweet fruit, ready to be taken away on the day of the show. They felt that this was all over.

Saving them, Trent responded to their post and gave them a helping hand. The show has surpassed each and every one of their expectations – not only did they manage to pull it off, but they pulled it off so good, that no one even noticed the different vibe that the songs gave. After the show, Trent was invited to have a little chat; he agreed – knowing a couple of new aspiring musicians is always nice.

Damon, to be honest, was immediately head over heels for Trent, on many different levels. It was hard for her to hide that she loved him a lot, but she, as a representative of the Scandinavian part of Volcaldera Bluffs’ population, managed to get a grip on herself. Trent didn’t suspect a thing, and that was a huge relief for her. Heathcliff, on the other hand, was also liking Trent, but not in a romantic aspect – if there was a relationship between them, it was only “teacher-to-student”.

After Heathcliff fucked off elsewhere, deciding that he’s too intelligent for two punks that found something in each other, and not even bothering to try and get into their conversation, Damon, before Trent packed his things, invited him for a drink at a local bar. This is where Trent began suspecting things, which made Damon visibly nervous. She thought: “Well, fuck, there goes my only chance.”. But before she would lose the last bit of her hope, Trent suddenly agreed, explaining that “winners drink the most”.

They got out of the club and went straight to the local bar. Barely half an hour passed, and Damon was already wasted. She was talking gibberish, moving side to side, barely having a grip on herself – she looked like she was taken out of a cartoon, that’s how funny sometimes her drunkenness was. Trent decided to help her get to home through the streets, worrying both for her and for the strangers outside. Damon was too drunk to even say a word.

They went through the evening streets at a rather fast pace, as if Trent wanted to just get rid of the burden, courtesy of one drunk girl, and return home, to his band and his friends. Damon was strangely silent all the way to her apartment complex, and even inside she didn’t speak a word. It was the moment Trent stepped inside her apartment, located her bedroom, and left her there was when she said something, that Trent didn’t understand verbally, but contextually:

— Olet paljon mukavampi kuin he kaikki... Rakastan sinua niin paljon, en vain tiedä miten näyttää se sinulle... Ole kiltti, älä katso minua noin, en ole sellainen... Ei, odota, ole kiltti, jää tänne hetkeksi, haluan tuntea sinut...*

Even if the language that Damon spoke while drunk and, it seems, half asleep, was literal gibberish for Trent, he understood what she was asking him. To stay for this night, to not leave her. It was a hard moment for Trent: he knew that he didn’t need to be here, or deserve, or had to, or anything else. But at the same time, Damon was so vulnerable on the bend, so alone and abandoned, that Trent… Trent just couldn’t believe that leaving her like this was an option in the first place.

Trent, for a second, left her room and took a seat on the couch, to ponder upon his next move, which would decide what could come tomorrow. Again, he could leave – her drunk state, her hangover, and her vulnerability were still not his issue to deal with; if she can’t compose herself in front of her own band members, Trent is unable to help. But, again, he could stay – he can show that he actually cares for everyone, despite his stern outlook, despite the bale that sometimes makes its way into his words.

Trent has found a compromise. He will stay in her apartment for this night, but as soon as he hears her alarms or any other noises that signify her getting up, he will quickly leave her apartment. Ten minutes passed, and Trent entered her bedroom again, to check up on her. She looked fine, asleep like a baby. Looking at her like this made something inside Trent crack and melt like a massive coal black iceberg. Whatever it was, its slow decay made Trent smile warmly. To not disturb her from her deserved sleep, Trent quietly returned to the living room, laid down onto the couch and, after gazing upon a dark ceiling, closed his eyes.

The next morning he woke up quite early. His alarm was set for 7 AM – Trent woke up at 5 AM. He felt quite alive, brisk from the most nervous six hours of sleep. In the span of ten minutes, he went in and out of the bathroom, quickly got himself a breakfast that would last until he returned home, and quickly dressed up. All of this – in a matter of singular minutes. Before leaving, he checked up on Damon: she was still sleeping, safe and sound. Silently saying his goodbye, Trent left Damon’s apartment and returned to his own, to ponder upon a ton of different things while he still had time.

And it kicked off from there: a couple of dates, a couple of shows, a couple of writing music sessions – and before they knew it they were already on the edge of being actually married. While Trent slowly grew, not only learning how to live with someone under the same roof (something he never thought would happen, he thought like that for as much as he remembers himself as a student), he also slowly realized love – in two different meanings: he understood what he had felt about Damon and he got the hang of Damon’s enormous love for him.

Curtis, on the other hand, wasn’t that much of a successor, as it mainly revolved around his father and their custom weapon workshop business. In the latest years, due to some absurd allegations, their profits dropped significantly, almost to the point that it was more reasonable to close the business than to keep on fighting. But Curtis and his father (mainly due to the family traditions of being stubborn “die hard” people), kept on fighting and managed to pull their business out of what seemed certain doom. Now their profits are slowly growing, with Curtis’s father expecting them to reach the former rate in no time.

And while Curtis has fought with his father for the life and profitability of the family’s business, he also got into the uncharted territories of music. He felt a spark that he never met before – the spark that made him forget about the concept of tiredness, the spark that made him create and destroy millions, if not billions, of song ideas, the spark that kept him behind the drums with sticks in his hands for hours and hours. To say the least, he really delved into creating pre-production demos “for the fuck of it”.

As the fire burned, he decided to play for some other bands, in this regard following the same path Trent did, with a slight change of opening up for drum recordings. Since he was already known in Volcaldera Bluffs music communities, he, as expected, got some offers here and there. And as the fire in him kept on burning like Betelgeuse in its last seconds of life, he got them all in a matter of days. In the meantime, he got an offer to play some music live, for a contemporary doom-jazz band, to which Curtis agreed, since he always wanted to step down from playing fast, in favor of playing impactfully. (Also he beat his own record in bench pressing, but that is just his own achievement.)

Nick and Abby were almost the same. The summer rolled around, and they just did whatever the hell they could come up with. As everyone went on some vacation, leaving the band to rest, to cool down for a bit, they decided to follow suit. And it was hard – after playing music for what seemed years, completely nonstop, coming to a proper halt to catch a breath felt like an impossible task. Abby gave up, deciding to make some of her own music (simple lyricless ballads on bass that she could enjoy at any time of day), but Nick kept on fighting the urge, as Anon was always with her.

And Anon… As the days went by, he remained the same. Almost nothing had changed about him in those months. As his friends grew new interests and gave a new spark of motivation in the old ones, as the band, still relaxing from all the heat, was slowly coming up with a concept of their second album (even came up with a name: “Alpha”), – as the world around him grew and grew, Anon remained the same. Looking down onto this absolute travesty, he thought, with a smile: The only thing that I managed to surpass is just stopping being so fucking obnoxious about the past. But I think it's an achievement to rival every other achievement.

And now they are all here, united under the guiding hand of passion to create the music that will destroy.

 

***

 

Or, at least, they have thought like that for a good amount of time.

Not even the first week has passed, Anon has heard some random students giving comments about a new band, making rounds in the university community. At first, it all seemed fine – just students talking about some band that decided to appear out of the closet straight onto the stage of the school theater, what’s wrong about that? But the more Anon heard those two students talk about it, the more and more he thought that the comments they were giving seemed very, very targeted. And they were targeted against “Tenant”.

After Anon returned to his home, accompanied by Nick, who didn’t know about anything Anon had heard, he decided not to care about it that much. Whatever he heard, his mind could twist it into profane self-hatred poetry. He didn’t doubt that, as many, many times before he had to witness it happening again and again. And when before it felt natural (due to him being always depressed and lifeless), now it feels out of place as if something forces his hand to act against his will. Besides feeling out of place, it also felt quite annoying, since it became harder to understand and divide truth from lies, almost feeling like an actual vertigo.

But as the days went on, he heard more and more about the new band, the name of which was always slipping out of his head. As has been said before, it all seemed fine at first, but as more and more students were talking about the new blood and “new shades of depression” (whatever that could mean), he more and more felt like it was targeted against them, in each and every way possible. And he couldn’t drop it off into some kind of a residual effect from those depressed murky days of his past anymore. It was happening right now, unfolding right in his eyes. He couldn’t wave it off, he needed to care about it.

Strangely enough, a few days later, everything came to a halt. No one was not speaking about the band anymore, as if given a command to keep their mouths shut about it. At first, Anon felt a bit more paranoid about it (the fear of the unknown), but soon he relaxed his brain muscle – it’s just yet another example of hype coming and going: someone talks about something, it grows, and then slowly (or immediately, like here), that “something” was completely forgotten about, as if it never came in the first place. Still, he paid attention to what others were saying, believing there was always something more to it.

And he hit the jackpot. Some late evening, when he was just doing his own thing (he couldn’t remember what it was, as it was so routine, it all just blended in; the only thing he could remember is that this time around he was alone – Nick was delivered to her place, safe and sound), he found a post in the official Volcano University online group. It was a typical announcement, paid by some students for everyone (who was following the online group, either out of pity or boredom) to see. At first, as Anon delved into it, it was fine by his standards, but the more text he read, the more he felt it was personalized.

One more minute has passed, and Anon finished reading the post. They were directly calling every single known (in the uni) band out, as if they were betraying the values of Volcano University's small music community as if they were nothing more than just hermits or, rather, vermin that feasts on the corpse of what is contemporary music. Anon could doubt it no more – it is a personalized attack, and no matter how ridiculous it may sound, it is what it is, and there is no better word in English to describe it.

Before finalizing his thoughts, he decided to forward this post to Curtis, and then outright call him, to talk about the text. Curtis agreed, that what is in the post is rather unusual, and what surprised him the most was the fact that the media team and the administrators of the group approved it, which means the band succeeded in at least one of their many unknown goals. Anon shared his thoughts about this, and what he feels about the post. He didn’t hope to hear any agreement from Curtis, as he felt that he just went too far too soon with this kind of a conclusion, and his hopelessness was proved right when Curtis, trying to reassure Anon, said:

— Don’t worry about any of this. It’s just fresh blood, coming out of the closet. It’s normal! They just want to show how cocky they are, setting the plank so high above themselves they wouldn’t reach it even if they would give up their entire lives for music, even after a decade. In their defense, though, I’ll admit – we were almost the same. Same cockiness, same calling names, and all that. But what separates us from them is that we’ve managed to prove ourselves right, which means that we weren’t as much egoists as people could have portrayed us. But, yeah, I’ll agree, this does seem strange…

As much as Curtis’s statement was reassuring, Anon didn’t let go of this. He knew – there is something more to this than what Curtis thinks.

 

***

 

After calling Curtis, Anon paid extreme attention to every detail he could notice. Every single chat, every single sentence, word, syllable, coming out of some random student’s mouth. The cacophony finally turned into something that he could listen to. He never thought that he could deconstruct this wall of constant verbal noise, clasped with his will to exist in the university’s hallways, but he managed to pull it off, and, to say the least, he liked this little ability, although he knew that it would be a temporary privilege.

Everything was clear as day. Every single student could be taken out of the grand scheme of things with no cost, every single word uttered by that student could be deconstructed for a thorough search for hidden meanings, every single chat commenced between students could be taken apart, sentence after sentence, to reveal between the lines. Anon felt like a superhero of sorts – a superhero of words, one of the most powerful matters in the entire world.

And even with that, these days, where he was either a determined detective or a damned delusionist, – these days of him paying intense attention yielded absolutely no result. Not a single clue, not a single sound cue. Not even a path that he already knew would be a false lead. Nothing. That was not a failure by any means, Anon never considered his work of any importance, but it still felt bad – so much attention just went down the drain, and with his senses dulled, slowly regenerating after such intensity, he couldn’t do much anymore. Only wait until something happens that will point him towards something he missed.

After the failure, he just breezed through three days of his life. Everything in his mind went numb, and so those three days felt like nothing more than a singular chunk tossed away. Morning, evening; uni, home. It all had collided together, melting and mending a single piece, indistinguishable and, in some way, disgusting. The thoughts he had in his head were frozen mid-flight, mid-creation, and after those three days had passed, nothing but rotting remains of them were left. On the wasteland that was his mind that moment.

It was evening when nothing went out of the ordinary. The autumn sun gleamed in its distant beauty, the streets formed a labyrinth, the people and the cars outside, always going somewhere, always in motion, were showing what is called “urban life” – boring and static. As Anon watched the day fly by as before, he liked this fresh new thought, making room with all the corpses inside his skull: how can something dynamic create something static? Now that’s a paradox , – Anon thought.

He was tired, and his tiredness was the most wicked one: he was tired enough that he didn’t want to do anything, but not enough to actually go to bed and quickly pass out; it was this unexplainable feeling of dread, that made Anon finally decide what he needs to do with himself before the day goes off. I need to get to the studio and play until his mind or his hands will fall off. That will get things straight , – Anon thought.

He dressed up and left the apartment, made his way to the train station, and got onto the platform. So much time had passed since he last used it, and now he’s here again. Not that disturbing Curtis will actually inflict on his friendship with him, but Anon is not that much of a piece of shit. Besides, this is his own desire, induced by an immense amount of tiredness crawling down his spine, why would he need to bother his friend all of a sudden? Of course, Curtis could come up with a good pastime, but right now, in this current hour, Anon felt like he needed to speak, and who can listen better than Nick (absent) and a guitar (present)?

The train came in, and Anon hopped inside. It was warm, a nice feeling of comfort got inside his lungs as he breathed that specific tasteful air of the tambour. This strange mix of humidity, smoke, piss, alcohol, and many other things, all mixed in very little proportions, like an incredibly hard to make cocktail, that pays off with its incredible, rich taste and endless aftertaste. He liked this smell, reeking out of the corners of the tambour, and so he stayed there, leaning against the wall.

Soon, the train stopped on the right platform. Anon left, stepping onto the cold stone, back into the cold hug of the fall wind. He quickly left the platform, descended onto the streets, and began quickly walking to the studio. To lighten his legs, feeling like they were packed with lead, he found his cigarette pack, took out a stick, and lit it up. Nicotine quickly spread around his body, giving warmth and a cold tang, quick to relieve his legs of all the phantom heaviness inside.

The building of Volcano University soon passed him slowly, and he didn’t even bat an eye. Anon was fixated on smoking the cigarette and thinking about what should he play, before quickly realizing that it wouldn’t matter what he will play, only the fact that he plays is already enough, and that the cigarette he was sucking on for the past minute was nothing more than a smoldering filter. He quickly tossed it away and returned his hand, a bit pink from the autumn frost, back into the warm pocket.

Soon, he found the right place. The familiar staircase descending into the ground. A familiar spot with tracks, fading into the road behind. So much connects Anon to this place – if visualized, it would be the biggest cobweb of little details a man could ever create. And yet that didn’t bother Anon at all: he only stood here for a second because he was checking his pockets, hoping that he had the copy of the key. Not finding one, he groans, and walks to the staircase, hoping that someone in the band would leave the key under the doormat.

Lucky Anon – the key was indeed under that doormat. At first, it looked like it finally mended with the concrete on the molecular level, but kicking it tore that connection of matter. Carefully, he pinched the edge of the doormat and flipped it, revealing a shining key. Shit looks like some quests, for real, – Anon thought, and picked up the key. With some quick moves, he unlocked the door and entered the studio.

And when he stood his feet on the doormat inside, looking into the open door into the recording room, something yelled inside him to pull back. To leave this idea for a different day. Everything in his mind screamed, begging Anon to turn around and leave the studio, to return home and sleep this off. Anon was familiar with this, but never before he had experienced it so vividly. Every single cell in his organism went up in a riot against his actions, begging for him to make the last second decision.

Anon went forward. A slight step, bringing him close to the luring light, emitting out of the recording room. Everything in his mind and body screamed with more power. He took another step: everything screamed with even more power. Yet another step forward, and Anon felt like something inside his body twisted like a wet noodle. Weird and somewhat painful. But Anon still went forward. A step after a step. One such step away from the light, everything gave up and conceded the silence. This silence was the most deafening one.

Anon entered the room.


[NOTES]
    Finnish: You're much nicer than all of them... I love you so much, I just don't know how to show it to you... Please, stop looking at me like that, it's not what I am... No, wait, please, stay here for a while, I want to feel you...