Synaesthesia

Synaesthesia

The wind shrieked through the air on a cold, October night. The moon peeked in and out clouds, as if the argument that was about to unfold below was a puppet show to be gawked at. The drama was difficult to see, as it took place inside of a luxury starship, floating gently under the moon. Young men sat backstage, getting ready to entertain the ship full of aliens. The band all practiced their individual instruments in silence. The lead singer was singing while Goozo, his alien manager, went about injecting multiple serums into his face and arms.

His bandmates remained focused on their own instruments. One playing the guitar, one playing the drums, and another playing the piano. Whenever Goozo, the repellent alien, was around, none of them dared speak. They worked diligently, even obsessively at their craft. Their eyes were closed, the world did not exist to them. The room transformed from an ordinary backstage with only the necessary items adorning it, to a torrential rainfall of mesmerizing sound and harmony. Goozo finished what he was doing, and then he slunk his way out of the room, the green alien leaving a trail of slime behind as he went.

The four bandmates stopped playing for a moment. Their practice session had gone on for four hours now. The young man singing–a poor, downtrodden wretch–Syn, opened his eyes and looked around the room, as did his bandmates. Relief washed over all their faces. Their muscles, once stiff and rigid, slowly untightened. Their minds, so absorbed in the sounds and playing perfectly, emerged from the musical rainstorm, dry and unfocused.

“Thank god he’s gone…” the drummer, Alax murmured.

“I was afraid he was going to inject us with that goo again. Just you though, Syn.” the guitarist, Solomon sighed.

“I thought I was going to die when he did that to me the first time.” the violinist, Elling chimed in.

Syn said nothing. He had been sitting down on their ivory couch, but then he stood up. He glanced at the clock hanging high on the wall. He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Looks like we have two more hours until we’re on… I have an idea for a new song. It can be our closer tonight.”

His bandmates exchanged looks with him. “So last minute? Why?”

Syn appraised his fellows with his golden pupils and his blackened sclera. They felt the need to look away as he did so. “We are singing for the empire tonight. I thought it would be nice to send a message to them.”

“What sort of message?” Elling asked. “Don’t we usually just sing about love stories and relationships we’ve never actually had?”

“Well… have a listen. I can only sing it quietly, though.” Syn cleared his throat.

His fellows listened to the lyrics, their eyes widening with each verse, their faces paling, and their hands shaking. The song, unlike their other songs, had a story. And they were drawn in as a fly is to candlelight. They flew closer and closer, absolutely intrigued, but when the song was over, they were inevitably burned.

Elling snorted. “Are you kidding, Syn? We would be executed for such a treasonous song.”

Alax agreed, “I can’t believe you're the lead singer sometimes. You barely say a word and then you propose a song that could get us all killed? You’ve lost it.”

“I’ve known you since childhood. You survived in the gutters of Apraxis IV since you were six just to throw your life away?” Solomon asked.

Syn looked down at his hands. “It will be controversial, but it’ll get us more fame and fortune. That’s what we all wanted when we signed on, so why not do it?”

His bandmates became thoughtful at that. Elling smiled, “Now that you mention it, the other most famous band right now, Electric Octopus, did sing a song criticising their Republic, and it skyrocketed them to more fame and fortune than anyone could imagine.”

Alax shrugged. “Well, I’m willing to perform it if you guys are.”

“Absolutely not. It’s too dangerous. Have you all lost your minds? Is fame and fortune worth so much to you?” Solomon tsked.

“What else is there?” Alax shrugged. “Fame is what keeps us living so comfortably compared to the rest of the humans. We’re nearly an extinct species. We may as well live life to the fullest and keep the species going, right? Goozo promised to find us wives soon.”

“No. This is preposterous. I will not put our lives on the line for this! He will find us wives, anyway. What’s important is that we survive.” Solomon nearly shouted.

Syn smiled almost mischievously and put a finger to his lips, indicating Solomon should lower his voice. “Don’t you remember? When we signed on with Goozo, he asked us all if we wanted to Climb–if we would die for it–and we all answered yes. Well, I’m willing to die for it. Let’s be the most famous band in the world. They can’t kill us–we’re worth too much.”

There was absolute silence in the room. No talking, no strains of music flowing off instruments, and no thunderous rainfall. The room was a chasm they all seemed to have fallen into, except for Solomon, who was hanging onto a ledge desperately.

“More luxurious ships, more money, more comfort, more fame. The crowd clapping is like a tide of warm water washing over me. There’s nothing else like it, and this ditty will fill the auditorium with relentless clapping.” Syn’s eyes glazed over. “I want to be drowned by it. Come on, Sol. You agree, don’t you?”

“No. I won’t play tonight unless you all come to your senses and refuse to play that song.” Solomon grabbed a cigarette and headed to the bathroom. Time passed slowly as he inhaled deeply and then exhaled the poison in his lungs. The bathroom was obscenely clean and blindingly white, a privilege of their position. He looked in the mirror for a moment, observing the deep circles under his eyes. He felt the smoke filtering through his body relaxing his muscles.

Suddenly, the bathroom door opened, and Syn entered. Solomon flicked his cigarette away and crushed it under his boot. He looked at his longtime friend and stuffed his hands in his jacket. Syn, for his part, was silent for a time.

“What’s going on with you?” Syn asked.

“With me?” Solomon retorted. “What’s wrong with you? You haven’t said a meaningful word except through your lyrics for the better part of three years, and now you’re coming up with this ridiculous political song calling our emperor a slug?”

“He is a slug to be fair.” Syn chuckled. “Just like Goozo. Besides, my lyrics are terrible once they’re filtered through Goozo… they leave behind no colors at all.”

“Yes, but you called him a lazy slug. What’s this really about?” Solomon pushed. “I love you, you’re practically my brother, but you’ve never been a bold person.”

Syn looked up, and put a cigarette to his own mouth. Solomon glowered and knocked the death stick out of his hands. “You’re fourteen-years-old! Are you trying to die early?”

Syn made a face. “That’s what the Climb is, right? You keep climbing until you either fall off the ladder, or the ladder comes to the end. But, you nearly touch the sun before you get burned by it, right?”

Solomon leaned on the bathroom sink, his knuckles turning white. “That’s not what you used to say. Survival was everything to you when you were onboarded. You had dreams of marrying a beautiful girl someday, and running away to a forest to raise a family.”

Syn crossed his arms, looking his friend in the eyes, “Look at me, Sol. Do you think I’m going to last much longer? Do you even remember what I used to look like?”

Solomon tapped his boot, looking away.

“Look at me, you coward.” Syn grabbed his friend’s shoulders and made him face him.

Solomon was forced to look, and he gulped audibly. When he first met Syn, he had blue eyes, blonde hair, and white skin. Despite previously being an urchin, he managed to feed himself well, and his proportions were human. He was an ordinary kid. Now, his scleras had been turned black and his pupils golden, his hair was black, his skin had an odd, greenish tinge to it, and his proportions were bizarre, he was thin–too thin–and lanky for a kid his age. His diet was ridiculously restrictive.

“I’m their puppet–what they want me to be–I look in the mirror and I don’t see a thing that belongs to me anymore. Even my music… They always throw out my lyrics, make me write what they want me to write. When we started, all of the colors your instruments and my voice left behind were so intense, so beautiful, it was all I needed to keep going… your guitar left vibrant, yellow rays of sunlight, nearly blinding me. The violin sung so loudly and so achingly sweet, it left behind the bluest waterdroplets. The drums pounded so mightily that that I could see my own red blood pumping. But now, there’s nothing. I see and feel nothing. ” Syn lamented.

“If you wanted to escape…” Solomon whispered, “why didn’t you tell me? We can look for a way out.”

Syn looked up at the ceiling, tapping his shoe on the tile floor. “You’ve all stood by and watched me suffer this long. That stuff they inject me with is painful. Too painful for any of you to tolerate. When I saw how sick you got afterwards, I knew you knew how I felt, and I told Goozo not to do it again, as me being the only one looking like this added to our band’s appeal. If you wanted to escape, you would have done it when you discovered how painful that stuff really is just to spare me from it.”

“We’ve never tried before… it’s terrifying to even think about, and we all thought… you were fine. You never even flinch anymore when they inject it.” Solomon fumbled.

Syn’s eyes closed peacefully. “That’s because I’m no longer in the room when they do it.”

Solomon listened, not knowing what to say to such a strange comment.

“I’m singing in a different room, in a different place, and I have my own body back. What’s more, I’m singing for an entity who loves me unconditionally, and he’s clapping for me, and I no longer feel the pain of this world.” Syn’s voice was free of any doubts or pains.

Solomon listened, his eyes wide and glistening with unshed tears, his face pale. “This isn’t about the Climb. You don’t care whether they drug you to oblivion or whether you’re remembered as the greatest musician who ever lived. You just want to… die.”

Syn’s own eyes shone, he turned away, his face racked with guilt and pain.

Solomon laughed hysterically and seized his friend’s shoulders. “I won’t let you! What does it say about the human spirit if you let them poke you and prod you to death? If you encourage them to execute you for this? This entity you play for… Do you think it wants you to rule yourself out of existence if it truly loves you?”

Syn was silent. Then he whispered, “This may be it for the humans, Solomon. Perhaps this is what is intended for us.”

Solomon searched his eyes. “You don’t believe that at all. Put away the lyrics to that ridiculous song, and continue to live with us.”

“How? There are guards at every turn, and I’m exhausted, Sol. It’s time for me to go.” Syn said.

“And the rest of us? You’ll get us killed with you!” Sol growled.

“The other two don’t care… They want to Climb. This is the best way to assist them.” Syn murmured.

“And me?”

“I don’t know. Your dreams are so out of reach, you can’t possibly pursue them, just like my dreams were. But now, my dreams are dead.” Syn’s hands shook violently, and he began heading to the bathroom door.

“Syn. Let me make a bet with you. Let’s sing the song tonight. If we live, we look for a way to escape and we devote ourselves to living no matter what. If they decide to execute us, we do our best to cling to life and run.” Solomon suggested.

Syn looked at his friend, his expression vacant. Then, he smiled and said, “Very well.”

***

The bandmates stepped out on stage as mist flooded it. There were dozens of aliens of different species in the auditorium before them. Dazzling floodlights were turned on, creating an otherworldly feeling about the stage, as if the people who had stepped onto it were above everyone else in the audience. The crowd went wild, the space filling up with so much noise that it made the ears of the bandmates ring.

Goozo’s voice echoed over it all loudly, amplified by a speaker.

“And now ladies and gentlemen, we bring to you the most famous, talented band in the southern quadrant… Synaesthesia!”

The crowd went wilder as Solomon, Alax, and Elling danced further up on the stage from the shadows and found their floodlights.

“Solomon, Alax, Elling, and of course…”

There was a pause as the aliens waited with bated breath for the lead singer to come out. The eyes of the bandmates were filled with colors, their ears filled with ringing, their noses jammed with the scents of hundreds of species jammed together in a single room.

“Syn!” Goozo said.

There was another pause as the floodlight tried to find the lead singer. When it did, the crowd gasped in shock. Syn was facedown on the stage. Goozo hastily said, “E-excuse us ladies and gentlemen! It looks like we need to take Syn backstage. Please bear with us.”

The bandmates swarmed Syn, crying his name. Solomon, the oldest of them, easily picked him up and slung him over his shoulder, bringing him backstage, followed by Elling and Alax.

***

Syn didn’t open his eyes until three days later. He was surrounded by his bandmates, in the blindingly white hospital ward of the ship. Goozo was there, and he breathed a deep sigh of relief. He touched Syn’s head with his slimy hand. “You should have said you weren’t feeling well.”

Syn remained silent. All the bandmates knew what happened if they said something even slightly wrong to the alien. Goozo folded his slimy hands behind his back. “You are too invaluable to lose. I’m giving you all a week’s vacation on the sunny shores of Alos III.” the alien slunk out of the room. Once his back was turned, all the bandmates glared at him.

“Thank goodness you’re alright!” Elling cried.

“We thought you were done for, what happened?” Alax asked.

Solomon merely looked at his friend compassionately, and then said, “He’s most likely dying. Unless they stop injecting him with that crap to ‘achieve a look’, I fear he will die.”

Alax and Elling’s faces turned pensive, the two fools unable to comprehend.

“Not so fun to try to Climb when you’re faced with the reality of it, right? Do you all really want to die early?” Solomon asked.

Syn’s face was expressionless, his gaze was fixed on nothing.

“Why don’t you tell them the truth, Syn? You don’t want to Climb. You want to die to end this pain.” Solomon crossed his arms.

The utter horror on the faces of Elling and Alax made Syn frown. Elling was not a deep thinker, and was constantly saying how he wouldn’t mind dying young to achieve fame. Alax didn’t even seem to comprehend death, as he had never seen someone die. They burst into tears. Elling cried, “I don’t want you to die. Not unless we’ve made our mark!”

“Tell them. Tell me, you don’t want to die.” Solomon demanded.

There was no noise in the room for some time, and they all looked at their friend expectantly, nearly begging him to deny that he was seeking oblivion.

“When I stepped out onto that stage… I wanted to die. My heart was pounding, my eyes were dizzy, my head felt like it was on fire. I collapsed, and I thought it was over for good. But I saw the… Solomon knows about it. Something is telling me to go on, despite everything. Every waking hour is still unbearable, I hate being here even as we speak. But I’m supposed to be here longer, and I will be, if that’s what this entity wants from me.” Syn’s eyes were bright.

Solomon was in awe. For the past few years, the light in his friend’s eyes had been extinguished–the blue eyes drowned out by black. Now he saw the slightest flicker of light and joy escaping from them, despite his immense pain.

“Let’s escape.” Syn said mischievously. “I’m not going to sing what they want for a moment longer. I will only sing for the thing that wants me to keep living. I don’t think any of you have ever seen a human die. I did. She was an urchin like me, and she starved to death. For her… Solomon is right. Let’s keep living.”

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