MOAB � Mother Of All Boxsets

by George Saoulidis

  The mic squeaked. Desha leapt up on stage beside her, as if were her domain. She tilted the mic stand to her and struck a pose. “People! We put a vote online and our fans decided on who they want to listen live. Tada! Aura Nightingale!”

  Aura wished for the ground to open up and engulf her. She was sweating visibly now.

  “I just put up a second vote on which song the fans demanded, and I think you know the answer to that,” Desha continued theatrically.

  How did she feel so comfortable up here, with hundreds of people watching her?

  “Yes! It’s the classic hit song ‘Daughter don’t scold me!’” she announced and people cheered.

  A buzzing came from Aura’s left and she saw a drone with a camera. It must have been from one of the paparazzi who wanted to get an exclusive angle. The mansion’s security scrambled and shot it down with no ceremony.

  Great. She hadn’t even opened her mouth yet and the property damage was already in the hundreds.

  “Bada boom! All yours Aura,” Desha said and leapt down to her entourage.

  There were hundreds of eyes watching her, and half that amount of phone cameras streaming it live.

  She shut her eyes.

  She turned back, looking for Orestes’ comforting face. He was with the band but not playing, a frown on his face. When she met his eyes, he smiled and gave her a thumbs up.

  Right. No turning back now.

  Aura sang the hit single everyone liked. It had been the one with her father when she was little. She thought that she’d sound different anyway, she was after all years older since that recording. That gave some leeway, people would accept that.

  But she wasn’t worried about that.

  She was off for three whole verses. There were some chuckles from the crowd, but she could ignore those. She could also ignore the people watching the live-streaming. She tried to calculate an estimate based on the social followings of the people present in this party. Or at least those she knew about, but after the first million she decided she didn’t want to know.

  As she sang, something weird happened. She found herself rolling with it, signing the familiar song effortlessly, like humming it in the bathroom. Then, all the vocal training she had all these years simply clicked inside her. Those rambling teachers with their incomprehensible lessons somehow made perfect sense now. She found her breathing pattern, nailed a particular tricky note and got to the refrain.

  They weren’t laughing now. They were enjoying it! Under the blinding glare of the spotlight she could make out some smiles and blissful faces. Every single one of these people were frenemies, they’d smile and greet you cordially but they would stab you in the heart if it meant their followers would increase. But this song, it was something etched in the collective memory of this nation. Old enough to carry a hint of nostalgia, sweet enough to make everyone cry, catchy enough to stick in your mind all day.

  They were singing along.

  And she was doing OK. To her surprise more than anyone else, she was actually singing it good enough. It wasn’t like the classic recording, but it couldn’t have been anyway. She was a child back then.

  Aura realised at that moment, that the only thing standing in the way between her and the master of vocal techniques was herself.

  At the edge of her vision she saw Desha pouting silently. She strolled to the sound guy and said something to him.

  Aura couldn’t see, nor hear of course, but she felt she was up to no good. The second part of the song was pretty much a repetition of the first, so Aura just rolled with it and carried on.

  Then things started happening.

  The monitor at her feet, which is a megaphone pointing at her so she can hear the song and the rest of the band, was supposed to be giving her the proper queue. Somehow she didn’t hear the refrain well enough and she missed her entry.

  She recovered well enough, it was a standard thing in live performances but her confidence was shattered.

  Then, at the difficult high note it rang badly and brought laughter from the audience.

  Aura was looking around at that point, worried and anxious. She found Orestes’ eyes, and he was nodding to her and tapping his hand on his foot so she could maintain the rhythm.

  Orestes the metronome.

  God he was born for this.

  Aura blocked out everything else and focused on the rhythm, just like Orestes had taught her.

  Then more things happened. The drums overpowered her voice. She lost another entry and she wavered, mumbling some of the words.

  She saw Desha’s face and found satisfaction painted all over it, her hands crossed and her brow raised.

  Then Aura forgot the lyrics.

  How could she possibly forget them? They were the only ones she had ever sang properly, she had heard them a million times without exaggeration.

  She forgot them.

  She was left open mouthed.

  One second, two seconds.

  By the third, laughter erupted.

  Aura stopped singing, the band carried on the tune and she could see them laughing at her, pointing their phones at her. Since they were streaming it live, she could imagine the people watching, laughing too, commenting stupid and vile things, with no filter, no fear of anything, just bitterness.

  She felt a hand around her waist.

  Orestes leaned in and sang the final verses, which were her father’s part anyway. The beat was off when he came in, but he turned it around, smiled at the crowd, made a joke, carried on the song. He always did say that a live performance has no rules, you just have to roll with the crowd’s mood.

  The song ended, the party patrons cheered and applauded.

  Aura looked around for Viko, she met his gaze but he pretended not to see and walked away.

  Desha looked smug. She turned around and left, her entourage of high heels and low standards in tow.

  She had got what she wanted.

  Orestes thanked the crowd, bowed deeply.

  Aura just smiled and dripped sweat all over him as he hugged her.

  She managed to step off the stage normally, without running away.

  Then she stormed off the party.

  Playlist: Video 19/67

  “This is no place for little girls,” the sandwich guy told her on top of the highway bridge. The mobile sandwich shops are called vromiko, meaning dirty food. He had just drove away one more truck driver who had stopped for a snack and had asked Aura “How much?” in the most obscene smile she had ever seen.

  Aura crossed her arms to match her already crossed legs who had closed tightly and unconsciously. “I’m waiting for someone,” she told the vromiko guy and took a bite out of the now frozen sandwich he had made for her hours ago.

  It was Orosa’s favorite vromiko, she’d commented about it on a video. Special sandwich with breaded chicken nuggets, caramelised onions, sauce, carrot. Aura took the second bite of the evening and then as soon as the vromiko guy turned his back, she spat it in some bushes. She didn’t want to offend him. He was a nice guy, family man. He was about to get a second vehicle and make a franchise. He told that to everyone.

  She had fallen asleep there on that bench. He had offered her a tiny place in the vromiko’s cabin, where it would be warm but she then had to choose between the musky smell of burning meat and the minor but feelable cold. She’d rather fight the cold.

  She fell asleep again, and in her dreamy state she thought she could hear Orosa’s bike, the roar of the engine an easy pick for a musical ear such as hers. She smiled. She dreamt of a raspy male voice bellowing, “…icken nuggeeets, there ya gooo…”

  She pounced up from sleep and grabbed her bicycle in mere seconds. She pulled but it snagged on the bench. She’d locked it there. She fumbled with her keys and unlocked it. She didn’t even realise when she found herself in blurry red car lights and rows upon rows of vehicles moving sluggishly in traffic. All she cared was the yellow bike she pursued.

  She’d never normally catc
h up with her since even in traffic, bikes just move slowly zig-zagging the cars and making way. But now Orosa had her helmet raised mid-way and was snacking on her favourite vromiko, driving with one hand and moving slowly. It was a very bad and dangerous habit for a bike driver but she didn’t seem to mind.

  She was so close to her.

  Aura pedalled and pedalled and wobbled and fell.

  She felt dry grass and weeds pricking her cheek and she found herself pedalling uselessly, she and her bicycle lying sideways, the wheel turning in the air.

  The red helmet with the fluffy ears and the protruding camera appeared in her field of vision, but upside down. A muffled voice said, “Are you alright?”

  “Why don’t you reply to your god-damned emails?” Aura screamed at her as if carrying on a nonexistent conversation.

  Orosa’s expression was like she had been missing critical information to follow the reasoning, which was precisely what had happened. Aura felt she knew her well, but Orosa had never seen her before. It was common with her father who, being so famous, had people coming up to him and talking like they were beloved old friends and he had to smile and be polite even though he had never seen them before.

  “If you must know, cause most of them are stupid or just mean. It gets tiresome,” she answered carrying on the conversation that they had never begun.

  Aura untangled her leg from the fallen bicycle, a task which required a few kicks and a well aimed swear and then stood up. “I saw that you didn’t upload the video with the businessman guy, the one with the leather briefcase.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I have it,” Aura said without skipping a beat and waved her phone at her face.

  “OK. Why didn’t you just email it?”

  “Because you never check them!”

  Orosa raised both hands up in a gesture of surrender and then fished out a flashlight. She checked Aura for any wounds but there were only some minor scrapes. When she was satisfied that the crazy bitch was OK, she cut a big piece of her sandwich and threw it on the street. She turned to Aura and said, “The road demands tribute.”

  Playlist: Video 20/67

  High up on Penteli hill they watched as the city slept. In contrast with other cities in the world, Athens wasn’t an insomniac and did in fact, sleep. New York, when compared to the thirty-four centuries of Athens, was like a screaming baby refusing to go for nap time. Nope, Athens was an old lady, with deep features dug on her face and descendants who had passed on from myth to history.

  At the city centre you could make out the few skyscrapers that had appeared in alarmingly few years. They were no match at all compared to the forests of steel beasts in other megacities, but with the Greek Firesale and the mass-privatisation of the country the megacorps had rushed in to snatch their own piece of the pie. A piece in which they could do as they pleased, profit the only thing in their mind.

  “Thank you Aura for the video. The battery must have been bumped when that guy knocked me down and corrupted the file,” Orosa said as she was clumsily editing the video on her smartphone and uploading it to her motovlog.

  “I wanna ask you something,” Aura said carefully.

  “Shoot.”

  “How can I put this… Don’t you girls get caught? I mean, you are basically sharing evidence.”

  Orosa shrugged and said, “Everybody is dirty. I’ve spent a few nights in holding but nothing more. The police gets a call from Artemis’ legal department and then they just let me go. Build on the myth,” she said like a mantra.

  “My dad says that too!” said Aura with the expression of a person who is suddenly figuring out some deeply ingrained stuff in her life. Orosa had just moments ago learnt that she was hanging out with the daughter of the world famous Greek folk singer and she didn’t seem surprised. She never seemed surprised in general, by anything. She just shrugged and bit her lower lip slightly in a delightful expression. If something was worthy of attention, she might even sigh, press Rec on her camera and shuffle to a better angle.

  Aura took in her features in the twilight. She wasn’t much older than her, couldn’t have been more than three years more. She seemed to spend her entire life on the road. You wouldn’t call her dirty, she certainly didn’t smell bad, but it was like the smog followed her around and instead of makeup she had thin grease smudges. She only took off her wrist-pads and her kneepads to stretch out and she felt as comfortable on the bike’s seat as other people felt lying on their couch.

  “It’s not complicated,” Orosa said after a while. She stacked some little stones on a small pile. “We build the myth of the Amazons. I just shoot the things we’d do anyways. Every night, every video, every share is another tiny rock. It rises high, slowly every day. One day, it will reach a critical mass and we won’t need to build it anymore. Until that day, my work is simply what I do now.”

  “And what will you do when that day comes?”

  “I believe when that day comes we will all be very busy anyway,” Orosa replied enigmatically and brushed her palms together, ending that particular conversational thread.

  Aura took in the view and thought of her life so far. It was the same thing her own family had been doing for Dionysos. Build on the myth. Of course, Dionysos wasn’t a person per se, but rather a multinational corporation who had absorbed most of the world’s entertainment industry except Bollywood (which was literally a child of another but no lesser, god) and had a skyscraper smack dab in the middle of Athens. Dionysos slapped his logo in any available surface, be it physical, digital or holographic. He sold drugs, wine, entertainment, shows, flesh, whatever your heart desired. Dionysos was immortal, everybody knew he didn’t really exist, but referred to him as if he was real. As if he was a person. Dionysos has discovered Tony Nightingale, they had written. Dionysos revives Greek music. Dionysos hosts an awards ceremony. Dionysos throws the best parties in town. Dionysos was nowhere, but he was present in every mouth, every celebrity, every bouzouki performance.

  And they all paid tribute in his name.

  Aura wondered, did her father know about the critical mass?

  Orosa’s cellphone rang with a melody and she put on her red helmet. “Gotta go,” she said and rode her bike.

  Aura hesitated for a mere second. She knew that if she didn’t seize the chance she’d never forgive herself. She placed her hand on the steering wheel to stop her and then pulled it back as if was an open flame. Some little voice in her mind told her that you wouldn’t touch an Amazon’s bike if you were feeling attached to your limbs. It didn’t matter that this particular Amazon was tiny and the particular bike would fit right in a carnival convoy. She finally stood in her way, legs apart, blocking her symbolically.

  “I wanna come with you,” Aura said with tight lips.

  “Buzz off kiddo,” Orosa said dismissively and revved to underline it.

  “I. Wanna. Come. With. You.”

  Playlist: Video 21/67

  Aura could see music notes everywhere. Notes on the board, notes on the books, notes on the girls’ jewelry around her.

  Notes hated her.

  She hated them back.

  Wheels though, wheels were nice. By default they took you to faraway places. Notes did that too of course, but Aura never figured out how to harness that. The wheels on the other hand, all they needed was a good kick and downhill you went.

  She rubbed the bruise on her thighs. And the bruise on her stomach. And the bruise on her hand, from the time when she found out it was inadvisable to punch a biker harness.

  The writing in front of her needed more notes, that much was certain. They reminded her of something, she had seen some of those before. What did it matter though? Her professors would let her pass anyway. All she needed was to show up. Scribble something. The musical pentagram in front of her was like highway lanes and she drove the tip of her finger, zig-zagging between the notes like a bike between cars in traffic.

  She touched her new helmet that was on the seat besi
de her and smiled. She clenched her teeth; her jaw still hurt. The night before she had needed to place both hands on the steering wheel of the bike to stop Orosa. She, in reply, had telegraphed her answer with a headbutt using her red helmet. Aura had never imagined that something with fluffy ears could hurt so much. Despite being small, the knee pads are perfect for kicking somebody’s stomach. Aura had gotten through two full-contact blows on the neck and had managed to pin her down using her own heavier body, but it was like trying to hold down a wild animal.

  Orosa had kicked her ass, that much was certain. She couldn’t deny that. In-between the kicks and the raised arms struggling to protect her head Aura had demanded again, “I wanna come with you.”

  Orosa had stopped then and gotten on her bike. After a silence that seemed like a century, she’d said “I ain’t waiting around all day,” and they were the best words Aura had heard in her whole life.

  Aura scribbled a few more notes, made sure she could stand up without tripping over from the pain and submitted her exam paper, while bracing her brand new blue helmet in the other hand.

  Playlist: Video 22/67

  They were going fast.

  Really fast.

  The thing with bikes is that you always feel the speed, even though it might be lower than a car cruising at a residential road.

  Of course, they were now swerving through traffic as if it had been frozen in place.

  Aura grabbed onto Orosa for dear life. “Can we go any slower? Subsonic would be fine.”

  “Can’t. I need to make it in time, we’re too far away. We are going to Deinomache,” Orosa said underlining the name. “We don’t pick our own names, others do.”

  “Deinom… Ah!” Aura said while holding on to the tiny Amazon so she wouldn’t get splattered all over the asphalt. At that point she instantly regretted her refusal to the salesman about buying all of the rider protector gear in a nifty package. “Means fierce warrior. Got it.”

  Orosa was following the GPS instructions on a hologram above the steering wheel. She hadn’t needed guidance before, she knew Athens like the back of her hand, but it seemed she didn’t want to risk doing even a single wrong turn this time.