The album’s brooding, mournful tones dwindled to nothing and then clicked off in quiet satisfaction. The needle reached the center of the record and spun in an endless circle, popping at regular intervals. Marigol didn’t move. Instead she kept her stare fixed on a spot of nothing on the wall as she breathed slowly and swam in Winter Shrine’s latest LP, “Nine Patterns.” She was unwilling to crack the silence just yet. She liked to think there was a half-life to certain records that extended beyond the ending, and “Nine Patterns” definitely qualified. As if there was a hidden tenth track, all silence, the crucial track.

“Wow!” exclaimed Normal in a loud blast, whose boring dumb name infected every aspect of his personality. Normal had no sense of style. He dressed like a burning carnival and had nothing interesting to contribute. He was always cheerful though and Marigol appreciated that. It was partly why she wanted to play some Winter Shrine for him, show him something new, something that took him out of his comfortable world for forty minutes. Something that DIDN’T need an audible opinion tacked on as soon as it ended. “I really liked it!”

“I’m getting tired,” Marigol commented as she conjured a yawn from the surface of her disappointment.

“Yeah I should probably get going,” said Normal. He glanced at his watch twice as if forgetting what it said the first time.

“Thanks for coming over. That was fun,” lied Marigol.


“Yeah. Again sometime?”


“Definitely,” lied Marigol.

He was just standing there in the doorway. “I hope your mom’s doing better.”

“Thanks. Yeah sorry about cancelling twice in a row like that. I don’t know what happened but she’s stable now.” Get out.

“That’s good.”

Normal grabbed his coat and gave Marigol an unnecessary handshake. There was no need for this handshake but Normal was a weird guy. He had probably already forgotten why she’d invited him over. “Until next time then, M.”

“Yeah, all right.” Normal left. She lit some incense to clean out the badness, packed the last of her indica, and her apartment was once again her own.