A dead quiet fell across Aster's bedroom as she and Cecil settled into their positions— Aster on her bed, Cecil awkwardly on a chair closer to the staircase. Aster's room had no door between it and the stairway entrance— only a curtain hung for privacy by Sylvia— and so the light sounds of jazz and poetic murmuring floated up from the shop into the room; the only thing preventing total and absolute silence.

An acoustic guitar sat next to Aster, which she did not touch. At the end of her bed was a stack of Cecil's poetry brought along for Sísí's show which he had tossed aside unceremoniously. Cecil was musing over what to say, and coughed nervously. His eyes could not avoid noticing the blemished, bloodied callouses which were worn on the tips of her tiny fingers, nor the holes in the wall behind her.

Swallowing his monolithic anxiety, he attempted to put on a face of composure as he asked, "What's your hang up?" cautiously, pensively.

Aster went scarlet, and drew her knees to her chin. The answer was that she couldn't write a love song to save her life, but the prospect of admitting that to anyone, let alone Cecil, seemed like the most mortifying thought she could ever imagine. Yet, the silence which followed his question and Cecil's unwavering stare, coaxed the tiniest murmur out of her.

"I can't write love songs," she said nearly inaudibly.

"What?" he asked.

Aster flashed yet a deeper shade of red at having to repeat herself.

"I can't write fucking love songs!" she screamed, her face now completely buried within her knees.

Cecil stared blankly, feeling himself grow embarrassed. He wanted to say something to the effect of "That's it?" but knew his life would be over if he did. He instead ventured in his confused awkwardness to make an almost equally bad decision, and made the implication, "Love songs are songwriting 101".

The sneer and twinkling rage which welled up in her orange eyes at the insinuation nearly brought Cecil to employ the last resort that was calling for Sísí, but he attempted to save himself.

"I mean, haven't you written any before?" he interjected.

She turned her murderous gaze from him, and fell back into her fetal position huddle. She could not admit to Cecil that she was potentially the person with the least experience in all existence when it came to love— the acknowledgment of which made her shudder with a miserable, suffocating sense of shame.

A stunted generation, she often lamented in reading countless headlines of people who cosigned their lives and futures to digital spouses and friends. Hypocritical, she knew, for she got so much out of being here.

For the average person her age, the only personal contact ever guaranteed was the in-person socialization classes required up until the age of 12. After that, you were cast to the stunning solemnity of a post-hyper intelligence world, left to wrestle companionship into your life any way you could get it.

Aster could never get it.

She wondered sometimes if this loneliness was in part responsible for her obsessive dive into her musical dreams, as a sort of defense mechanism. It must be working, for most times the depressive tendencies relating to her musical ambitions loomed so large she could hardly recognize her loneliness anymore; could hardly identify it; like the sun blotting out a huge shadow on the Earth.

The notion that she could be involved in any romantic experience was even further from reality in her mind, long buried when she was young. She never took the company of A.I. companions, feeling that to relinquish herself to them would be to loosen her grip on the small bit of subconscious hope she knew was keeping her from total self-oblivion.

"No, I haven't," she at last croaked. "I think they're corny."

Cecil let out a quiet, unexpected chuckle.

“Yeah, but that's what sells,” he mused.

Aster said nothing.

“Give me the guitar,” he said, gesturing for her to hand over the acoustic.

She passed it over the bed.

“I would normally say this was impossible— writing fourteen songs in a night,” he said, looking at her as he took the neck of the instrument. “I'm only here because I think you're crazy enough to be able to do it.”

Aster started in surprise.

His hands felt for chord shapes which pleased his ears. His fingers traced the strings, traipsing through the half-dark sketching out the scaffolding of a new piece. An hour melted away in this fashion, by which time the commotion downstairs finally came to end, signaled by the eager, victorious goodbye of Sísí.

Her voice traveled up the stairs, dispelling the cloud of irritation which had steadily snaked its way around the two songwriters. Aster had quickly been over-encumbered— utterly destroyed by three sleepless nights of songwriting attempts— and had folded into a huddle against the wall, sitting atop her bed.

Cecil, who had from his very first attempts been overtaken by the deep insecurity still present in his songwriting— only slightly thawed at this point with Aster's help— had become deeply indignant at seeing her lack of an attempt.

The grand clock the floor below chimed, signaling that midnight was at hand. Its solemn, melancholic sound flooded the room in low bass, brass reverberations, and the anxiety which it caused to pang in Cecil's heart seemed as if it had knocked something loose.

A great fear rose up within him, coiling its cold fingers around his heart.

He started, choked, and looked towards Aster.

Her eyes appeared desolate, though still very much alive, with the moisture of sadness giving them a mournful shine as moonlight and other artificial luminescence illuminated them.

He saw no rage nor deep grief— only a reserved sort of pitiful defeat.

“What do you think about when you think about love? What does love mean to you?” he asked with a mousy start, clearing his throat.

Aster's eyes rose to him, and something seemed to return. Her brows folded as she registered what he'd asked, and her mouth creased in disgust, like he'd asked the most offensive question in the world. Thoughts she never wanted to ponder were suddenly being heaped atop her like surf upon a beach in a torrent at his words.

“I don't know,” she sputtered lamely, floundering.

What does love mean to you?

Her heart recoiled in its cage.

Aster had no answer for Cecil— or at least one that would please him.

To Aster, love— real romantic love— meant nothing. As a girl who grew up in a society which cherished every form of communication but physical, she believed there was no future for the naked, genuine heart. Love, battered and jaded, had receded to the far flung recesses of virtual hideaways for the infinite lonely who now covered the forever multiplying Earth.

She was sure there was some dormant part of her person forever incomplete and aching in its loss, but she only accepted that loss as part of her greater misery, which was all-encompassing enough that a deeper inspection would only hurt her.

Thus, Aster, the patron saint of apathy, refrained long ago from looking upon what she saw as the surest sign of humanity's decline— of the gaping scar that was humanity's broken heart sundered wide open.

Cecil for his part probably knew no more than Aster, but had to make any attempt to kindle inspiration within her.

“Okay, well you called it corny— what makes you say that? What do you think makes a corny love song?”

“A total lapse in reason.”

Cecil frowned.

Aster frowned back at him, showing clearly that not the slightest bit of humor was intended.

“What do you want me to say?” she growled, growing angry. “Only a childish idiot can appreciate them, so only a childish idiot can write them!”

“You don't really mean that, do you?” Cecil replied, looking disgusted.

“Would I be in this fucking situation if I didn't?!” she screamed back at him.

“You can't be so fucking miserable that you can't put some cutesy words to a song—”

“It's not that fucking simple! I can't even think of them! My brain goes blank!”

She drew her blanket up to her face.

“Fuck!” Cecil cried, grabbing a piece of paper. “Okay,” he said, scribbling furiously on it.

“Here, an example— I blank love. Fill in the sentence.”

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“I hate love,” Aster snarled.

Cecil grit his teeth.

“So that's it, you're going to give up like this?”

Aster looked at him, and could feel her face growing hot.

“I—” she stuttered. A bead of sweat broke on her forehead. Her lip trembled.

“Fuck you!” she screamed.

Cecil threw the paper to the ground and began to pace around the room.

Then, he stopped. An idea had entered his mind. He looked at Aster with no amusement— looked at her as though a tall wall were erected between him and that which he wished to achieve, and that he must climb it.

"Look, I know you wanted to do originals,” he said quietly. “But if worst comes to worst we can just do some standards—"

Aster scoffed.

"Absolutely not," she said, shaking her head.

Cecil looked at her in disbelief. His eyes went wide, and then wider still.

"Aster, we're nine thousand dollars in the hole— we have no songs!" he sputtered.

"I'm not recording any fucking covers!" she shrieked.

Cecil grew red.

"Then what do you want to fucking do, Aster?! We don't have anything! You're not even trying to write anything!”

Aster bared her teeth, staring daggers.

"I was hoping you could fucking help!"

"I can't help somebody who can't even write a love song!"

"Fuck you!" she hissed, tearing up.

"No, fuck you!" Cecil shot back. He hurried to the sheet across the door and wrenched it aside. “I can't even write my own fucking songs,” he snarled, and then disappeared behind it.

Aster, sneering, crossed her arms and fell back into her bed.

Fucking IDIOT! she shrieked within her thoughts, tossing around on her bed.

A stream of tears, then sobbing, followed as Aster fell apart.

No matter how hard she tried she could never conjure a definite image of love. The plump-faced cherubs and other obsequious Cupid bile spilled across the shop in preparation for the holiday— which Sylvia called “positively Valentine”— triggered nothing within Aster. She did not recognize these icons, and they did not come to her when she tried to imagine love.

If they had, she imagined she'd at least have some hope of crafting something as cloying as the construction paper hearts which Sylvia happily cut out, but all she could picture was blackness.

It was her great shame— the forever humiliating defect in what was otherwise the only thing she appreciated about herself— her ability to write a masterpiece, and absolute inability to write a love song.

She had up until this point carried the weak hope that she could get by without them— daring in an era that was almost entirely defined by romantic ideals— but the success of their single with Johnny Vallerie had led her to believe with some dim fervor that it was possible.

So overjoyed was she in finally achieving her dream of signing a record contract that even when told to craft an album in the image of Cupid himself, her bliss blunted brain did not register the impossible nature of the task.

It wasn't until she stowed herself away in her room after the party which tore Peppermint Plains asunder, that like sheets being stripped away from one warmly tucked away in bed, the true nature of her situation came to her in cold, steadily increasing waves.

It then came upon her all at once, denying her of sleep these past few days, as she struggled with all her might to force the words onto paper. The song structures were there— until her growing anxiety even caused those to falter— and suddenly the river dried.

She could not tell Sylvia in her weakness at college, for she needed to be the support in that moment. It was only through the marvel of 20th century campus life in her eyes that she was able to not break down herself.

“We have a big show,” Cecil had told them when they arrived back that night.

A man she had never seen— unbelievably urbane and pristine— was chattering away excitedly to Floyd and Sísí when they had entered. He was a relatively successful artist, Cecil had said with no pride. He was the owner of the Strawberry Set.

Aster's heart had jumped at this.

The Strawberry Set held great significance to her, being the nest of her first memory of this entire world. To be told that they finally would be in the position that only a few months ago she gazed up at like a blind man kissed with sight by a saint— she could barely contain her joy. It spilled out of her like an overfilled birdbath— Sylvia the robin chirping around the shop and herself in excited glee.

Yet, at the same time she fell under it. She felt as though it would drown her, so far did it raise the bar above her head that she could no longer even picture what they had to achieve.

She was only left with the terrible notion that if she failed, it was all over. Cecil's surprise offer of help felt like the first flashes of light ripping through a dark room as the shutters were yanked upwards. Aster, in her great, unending anxiety, would never have dared to ask for it. Even if she wanted to, the words could never be wrenched from her dry throat.

And now she had sent him off in her petulance. She was often furious when Cecil lost his temper— for bad experiences with people hurt her far more than the loneliness of not having them— but for once, she found his anger reasonably placed.

She could hear the congregation downstairs, whose presence in her home filled her with unease, remarking as Cecil came down— likely in a huff.

She wondered how long they would go on for. She knew that once more she would be up all night, weeping over her guitar and her pathetic inability to be anything more than a portrait of sadness and self-pity. She would likely not sleep at all for the next two days, and if nothing was mined out of her faltering brain by that time, then she would accept the end.

Her eyes grew hot and her body numb as despair washed over her, when footsteps up the stairs arrested her thoughts.

Cecil had returned, and Aster immediately moved to wipe her swollen eyes.

She was about to cuss him out, when she noticed several records under both his arms.

"What are you doing?" she asked with a hoarse voice.

"Looking for inspiration," he said simply, setting them down on her bed.

Aster took one of the records and looked it over.

Her eyes grew wide in surprise.

“Figure if we listen to who we're trying to beat, it might get you more motivated,” he continued, dropping one of the records onto the platter, and forever changing Aster's life.

With the connection of the needle to vinyl, a warm crackle came forth, ushering a breezy, trumpet-accented instrumental which spilled out into Aster's cold room.

Her curious heart thumped in time with the staccato guitars.

That feeling— that inexplicable power only music has of appearing able to sunder the heaven's open and spill its very guts upon the world— came upon her instantly as the song began.

Her breath caught, and she looked over at Cecil. She was suddenly very aware of the stunned sensation of euphoria taking her, but he didn't seem to notice. He had returned to the guitar and was now intently listening and testing out melodies on the guitar.

The feeling kept intensifying.

A shudder, then a wave of goosebumps traversed the wave of her body. Her ear twitched in disbelief of the aural honey which ebbed in. The song sounded cut every bit from the same cloth as the classics Aster knew and loved—yet they were technically being created in that very instant as she listened to them.

Her surprise at the fidelity of this world's simulated tunes was nothing new, but this was the first time she found herself in awe at them. A child-like excitement coursed through her. When was the last time she had heard something that electrified her this deeply? The sweet, fae like voice filtered out of the speakers, curtsying through the dim room like morning beams annihilating night.

"Bonnie Godiva,” she whispered, beholding the youthful, smiling face on the record jacket.

If ever there were a name synonymous with Aster's thoughts of Peppermint Plains— it was that of the world's premiere pop star.

She seemed to crop up everywhere Aster went.

At first she was just one name among the many of the entire new universe of music open to Aster which she easily and hungrily consumed. Bonnie Godiva, Ricky Rickets, even alternate dimension releases of artists she knew and loved, like Buddy Holly.

Yet, in recent weeks— following Magnolia Haus' unparalleled success with Johnny Vallerie's single— the already quite famous Godiva appeared to be catapulted into the stratosphere. A Christmas appearance on Ted Tennenbaum had all but put her name in the mouths of everyone who had come into their shop, so that if they weren't asking for the Love You Forevers or Johnny Vallerie, they were asking for Godiva.

Though not immediately taken with her, she acknowledged her appeal— skin as soft as marzipan, draped over an extremely innocent and joyful expression which seemed to pour out of her deep blue eyes— eyes whose alluring pull were only accentuated by the stylish sixties brunette bob which framed her pleasantly round and inviting face.

"Sounds like Yé-yé," Aster remarked as Cecil played the first track.

Cecil— as was his characteristic reaction whenever Aster seemed to talk about music— looked over at her in confusion.

"What is Yé-yé?" he asked, causing Aster to bite her tongue and try sloppily to cover.

“Like the sound of strings striking staccato— ye— ye-ye,” she covered lamely, turning brick red.

This random attempt at humor perplexed Cecil, who saw Aster as the last person on Earth he'd ever expect to hear a joke from. He normally brushed these idiosyncrasies off, but the joke didn't land with him. The way her face flamed up with embarrassment under her dancing, avoiding eyes struck a great chord of curiosity within him.

"It's Godiva— haven't you heard this one?"

Aster looked up at him.

“I don't have time to listen to everything,” she sputtered, looking back down.

Cecil wrinkled his brow.

“You've listened to Stockhausen, how have you not heard the person whose number one single and album are on our front display?”

Aster frowned, now glaring at him.

“What does it matter?!” she hissed.

Cecil very obviously wished to say something more, but instead turned away.

“Do you have anything that you think is at least slightly okay?” he asked after a minute of silence.

Aster glowered.

“Do you?” Cecil again asked, growing irritated.

“I'm not fucking showing you it,” Aster sneered.

“Aster! This is serious shit!” he yelled, getting up.

He walked over to her bed, noticing a particular sheet worn with notes and corrections. Aster snatched at it in a panic as he approached.

“No!” she screamed as he attempted to grab it. The paper was wrenched through his grasp and Cecil went red.

“You know what— have it your way then— fuck this!” he screamed.

Aster was looking in confusion down at the paper.

“You can tell—”

Aster splayed her hand out, ordering him quiet.

She set the sheet down on her bed, and fetched the guitar.

Cecil looked at her in great confusion.

“What are you—”

His eyes went wide as he looked down. Rather than a song, she was reading from one of his poetry sheets.

Like a fire to kindling, Aster began to play, more a string herself being plucked by celestial forces than moving of her own volition. Cecil's ears pricked and tingled at the notes she spewed forth. Her voice trickled out like the most dulcet, heartwarming murmur, as she breathed life into Cecil's words. Cecil, who had only ever been ashamed of what he had to say, felt as though the entire world were morphing before him.

With every breath their works intertwined, and hair stood on end.

He shut off the record and rushed over to his guitar to join her.

Aster looked over at Cecil, who was marveling at the space around him, as if he could see the chords lingering in the air.

They both knew— hearing it— that their first single was nothing in comparison.

Rather, it almost begged the question— if they followed up with something this good— would they ever have a chance of topping themselves?

"Play it again," she spluttered, in response to a guitar lick he had added.

He adjusted a note there, she commanded him to set another back a sixteenth- before they realized the words had fallen in place.

The room went dead silent. The crowd in the shop had gone some dozen minutes earlier.

Aster and Cecil looked at one another, then disconnected their gazes.

Tears began to stream from Aster's eyes. Not only had she broken through her writer's block, she had perhaps written the best pop song of her life. No, she thought, correcting herself as she looked over at Cecil, hurriedly at work scribbling the notation onto a sheet. Co-wrote.

Following each other's cues, not speaking, Cecil fetched his stack of poetry and handed it to Aster, and they whittled the night away.