Note- the musicians mentioned int he below manuscript are not all real, and I don't have permission to use the names of those that are real. I won't pretend like I do. Don't sue me.

I am sitting on my bed, staring at the wall. The light from the two windows in my room is streaming into my room like two liquid boxes, if such a thing is possible. There are posters on my walls, posters of bands that you've never heard of and dead white guys you had better know. Music pulses, a thread of beat that's about as quiet as it's beautiful. My mother wonders why I bought a stereo in the first place when all I do with it is blast my Bach and whisper my metal, but that's just the way I am. Glenn Gould's variations sound better cranked up to an inhuman volume, anyhow.

Me? I'm unimportant. A guy who, finding little satisfaction in the world around him, instead emersed himself in music and made it his life's mission to preserve it and keep it in modern memory. My modern memory, anyhow. Anything that appeals to me at the moment is likely to make it into my room. Once music is in my room, it is guaranteed immortality (at least for as long as I live. Don't think about how contradictory that statement is). I'm really indiscriminate in my taste. I don't care how stupid certain band members are, how pretentious the titles of their songs may be, and genre has been an abstract since day one- My only prerequisite is that there must be sound, and that the sound must be original.

"KRIS!"

Mother. Sounds as though she's been calling for a little while. I get off the bed, switch off the Bach, and walk down. My hair gets in my eyes as I do. I brush it out impatiently. It's been a while since I went and got a haircut. Since then it's been my hair that has started hanging in my eyes, long and ungainly. It's really annoying.

My mother is standing silently at the bottom of the stairs, arms crossed over her chest and looking as though she's just about ready to beat the living shit out of me.

"I've called you down for dinner four times now," she said shortly. I nod, and walk past her with that acknowledgement. Who fucking cares if I'm late for dinner? It's only television meal shit anyhow; burritoes out of a plastic bag from the freezer that taste like Avril Lavigne's songs sound- like fruity batshit.

But no, it's not burritoes. Instead, it's faux Indian food from a cardboard box. Oh, joy and rapture. I sit down at the table, and stare at the dish filled with rice that could be politely called cooked al dente and red lumpy stuff that makes me very suspicious I look at my pissed off mother and suddenly wonder if it's that time of month. Almost immediately, I curse my perversely active imagination.

If I was even hungry to begin with, I sure as hell am not anymore.

"So, is there a reason you were playing that music so loud? You'll ruin your ears," Mom says pointedly as she takes a spoonful of her menstrual fluid and eats up. I grimace, trying to remind myself that the food came from a box, that my mother is not trying to kill me the hard way (With disgusting, sick Palahniuk-esque schemes, that is. Yeah, I like shock writing), but I'm afraid the idea has already implanted itself too firmly in my head for me to eat any of this.

"Yeah. Bach is way better when your eardrums are shattered," I respond queasily, and stare at my plate once more, picking at the al dente rice grains that haven't been touched by the red stuff.

"If you're not careful, I'll find a way to minimize the volume."

"Oh come on, mom. You can't tell me you never blasted Grateful Dead when you were younger."

"When Grateful Dead was big, I was in diapers," Mom corrects me shortly. She really doesn't like it when I make jokes about her age, inadvertant or not. Time is her worst enemy. Plastic shines on her face as though she were a human balloon. Her fingernails are buffed, polished, and pampered in every way possible, and the chemicals she puts in her hair probably rival the amount of chemicals in Chernobyl. With a mother like that, who could blame me for being anorexic?

Oh yeah, did I mention I was anorexic? The fifteen rice grains I've consumed insofar are weighing heavily on my guilt and in my stomach. In my peripheral vision, I can see my mother, staring at me from behind her plastic mask to see if I'll eat any of the red stuff that's probably crawling with calories. Whoo yeah, in addition to being menstrual fluids it's probably really really fattening.

I need to get a life.

"You know, Kris, sweetheart, Bach doesn't have nutritional value," she finally says, this time with a bit of a plea in her voice. I stare straight at her and bite back my response, which would probably have me committed.

"Yeah, I know," is all I say, and I have two mouthful of the red stuff just for her. Almost immediately I am trying to calculate how much weight I'm going to gain from that. I then realize I sound OCD and try distract myself with the new band from Russia that was recommended to me from the Polish exchange student at school today. Good band, really sweet music. If I could so much as pronounce their name from the example I was given, I'm sure I'd note it here. As it stands, however, I'm a total language ignoramus. I like the music, is all.

"Anything happen in school today?" Mom asks to break the silence. I shrug.

"Science was terrible. As always. Learning about the reproductive system."

Which is probably why I'm seing menstrual fluid. Everywhere. Jesus, how I hate science.

"Did you eat?"

"Yeah."

The lie comes easy. I mean, what the hell am I supposed to say to her? She thinks I'm better, and I have to say I eat a heck of a lot more than I used to on good days. it's just days like this that I can't stand the thought of eating, that I'd much rather listen to music and see what's good in that.

I leave the dinner table after a few more minutes of silence.

Even worse than Avril Lavigne, even worse than food, I can't stand a meaningless silence. I remember one time when I was small and at my aunt's cottage. We were going kayaking in the lake, admiring the beautiful sunset. Then my then obnoxious cousin Serendipity decided to ruin the moment by tipping my kayak. I remember I was completely submerged in water for about thirty seconds before someone finally got worried and come to my rescue. I learned two things from that escapade; one, it's always beneficial to wear a lifejacket, no matter how uncool you may seem. Two, the stuff that they say about sound travelling fast underwater is bull. I couldn't hear a thing, not even my own heartbeat, and it was as unbearable as the weight crushing down on my chest.

My aunt punished Serendipity soundly, and Serendipity seemed really taken aback that she actually could have killed her cousin, the bundle of nerves. Since then we've been really good friends. As she lives in Canada, she knows all these indie bands that I have never heard of while rotting away in my obscure village in Connecticut. As soon as she gave me this awesome album by a band from British Columbia called The Bad Hair Day, I've been willing to forgive her and more. She is the only person in the world apart from me who can have free access of my collection and take the music outside of my room.

It's dark out, but I'm still awake. Life never ends for me after the sun sets. I still have an extensive music collection to sort. By date this time, not by band name. I have an essay to write for English, I have Science homework to procrastinate on, and maybe, if I'm lucky, I can squeeze in a belated daydream or two.

The day officially starts when I can smell the strong headache-inducing smell of coffee, and I'm still awake. I'm still stuck in the 1970's, but lucky for me it's a Saturday and I have nothing to do but to be OCD and continue rearranging the audible history in my room. Then Mom calls me down with bleary insistence. I come down, she notices I haven't changed from the clothes I was wearing yesterday, and says, "You look like shit."

"Yeah, I know," I say, staring at her 'Have A Nice Day!' mug. Her coworkers at the spa gave it to her when she had been working there for five years. I unfortunately missed that landmark date; that was when I had been going in and out of hospital for physical treatment and psychological evaluation. Around the time when I weighed in at a whopping sixty-seven pounds. Ah, those were the days when I was morbidly obese.

"What did you want?" I asked.

"You know your cousin Serendipity is driving here, right?"

"Uh... no."

"Well, she's been driving here for over two weeks, she's been wasting a lot of gas and mileage getting her ass down here, so you should really get yourself cleaned up before she gets here this afternoon."

This afternoon, she said? All the time in the world.

"I'll be ready for her," I promise, and go back up to my room.

"Uh, Kris."

"Yeah?"

"She's going to want the new Radio Propaganda CD," Mom says, her plasticked mouth forming the words as though she were completely anti-Communist and spitting out some undercooked borscht or something like that.

"Radio Propaganda. Sure."

Radio Propaganda (Radio PR for short, of course) is an indie group that actually came from around here. Their songs have long pretentious titles like 'All Characters In This Song Are Fictitious (Any Semblance To Actual Persons, Living Or Dead, Is Entirely Coincidential)'. Their lead singer looks like he should be singing for something more suiting, say The Bad Hair Day. But their music is actually really good, once you get past the poser emo shit their managers are making them put on so they might go mainstream.

And Cousin Serendipity is completely in love with their music. She's been brainwashed by Radio PR. Isn't that fitting? I wouldn't doubt that the only reason she's coming to Connecticut is to get their latest album ahead of everyone else in Canada. I finish sorting my albums, then take out the latest Radio PR CD. Cousin Serendipity deserves it; she's probably paid way too much in gas for it to be denied to her.

I get dressed in fresh clothes, run a hand through my overlong hair, and decide to take a walk, maybe stop by the record place, or the old bookstore/cafe that's located down the streets and is run by this crazy one-eyed man supposedly named Sedgwick. It always smells like incense and pot in there, and Mom frequently tells me to avoid the psychedelic cakes, but apart from that, it's a really neat place to hang out in. Sedgwick has a thing for a guitarist named Peter Walker, who apparently learned Spanish flamenco from a master and was in the same class as George Harrison. It's really kind of sweet.

"Hello there, Kris-man," says Sedgwick. I nod his way, and go to my proper place in the corner. There are no other customers, so Sedgwick sits down beside me, a curious aroma of pastries and crack wafted my way as he does.

"Hi," I finally say.

"Would you like anything to eat?"

Apparently, hope does spring eternal.

"No thanks. I'll pass. Have you got water? Clear, pure, untainted, non-psychedelic water?" I ask with a little more sarcasm than I'd usually talk with. It doesn't matter with Sedgwick. He's too baked to notice any barbed comments.

"Is there any other kind, dude? I'll be right there," Sedgwick exclaims, and with a goofy smile, goes to the water dispenser. He pours us both a lgass of water, and then asks, "So, what's up, little man?"

"Nothing much. My cousin's coming over from BC, and this is the first I've heard of it," I respond, sipping at my water. Seeing Sedgwick's confused face, I continue, "My cousin Serendipity. Remember her? She was sixteen when she last came here."

"Oh yeaaaah," Sedgwick says, and it's like the pot has finally accelerated him to enlightenment. "That really cute chick. Looks a bit like you. Has a thing for Radio Propaganda. Yeah, I remember her."

Though you eventually get accustomed to it, there's nothing quite like a sixty year old flower child hitting on your twenty year old cousin. I kind of block out his long convoluted speech after a while and instead concentrate on my cup of water. Water equals zero on the calorie scale. While you won't get any benefit from it apart from the fact that you won't dry up, you also will get no carbs from drinking it. There's something to be said for something that doesn't keep you alive, yet at the same time you can't live without.

"Wow, man, you okay? You're staring at that cup like it's got the meaning of the world in it," Sedgwick says, getting up after he has finished fantasizing about my cousin.

"Yeah, I'm great. Thanks for the water," I say, and get up. "Does it cost anything?"

"It's water, Kris. Basic human right, you know. Take care of yourself, kid," Sedgwick grins as I put my jacket back on and leave the small cafe. I had been planning to check out his books, but I don't feel in the mood for it now.

As I check my watch, I realize it's one-thirty now. I wonder if Serendipity is close, and decide to wait by the road I know she'll come in by. But before that, I'll drop by the music store.

Rich is waiting, of course. Rich is the guy who singlehandedly runs the record store, and he and I have a mutual relationship. He does his damnedest to bring in the store, and I mercilessly eviscerate his stock until I have found what I'm looking for. Today, however, I have a goal. My goal is to go in, calmly and quietly get what I've come in for, and then leave.

Rich is a young man, about thirtyish or so. He's got a few piercings and he's dyed his hair black, and if he were a decade and a half younger, I would consider him emo. As it is, I think he's right in the midst of a middle-age crisis. Just waiting for him to buy a Parsche and then make it an Italian pretzel around a telephone pole. Of course, I'd never say this to Rich's face. I only think malignant thoughts after all.

"And how are you today, Kris?"

"I'm excellent. Is it here yet?" I ask, straight to the point.

"Yes."

"Uh... what is it?" I ask after a moment. Brilliant. I can't remember my own acquistion.

"It's called the Devil's Trill. By some dead sausage called Tartini," Rich says, putting the CD on the countertop. I take the CD and check out the cover. Good. Even the violinist I wanted. Rich is good at this.

"I paid for this already, right?" I ask after a moment.

He nods affirmative and takes out a cigarette before asking, "You don't mind, right?", and gesturing to the cigarette.

"No, not at all," I lie. I think smoking is possibly one of the most disgusting habits you could possibly have, but that in itself is too petty to endanger our comfortable agreement. Rich's conscience seems appeased by my answer, however, and he lights up. Smoke curls from his cigarette like the tail of some pencil-thin rodent, and the smoke gets to my head. I soon have to sit down because suddenly, I am really fucking dizzy.

"Hey, you okay?" Rich asks concerned.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I say shortly. "I was just at Sedgwick's. Smelled like pot, as usual. Maybe it just got to me a little."

Rich smiles a little and seems slightly reassured. He remembers just as well as I do the time I fainted in his store and had to get revived by the paramedics that arrived on the scene ten minutes later. That's when the ever-observant little town I lived in realized that Kris Hurst had an eating problem. Never mind the fact that I was skinny as hell; I had to fucking pass out like a eighteenth century girl in a public place for people to realize that I had problems. I'm not sure if this made me any more bitter to them than I already was, but it sure as hell didn't help our relations. Now practically everyone, except for my mother, Sedgwick, and Cousin Serendipity, treat me like glass. God all-fucking-mighty.

"Uh... thanks for the music. I really appreciate you holding on to it for me," I say to break the unbearable silence that follows.

He shrugs with a smile and says, "Anytime, kiddo. You take care of yourself now."

Why is it that everyone I see tells me to take care of myself, as though I'll get hit buy a bus as soon as I walk out the door? Or as if the whole friendly bunch are all in on a conspriacy to kill me and don't want to seem suspicious. Anyhow, I smile and walk out the doo with my nearly acquired music, almost happy to go back home and thoroughly relishing the anticipation of having my Cousin Serendipity's quirky presence. just something to shake up this gloomy little town. Anything.

As soon as I walk out the door, of course, I'm hit by a bus. Well, not a bus, really. Cousin Serendipity and all her luggage. Her light blue Vespa is parked on the curb, and I wonder why she didn't wait in there with the equivalent of a U-Haul truck full of stuff, but that's my Cousin Serendipity for you.

"Hey, Kris!" she sings, and lets go of me after she realizes she had clasped me in a tight embrace. Then she looks at me with a critical eye.

I look at her the same way. Terribly dressed, as usual. her trenchcoat looks as though it doesn't know whether it's a leopard print or a demented kindergartner's drawing of vomit on a white wall. She's got all this chunky jewelry, Jackie O sunglasses, and she's wearing a purple blouse with a red pencil skirt in the middle of fucking December. Look, I'm not a fashion freak, but even I know too much when I see it, and that outfit is the pure definition of too much. If she weren't so inhumanly hot, I would seriously consider committing her into a mental institution.

Yes, she is pretty damned hot, and I say that in a purely platonic sense. I sincerely believe if she didn't have such... distracting clothing, she would still turn heads on a busy city street. She doesn't seem to notice that sort of allure however. In fact she pays little to no attention to her looks, something I admire for her. Anyone who can look that sexy without making even the slightest effort to do so has to be admired on some level.

She, on the other hand, keeps her description of me to a minimum.

"Wooow, you're still really tiny. Get your skinny ass into the car. Let's get home. And then I can tell you and Auntie Ingrid all about my amazing road trip!"

"Sweet."

I acknowledge her sheer coolness with that single word, and get into the blue Vespa with my mad colourblind Canadian cousin.

Mom is talking on the phone when we get home. She's got a pink face mask smeared all over her face, which I find weird. Since when does plastic need pampering? But, if it makes her happy, I'm not about to chew her out. She looks up from the telephone and curtly says, "Ah, Serendipity, you're here. Why don't you two go up to Kris' room? Keep the volume on the music down, though. I'm on the phone."

Some welcome for Serendipity. Once again, my mother gets points for having more social awkwardness than me. Serendipity doesn't seem to care about Mom's gauchness, though, and starts bounding up the stairs, me slouching behind her. I don't see where she gets the energy after being stuck in a car for two weeks. First thing I'd want to do if I ever embarked on such a voyage is sleep, personally.

"Wow, you really made the place over," Serendipity says as she walks into my room. "I don't remember all these posters."

"I put them up when I came back from hospital. They were all in long plastic tubes before," I shrug.

"He looks so cute," Serendipity sighs, looking at the frontman for Radio Propaganda.

"He looks like he just rolled out of bed," I point out.

"If you don't like him so much, why do you have his poster up?" Serendipity asks shrewdly, but doesn't wait for me to answer when she sees the Radio PR cd on the desk where I left it before taking my walk. "Oooh! You really do have it! Are they still pretty good?"

"Yeah. They're still original. At least they're not trying to sell out," I say vaguely. The truth is, I haven't listened to it yet. I had unwrapped it, read the liner notes, and then closed it again. I was waiting for it to come out in Canada so Serendipity could hear it at the same time as me. I was even starting to walk out of stores whenever they started playing the song that they thought might launch Radio PR into the mainstream. But this latest turn of events allows me to listen to it earlier, at least, and though I'd never admit, I had been dying to hear it for a while now.

I put the cd in the stereo, careful not to scratch it. Then I turned down the stereo so our eardrums wouldn't get blasted by the first phrase. I knew I would turn it up to full volume later, but it was a gradual thing. Like boiling a frog, perhaps.

Then, there is music. It's right. That's all I can say for it. It is nothing like their music before, but you can still tell that it was Radio PR. They aren't selling out, not at all. They are just making music which they think is beautiful. And that's why music is, first and foremost, an art form. Not a cash cow, not a way to Easy Street, not a way to control the mindless masses, but an art form, plain and simple. It's because of people like this who still make what's true to them that music is still beautifiul, still respected.

And that's just the first fifteen seconds. I still have fifty three minutes and forty seven seconds of unknown music to go through. I relax, and Serendipity actually closes her wide deer stuck in the headlight eyes for a few tracks. I don't even bother to turn up the volume. Instead, I shut my eyes and think back to a time when life wasn't so complicated that I needed to escape through music. When I could actually eat a full healthy meal and want seconds. When I wasn't stuck with an eating disorder, for Chrissakes. I don't know what my self-esteem did when I was actually diagnosed with anorexia, but I'm guessing a kamikaze dive off of the Empire State Building wouldn't have been too far off the mark.

Yes, I get fixated over the fact that I have an illness that's pretty damn feminine. Since then, I've had to go to a support group with other people (read- girls) who are similarly afflicted. They think I'm gay, and therefore also think I'm one of the cutest guys on the face of the planet. I'm not sure whether I should be flattered or offended, but it sure as hell is confusing. I'd like to pick up some chicks, but when they're all worried that I might be trying to hide from my sexuality, and none of them would be selfish enough to be my girlfriend and help with my illusions. Moral of this story: Never, ever try to hit on girls in a support group who think you're gay. It won't turn out well, and in the end you feel bad for messing with their ethics.

Too soon, the music is done. Serendipity sits up, rubs her eyes wide open again, and says, "That's like their best album yet! He sounds sooo friggin' hot!"

"Do you think they'll go mainstream?" I ask.

"They're too good for mainstream. But still, it would be nice if they could have wider-spread venues and tours. Namely, in British Columbia," Serendipity responds wistfully. "Ah well. They're still way awesome. Can I borrow this...?"

"Yeah, go ahead," I respond. I would burn the cd on my computer tonight. Okay, look, it's not illegal if I've brought the cd, anyhow. I'm not depriving any musicians of their livelihood by making it possible for me to listen to their music on my Sansa. I mean, if some musicians had their way, we would still be carrying boomboxes onto the bus. Seriously, a little practicality never killed anyone.

"Thanks."

Serendipity worshipfully takes the cd in her hands and looks at it as though it were the Arc of the Covenant. I watch her with a slight smile on my lips, which quickly fades when she asks, "Have you eaten anything today, by the way?"

"I had a bit of water at Sedgwick's," I say evasively. Serendipity looks at me with an unreadable look, and then asks, "How about yesterday? What did you eat then?"

"Look, I am eating, all right, Ser?" I say quietly. I know right now she doesn't believe a word I'm saying, but it's true. I suddenly know why she came down to Connecticut. Mom must think I'm going to completely starve myself again. "And I'm actually gaining some weight back. Did you know that?"

"Auntie Ingrid told me over the phone," Serendipity assures me. "And I really think that's great. But do you?"

"You sound like the counsellor chick in my support group," I respond huffily, evading the question again. I do know I'm sick, and I really hate being sick. But there's something else inside me, a little voice, if you will, that tells me how I am right now isn't the way I should be. If I told that to anyone, I'd probably be locked up for schizophrenia, but it's true.

Serendipity breaks the silence so I don't have to.

"Look, I'm terrible at inspirational quotes and crap like that," Serendipity says, sitting down on the bed from which she had sprung up so energetically, "but I know for sure that if you don't think what you're doing is good, then you'll never feel better or fulfilled. Capisce?"

"Yeah, I think so," I say, ignoring the absolute corniness of the way she delivered that line. I won't tell her how I actually feel, because then I know my life will actually turn into a cheesy chick flick, eating disorders and all. Instead I say:

"I really do want this, Ser. I don't want to be sick any more."

And Serendipity smiles. I know I should feel bad for lying to her. The scary thing is, I don't feel bad and I don't care.

I avoid mirrors. It's true. Before I went to hospital, I constantly looked into mirrors and tried to see if I was any thinner than I was yesterday. The funny thing is, a low self-esteem will stretch and distort a looking-glass, until all you see in the mirror is an amorphous blob of flesh. After I came out of the hospital, I took the mirrors out of my room and boycotted places that had mirrors in them as much as humanly possible. I don't want to se myself one day and realize that I'm still a blob. I don't want to see myself one day and find out I haven't changed.