OOM: Working on the theater with Joly

[herr_bookman]

Autor checks over his list to see what else needs work in his and Joly's theater. The cavern is almost cozy now, with cushions on the floor and a couple of benches in the back, along with a table off to the side for food strung up with lights.

Autor picks his way across the floor to the 'stage', peering up at where Joly works with the lighting. "How's it going?"

Comments

[herr_bookman]

Autor manages to hold onto the laptop as Joly falls, jumping himself. "It's so loud!" he yelps into the sound of Chopin's Fantasie Impromptu.

The boy laughs softly, holding out his hand for his friend. "At least we know it works, right?" he yells, wincing at the sound of his own voice over the piano.

[merryeccentricities]

Joly waves off Autor's offered hand in favor of scrambling for the speaker. He fumbles clumsily with the controls for a moment, and the volume slides down, from an astonishing thunder to the natural sound of a piano in a small room, leaving Joly's helpless laughter clearly audible.

"Hah, oh, I'm so sorry! Ahahah, oh no, and I could have just unplugged the speaker! Ah, dear..." He catches his breath and calms down faster than usual. The music helps.

He listens to it quietly again. "You really do play beautifully" he says after a while.

[herr_bookman]

Joly's laughter is contagious, and Autor finds himself overwhelmed by his own amusement. He grins at his friend until the compliment, to which he smiles shyly. "Thank you," he says softly. "I appreciate that, Joly, I do."

He sets the laptop on the floor, mindful of the cord connecting it to the speaker. "Well, these clearly work, and work well. Now we just need to be careful not to turn them up too loudly during our plays. I wonder if we can install them up on the walls near the stage?"

[merryeccentricities]

Joly smiles back; then, at Autor's question, reaches into the cart and comes up with a box of speaker-mounts and hardware. "We should be able to! If you're willing to brave the drill again. And-- I think you'll be able to control the volume and everything from this?" He studies the control board again. "If I set it all up properly. You will be our conductor, at least sometimes, won't you?"

[herr_bookman]

"Excellent," Autor says, nodding cheerfully at the mounts. "I can brave the drill again. I'm getting good at that, I think."

Autor leans down to take a look at the control board. He breathes in through his nose. "Hm," he says, "I can certainly try, if that's the role that's needed. I'll have to learn this right along with you. Which switch controls the volume again?"

[merryeccentricities]

Öh, I had turned it down at the speaker, but on this it's...er..."Joly looks to the speaker for help, and then back to the controller. "The thing that looks like a wedge with a parentheses? Here."

He taps the icon that's meant to look like a speaker itself, as interpreted through decades of graphic shorthand that he's utterly ignorant about. "Hang on, let me connect this to the speaker-- it isn't, yet, all that's your little computer--"

But it doesn't take long. "All right; try it?"

[herr_bookman]

Autor fiddles with the knob, and the soft sound of Satie's Gymnopedie 2 filters through louder and quieter. "Seems to work just fine," he says. "Joly, you're a genius. That would have taken me thrice as long to figure out, if I ever did."

He tilts his head back and forth to the music, listening for ways to improve his performance. "I suspect that we can install some of these in the very back of the room, too. We can immerse our audiences in sound!"

[merryeccentricities]

Joly really isn't too prone to blushing, but he's very near it now. "Ah, I'm really not. I've only been studying everything I can find since I came here. And for a while I thought-- I was very interested in sound and transmissions." That had been no proud search. "I'm glad it's useful now."


He beams at Autor's idea of sound, though. "That would be wonderful. All these ways of making and keeping music, and voices--I should build something for the lab. I've never liked silence. And there must be so much to hear!"

[herr_bookman]

"It is useful," Autor says, squeezing his friend's shoulder. "Very much so. I've picked up players loaded with music from the Bar with no issue. I'm sure you can make up a similar stereo system for your lab and hook those up to it. There are also these round disc things called CDs if you haven't heard of those."

He cups his hands to show the size of one. "All the music of all the multiverse is available to us here. Think of it, Joly--music from every planet that ever existed. Some of which we wouldn't even identify as music, I suspect!"

[merryeccentricities]

It's an exciting thought. "I wonder if there are any non-human musicians here? The only people I've met are definitely something other are--fighters, or scientists. Gredya, I suppose. Not musicians. But it would be a fascinating comparison!"

[herr_bookman]

"Oh, wouldn't that be wonderful? If you ever run into any off-world musicians, let me know; I'd love to meet them," Autor says, completely enthused about the prospect. "Maybe our theater will draw them out, who knows. Who knows."

He fiddles with the knob again, setting the volume of the piano playing at a comfortable level. "Now I've got a pulley to install, and then we can work on the speakers."

[merryeccentricities]

Joly nods. "I'll hold the ladder, if you like.--But you've been offworld yourself, haven't you? Seen entire alien worlds. Though I suppose the people there might have been entirely human. --Do you remember?"

It's a real question, what Autor might and might not remember, now.

[herr_bookman]

"I remember traveling to the moon, and some people appeared human whereas others appeared like great beastmen," Autor explains, and heads to the ladder. He scoops up the drill up on top. "They were tall and had fur and the facial features of different animals."

[merryeccentricities]

Joly nods, quiet, while the drill makes its noise. The ladder shakes with the smallest of vibrations. Easily controlled, but he can feel how it might be enough to tip a bucket over. He laughs at himself and tightens his grip; one accident for the night is enough.

"Has it been-- about the same, your memory? Nothing worse, no new gaps? No other symptoms?" He laughs apologetically."Sorry-- I have to ask, you know."

[herr_bookman]

Autor beams down at him. "Don't apologize. I don't mind that you ask," he says between drilling and cooling down the bit. "There's been no new gaps as far as I can tell, and it seems to be surrounding my activities at home, just as I thought from before. The emotions remain, so while I've been watching my rememberizer and recovering them, I've noticed a rather annoying tendency to say, fall in love with someone all over again that I was in love with before and forgotten about."

That may be a growing blush on his cheeks.

[merryeccentricities]

" That's interesting, that the emotions remain--oh, but what an awful thing to forget. But then it must be hard to feel everything coming back new again, too. However she feels about you, now." He's seen Autor pining after Mademoiselle Kuriyama, but that was in the Bar. This sounds like someone else, then-- which could mean any sort of relationship now.

[herr_bookman]

"Ah, no, she--um," Autor starts, and focuses on drilling for a while before answering. "She didn't survive. I think? There was something about her sacrificing herself to the Monster Raven, and she just..."

He cools the rock with a sponge, shaking his head. "It wouldn't have worked out between us. But I wish she would have... I don't know. Lived."

[merryeccentricities]

"Oh, Autor." Joly reaches out, automatically, even though he can only settle his hand slightly higher on the ladder. "Of course you do. I'm so sorry." Familiar with death as he is, he should have something more helpful to say. He doesn't.

[herr_bookman]

Autor drills for a while and methodically attaches the pulley to the wall, lost in his own thoughts. Eventually he glances down at his friend again. "Sorry, I didn't mean to get maudlin," he says quietly, and climbs down the ladder, drill in hand. "It's just the way it is. I'm recovering these things, and there's no guarantees that they won't be painful. Maybe it's better that I've forgotten them."

[merryeccentricities]

Joly shakes his head, hard. "Autor--Autor, no. I mean-- you know for yourself what you think of your own memories, I won't argue that, but--you never need to apologize to me for being upset. For, for grieving what's lost, or being confused, or anything like that."

He reaches out, just resting his fingers against Autor's shoulder, and goes on more quietly. "You're my friend; I want to know if something's hard for you, or hurts, or if there's a problem--if not so I can help, at least so I don't go blundering right over it."

[herr_bookman]

Autor's lip quivers for a moment. He impulsively hugs Joly, mindful of the drill. "Thank you," he says softly, the words leaving him with a sigh.

He sniffs once, drawing back. "I'll... be all right. I think. And I doubt you'd blunder into this; you're more sensitive than that."

[merryeccentricities]

Joly hugs back tight, and presses Autor's arm when his friend draws back. His own eyes are damp, but he laughs softly at Autor's words.

"I fear I'm not as clever as you think--but I will try. And I won't press, if you don't want to talk. Just-know that you can, always."

Joly pulls back himself, his hand still on Autor's arm. "And don't go trying to not worry me, either. I believe I've told you before, it's a lost cause; I always worry about my friends." He smiles as he says it. He knows it's ridiculous; but it's still true.

[herr_bookman]

"No, I don't believe that," Autor says, shaking his head slowly. "You are. You absolutely are. Thank you for the permission to be sad. It was sorely needed."

He wipes a tear away, and smiles a little. "We can worry about each other."

[merryeccentricities]

Joly smiles warmly. "That sounds fair; a very practical share of tasks. You've a fine practical turn of mind." He touches Autor's shoulder once more, in promise to both of them, and moves away, sure now that Autor will speak up if he needs to.

Joly nods to the speakers. "You direct, I'll move?"

There's plenty of work still to do, but it goes quickly between them. The result, some time later, may not be the finest theater the Universe has ever seen; but Joly at least has never seen one better lit or heard one with better sound.