The Hush Society Presents... by Izzy Matias (best desktop ebook reader .txt) 📕

I found him by accident, one time at the pier, as he was busking about. I’m glad I did."

His guitar-playing style reminds me of Lewis—heavy on the folk, but it’s his voice that gives that distinctive sound. He can easily jump from an edgy type of croon to a soulful ballad. He sings mostly of heartbreak and it makes me wonder what he’s been through.

Writers spill their thoughts on a notebook, artists use a blank canvas to paint their emotions and musicians—well, you know the drill. Our music is the soundtrack of our lives, an auditory re-telling of our sorrows, hope, heartbreak, and dreams. It’s the way we process our emotions.

That’s the beauty of art: the way it takes something you feel—something intangible—and turns it into something tangible. The way it turns sadness into a poem, a song, a photo or a painting. The way music can speak for unspoken moments or those words we are afraid to say.

Tragedies and heartbreaks transform into ballads. Joys and moments of bliss into anthems. Dreams into a battle cry of hope and inspiration.

#

Cassie pushes back our departure date for the next city by two days to be here for Lily. We surround Lily with kind words and let her show us around her hometown. Our days and nights are filled with music—from entertaining the buskers on the pier to being buskers ourselves on a couple of occasions (safe to say no one’s chased me down or thrown me out. The buskers here are nicer); rummaging Lily’s favourite vintage music shops, purchasing vinyl records to add to her parents—they had arrived during James Watson’s set—growing collection to writing music on the seashore. We polish "Brick Walls" (Lily’s song) and plan to record a better version at our next show.

Since the night before our debut gig, Lily’s fears have been silenced. When her parents arrived that day, they’d been nothing but accommodating though I never heard Lily mention her incident. I guess she wouldn’t discuss it while we’re around, but still, I expected some sort of "hey mum and dad, I’m okay" when they kept asking her how she was, as if they knew something was up.

The first stop of this tour and already so much has happened. I update Judy and Nate about the turnout of the show. They’re keen to watch us play when we do our gig in Bristol, but they’ve both gone on a backpacking adventure for the summer. I inform them of our gig date in Manchester in hopes they’ll be able to catch that one, but have yet to receive a reply.

Giving out information about the date is somewhat against the rules—it’s an unspoken agreement—but the e-mail list with the rest of the summer dates is set to go live in a week, so I’ve simply given them an edge.

We load the last of our gear into our van: a basic nine-seater splitter with a trailer for our equipment. It was Cassie’s dad’s back in the day.

"Oh no you’re not," Eric chastises Amber who makes her way to the driver’s seat as I slam the trailer door and lock it.

"We’ll get to Bristol faster," Amber replies, putting a hand to her hip.

"We’ll get there half alive," I say, teasing her.

"You’re all scaredy-cats." She throws her hands up in the air and walks to the passenger seat. "If I’m not driving, then I’m shotgun."

"I don’t know what’s better." I laugh as Eric mumbles to himself.

Cassie approaches us. "All set?" Lily staggers behind her and Cassie hugs her.

"Thank you for hosting us. You should be proud of yourself for a successful gig. Keep me in the loop, okay?"

I nod at Lily. "We’ll have your song uploaded soon, so whenever you’re feeling like it’s going to happen again, you can listen to ‘Brick Walls’ and hopefully, it calms you down."

"Thank you," she whispers and glances at her parents. They wave at us from inside their house.

"You ring us anytime. We’re here for you," Amber calls out from inside the van. "Don’t be shy. Whether it’s at 3 PM or 3 AM, my mobile is always on. Never on silent mode."

"Booty call!" Eric shouts from inside the van and we laugh.

"We better go if we want to make it in time for tonight’s gig," Cassie says.

She’s right. We have to leave now if we are to make it in time for sound check at 5:30 PM.

Cassie gives Lily a long hug before joining us inside the idling van. I expect her to take the front row, but she takes a seat beside me. There’s a whiff of lavender again.

"Have a safe trip!" Lily calls out as I jump inside the van and slide to the middle row.

"Adios," Eric shouts as he presses the pedal, and on we go.

Cassie’s been on the mobile non-stop with Ella and Dan every day so they can align with each other. I can’t imagine what that’s like, to organise a massive simultaneous multi-city tour. Makes me wonder if she’s ever considered becoming an events organiser.

Benji lounges at the back row with his thick headphones on, editing last-minute touches to our first video before it finally goes live in a few hours. We decide to post it whilst in transit to create hype for tonight’s show, the way Callum Ford of The Gramophones did at The Hush Society gig. I am no Callum Ford, but I like how he promoted the shows via Twitter. Benji taught me how to create an account, and using one of Cassie’s photos as my profile photo, I am now visible to the Internet. I only got one because Eric insisted I needed it, since I was now a brand. I’ve got twenty-seven followers and though the number is small, being able to read whatever anyone has on their minds is an overwhelming task.

No, I don’t care that you ate a beef burrito for breakfast this morning.

Give me depth.

Give me philosophical musings on the most mundane things.

Yet, here I am, trying to craft