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

Cassie. She leans against one of the shelves immersed with her mobile.

I poke her. She curses as she jumps. "One of these days!" she gives me a fake look of anger as I bellow.

The chatter gets louder around us.

"I can’t imagine you in a metal band," Cassie says as we plant ourselves beside the horror section. Her forehead wrinkles. "So were you screaming in your songs?"

"Naw. I was always the lead or rhythm guitarist slash back-up vocals during my former musical ventures," I answer as my eyes gaze to the book selection to my left.

"What?"

"Believe it." I squint to make out the titles on the shelf. I could use a new book to read whilst on the road.

"Why weren’t you singing in any of your former bands?"

They have that novel I’ve been wanting to read for weeks now—and it’s a collector’s edition!

"Your eyes keep averting to the shelf," Cassie calls me out and laughs.

Oops. "Sorry."

She gives me a half-smile.

"I was a wallflower," I say deadpan and turn my full attention to her.

"Sure."

"I never saw the need to. I can sing, but never pegged myself as the lead singer type, you know?"

"You believed that you didn’t have it in you to try the limelight for yourself?"

"Something like that, but I’m listening to my instincts now—going with the flow. Putting myself out there."

"Good." Cassie smiles, but then her attention turns to something else. Her eyes are far away. "They have the limited edition of sketching portraits!" Cassie squeals. "I love this shop already."

It’s my turn to laugh.

"Tell me more about your previous projects," Cassie nudges on.

I start by telling her more about Lewis, and open my mobile to show her a video of us working on one of our songs. "We were a folk duo back then."

And that’s when it hits me: instead of a bittersweet retelling of my previous failed garage projects, I feel okay.

The cramped hallway, teeming with books, comes alive as the lad at the end of the shop begins his set with ambient beats. If there’s such a thing as indie EDM, this would be it.

After his mesmerising five-song set, the lights are back on. A gal who looks a tad older than us thanks us for coming to the launch of her bookshop and encourages us to have a look around. All the books have a five-percent discount.

Cassie and I linger around, trade books, and make up a game where we ask each other questions and have to answer with book titles. We get extra points for locating the actual book.

I take a photo of Cassie with her latest answer. The question is "What’s the purpose of life?" and we both had to pick a title from the Inspiration/Self-Help genre.

She poses with a book entitled The Power of Art. We take wacky selfies and I upload it on Twitter using the hashtag Eric came up with: #tfotour

As I press the button for another selfie with our book choices, my mobile vibrates.

"You’re getting the hang of social media." Cassie laughs and sees me uploading our photos on Twitter.

"It’s addicting," I confess as I check the latest message.

It’s Alex.

Alex: Checked out the site. Good stuff. Keep it up, mate. Send me the recording?

I hit reply: Once we get ‘round to recording it, I’ll fire it over to you.

Alex: Sweet. If you’ll still be in town a couple of days, there’s a studio two blocks from Afterall Bookstore. Rates are reasonable.

Me: Thanks, mate. I’ll tell Benji and Eric.

Alex sends another message with the name and location of the studio.

"Why the goofy smile on your face?" Cassie’s nose is inches from mine.

"Alex gave me directions to a studio where we can record our songs."

"In this city?"

"Two blocks from here," I say showing her my mobile.

I ring Eric and Benji for an impromptu meeting. It’s like the universe is conspiring to let us record our music even whilst on tour.

"That’s near where we’re staying," Cassie says. "Does this mean you lads will be recording your music?"

"Looks like it," I say, grinning.

Everything’s falling into place. It’s a whirlwind. Having everything come at us like this. And we’ve only started. It shouldn’t be this fast, should it?

"You’re meant to be in a band with your best mates," Cassie says, as if she can read my thoughts.

I give her a bemused look.

"It’s your face. I can tell what your thinking."

"So we’ve reached that level of friendship, yeah?"

She slaps my shoulder in response.

#

The next morning we are at the studio by ten. It was a miracle they had a slot available. It’s an early call time for us, but we want to make the most of our days before driving to the next city.

Eric whistles as the studio owner shows us the best studio room—equipped with technology that can record our whole session. Benji and the owner are in deep conversation about the technicalities of the program.

It looks like a basic studio: thick walls; a concrete floor in an airtight, cool room; a drum kit; two microphone stands; and two amplifiers, but we’ve requested to plug in Benji’s keyboard and other recording gear.

The owner leaves us to set up. We tune and get our groove on with a spontaneous fifteen-minute jam session, then we dig into business.

Benji sits behind his MacBook Pro. He plugs the necessary equipment to record our progress today. "It could take the whole day to track one song. Which one do you want to go with?"

"‘Brick Walls," Eric and I say in unison.

"Jinx!" I counter right away. "You’re buying me free food."

"Fine," Eric says. "Now, unjinx me."

I do as told, but point out that he shouldn’t even be talking.

"You two actually agree. I thought that would be more of a struggle," Benji comments.

"All for this band," I say.

"That’s right," Eric says.

"We all agree that we want our music to have a positive message," Benji says.

Eric repeats his previous statement.

"I want people to listen to our songs and know that they can use painful experiences and transform them into light,"