“Galí, why do you care? You’re
first chair in the United Orchestra! Quit your complaining!
Just because Molori Davys didn’t say hello in the halls is no reason to
push yourself like this,” Bepov said, words bouncing with the fall of her
feet on the treadmill as she jogged.
Galí turned to her best friend,
“I want to feel included, You know how I get if someone doesn’t like my
work. I never sleep, eat, or even think until the problem is fixed.
This is just another on of those problems.”
Generally speaking, Galí Hartford
knew herself. Chinese-American, prize poetess, first chair violinist
in North America’s Holographic United Orchestra, and a young girl with
a drive to please. However, this knowledge meant nothing to those
peers she tried to impress daily.
Bepov turned off her machine and swung
a towel around her neck, sweat glistening like stars in the night sky all
over her chocolate, finely muscled body. “This isn’t just a problem
like poor grammar or a wrong note. Galí, this is your body
that you’re ‘fixing’. I think it’s a big mistake, what you’re doing
to yourself.”
Galí turned up the pace on her stair-stepper
and began straining to pound the bars down. “I don’t see what the
problem is. You exercise, too. You’re in better shape than I am,
so I have work harder to get to your level. Once I’m there I’ll slow
down.” Words strained with the young woman’s throbbing muscles.
“At least take off that rubber suit.
I know it’s in style and everything, but it’s not healthy to wear when
exercising. There have been stories on the news and stuff…”
“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry. It’s
just until I get my body fat down and my muscle builds up! I have
to be in shape, or else Molori will never talk to me again.”
Bepov looked intently at her friend.
“I don’t see why her opinion means that much to you. But if it does,
genuinely, mean that much to you, and this isn’t just some stupid phase
or anything, I’ll support you.”
Galí smiled at her friend.
“Thanks Bep.”
“I’m gonna take my shower. See ya.”
* * *
Galí swung her gym bag off her shoulder
in the entryway of the small, spartan apartment she shared with her mother.
She was proud that after the five-mile jog home from the gym she wasn’t
as tired or as out of breath as she had been the past week. White
teeth flashed in a quick smile at the thin girl’s reflection in the hall
mirror before she ran into the shower. A quick stream of scalding
water readied her for the intense violin practice she forced herself into
every day.
Before her lay the sheet music she so loved
to just sit with and ponder. Raising her favorite violin (a cherry
plastic that was very expensive in the online mall) to her shoulder, Galí
took in the smell of the plastic hardener, noxious to others, yet the finest
perfume to the young genius, and voiced her pass code into the small transmitter
on the neck. She took great pride in the silences that followed;
her instructors at the United Orchestra headquarters even loved to hear
her practice. Assured that the transmitter lights were dim enough
to concentrate on her science, she raised her bow in ready position and
aided the violin in singing her first note. It was clear, crisp note,
nothing unusual to the casual listener, but to Galí it meant much
more. When she played she felt like her soul was flowing through
her hand to her bow to the strings and enabling the strings to come alive
– to dance and incredible dance that she only could see and hear.
When she closed her eyes, so in tune to the violin that she could play
the strings without looking, without really even thinking, she imagined
that they were the dearest of girlfriends. When the song was fast,
they were giggling about some boy that had flirted with them. When
the song was slow, their conversations led to much more somber subjects.
Galí breathed through her violin, and she believed, into the farthest
reaches of her mind, that it breathed through her.
Exhausted and sore from her practice, Galí
awaited her instructor’s judgement.
“Galí, that was beyond incredible.
That practice was, in itself, better than the entire orchestra on its best
day. You’re going to become a legend! Have you started your
overture yet?” Her instructor’s awe was audible.
“The overture is done, but it still needs
some work. I’ll scan it to you next week.”
“Galí, you’re amazing. Go
get some sleep, you deserve it! And no more of that Ultra Exercising
you kids are all doing. I know it’s the ‘style’ or whatever you children
call it, but you can strain you muscles, and if you hurt those arms…”
He didn’t need to finish his sentence.
“Yes, sir. No more Ultra’Cycing. I promise.”
A click and the connection was broken.
Galí carefully placed you soul mate in her case, put the sheet music
away, and went to the kitchen to make dinner. Her mother was due
home soon, and she would be mad if supper wasn’t ready.
* * *
“Oh my goodness, Gally, Sweetheart! What
have you done to yourself?” Molori asked, shoving her way through
the crowded hallway at the high school to get to Galí.
“Oh, hi, Molori. I stopped Ultra’Cycing
for a while. My violin instructor doesn’t want me injuring my arms
or anything.”
The tall, unbelievably muscled young woman
named Molori straightened herself to her full height and fixed her backpack
over her rock-hard shoulders. “Really? That’s too bad, I was
having a party this weekend, but I think I have too many people as it is.
Call me if you start working out again, maybe I could squeeze you In.”
Galí watched, mouth agape, as Molori
strolled off. She could feel the tears building up in her eyes.
She felt lost, alone as the crowds in the hall thinned. She yanked
the nearest books out of her locker and ran into the closest restroom where
she cried her almond-shaped eyes out.
* * *
“Galí, I thought you said you weren’t doing
this Ultra thing anymore!” Bepov Rushed over to the machine where
Galí was madly pushing herself.
“Well, I felt flabby and disgusting and
depressed, and I just felt like getting away.” She breathed the words
as she struggled for breath in the tight rubber suit.
“Don’t you usually go to you violin for
that? And what about what your instructor said?” Bepov turned
on the vacant machine beside Galí’s and began climbing to nowhere.
“I figured as long as I didn’t lift any
weights or anything my arms would be fine.”
Bepov stopped for a second to look at her
friend. The friend she had slept next to in the hospital nursery
room, had grown up with, and had become best friends with in the course
of their short life times. The friend who was now changed beyond
all recognition, save for the needful look in her sage-pigmented eyes.
“Galí, stop for a second and look
at me.”
Galí turned her head to look at
Bepov while beating at the steps at her feet.
“NO, STOP!”
Galí slowed her stepping until the
machine slowed. She turned to look at her friend, as did half the
gym.
“What are you doing to yourself?
You are in far better condition than I am, and yet you push yourself here,
day in, day out. Your mother says you’re not practicing you violin
as much, and here you are disobeying your instructor, the one you once
told me you’d kill yourself for if he only asked! What is going on
with you?”
Galí started crying. “Nothing,
Bepov. Just go away, please, I’m trying to concentrate on my counting.”
“Bepov? Since when do you call me Bepov?
It’s been Bep for seventeen years. Since we were babies, Galí.
Why do you even care what Molori thinks? She can’t even pronounce you stupid
name right!” Bepov grabbed her gym bag and tore out of the room,
her tears shining down her cheeks in a rain of emotion.
Galí stepped off the machine in
a daze and walked over to the new UltraMachine. Not paying any attention,
she quickly sat down, stuck her feet in their weights and strapped on her
arms and lifted her legs. A cracking sound emitted from her right
arm as a wave of pain radiated from her elbow. She realized with
horror she’d forgotten to computer adjust the weights.
Her arm was numb and someone close by was
screaming at the top of her lungs. Before slipping into shock she
realized it was she…
* * *
Days drift by like years
Without you
And I cry, hope, dream
That one day we’ll talk
Again
You have left me broken,
Breathless
* * *