B.24 (Commision Slots Open)

For the most part, it was quiet. Infrequently, there were sudden sounds that seemed to spook the valley. Residents gossiped about what they'd heard, naturally, and those conversations would falter just as quickly as the events themselves. However, that social rule only applied to natural sounds found in the world. It didn't apply to manmade noise.

Spring was one of the better seasons for Sam to practice his music; everyone in town appeared chipper after the harsh frost of Winter. Music was a universal joy, especially affecting those who played it. While Sam practiced his guitar regularly throughout the year, he still wasn't good enough to his own standards. Anything less than great was unacceptable.

Although there weren't many residents in town, Sam still managed to find a drummer and a keyboardist to form a band together. His long time best friend, Sebastian, took the keyboard and assisted in writing their music. Life in Pelican town was certainly monotonous, but Sam didn't let that be a negative thing.

"It doesn't make sense, dude," said a rather grumpy Sebastian, holding a small stack of sheet music.

"Of course it makes sense," Sam defended.

"It confides me, it hides me from you," Sebastian read from the papers. "It lies to me, it makes me lie too. That shit doesn't make sense."

"That's because you're not opening your mind to interpretation! Good art is interpretive."

"Spell interpretive."

Sam thought in silence for a moment. "Okay, so if you have a better lyric for the song, you write it."

"It's not just the lyric, dude, it's the whole song. We don't even know what genre we're playing, we can't make a good song if we don't have some kind of idea."

Steps were heard coming down the stairs to Sebastian's basement room, then a set of four knocks on his door.

"Seb," a voice called through the door before opening it. "Mom said to come eat dinner."

"I'm not hungry, Maru."

"She also said she's gonna shut the wifi off if you don't eat dinner."

Another short moment of silence, followed by Sebastian's submission. "Fine, I'll eat."

"Hey, Maru! Can I have some dinner?" Sam said, pointedly at Maru.

"Mom also said that Sam has his own mom to cook for him, so he should go home and take all his crap with him."

"The fuck she did," Sebastian said as he rolled his eyes 

"Alright, I can take a hint." Sam stood from where he sat and collected his guitar and papers, turning back to Sebastian. "If you can think of lyrics better than mine, give them to me during our weekly pool game at Gus'." Maru moved out of Sam's way as he ventured back up the stairs to the main house.

"What did mom even make?" Sebastian asked his half-sister.

"Spaghetti. Dad made it, though, so it's squid ink spaghetti."

Loudly groaning, Sebastian followed Maru up to the kitchen for dinner.

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Tuesday morning, Sam had the house to himself; his mother went to her fitness club at Caroline's, and his little brother was in a class session at the museum with his teacher, Penny. Instead of hooking up his headphones to his amp and playing his guitar reasonably, he turned the amp up and played much more fiercely than he's used to. Unfortunately, too much shredding of the guitar's strings caused his skin to break open on his fingers. Sam didn't notice until he felt intense stings.

His fingers started leaving streaks of blood along the neck of the guitar. In a panic, he ran through the house looking for bandages. He couldn't remember where Jodi kept their first aid kit, no matter how many cuts and scrapes he and Vincent got. Sam grabbed a dishtowel, squeezed his fingers tightly with the towel, and headed up the road to the clinic for some bandages.

"Hi, welcome in," Maru greeted. "Oh, Sam? What's wrong?"

"Hey Maru, I didn't realize you were working! Uh, do you have any bandages?"

"What happened?" She exited the reception desk area and met Sam in the lobby. "Is that a hand towel?"

"No, it's a dish towel. Mom doesn't like people using her hand towels."

"Sam, focus."

"Right. So I was playing my guitar a bit too much and kinda sliced my fingers open."

"You sliced your fingers open?! Holy crap, why didn't you start with that part?" She quickly ushered Sam into Dr. Harvey's office, which appeared fo be empty. Grabbing the first aid kit, Maru commanded Sam. "Sit in the chair, don't open your hand yet, make sure you're pressing down firmy without accidentally squeezing any blood out. Absolutely do not move the towel to look at it."

Sam nodded along and obeyed Maru's commands.

She gathered up some alcohol swabs, cotton pads, gauze strips, and paper tape. "Okay, slowly remove the towel and give your hand to me. I'm gonna clean you off with a cotton pad first, just to get rid of extra blood." Maru wiped Sam's hands, mostly cleared up already from the towel.

"Next up is alcohol swab. This is gonna sting a bit, but it kills bacteria around the wounds so it helps prevent infection." She gently wiped around the open wounds, Sam trying not to flinch from the sting. "Okay, now I'm gonna put these strips on to catch any more blood that comes out, and I'm gonna tape around your fingers to keep them closed so they heal properly."

Individually, Maru covered and taped each slice she could find on his hand. The entire process didn't take very long, so Harvey missed the entire incident. She cleaned up the office and took Sam back to the lobby. "Don't you have finger protectors or something to prevent that from happening?"

"I do, I think."

"Next time, don't make yourself bleed for music."

The two shared goodbyes as Sam left back home, trying to think of what he's going to tell his mother later.

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