Page 1: "Can I Accompany You?"

One (1)

The Overature

Static held like a breath between songs on the radio. Numbing heat hummed from the vents, filling the car with unnatural warmth. It made Kosuke’s skin itch. Raindrops hit the sunroof, trilling ornamentations like a Baroque counterpoint. Bum-bum-bum-bum. He squinted past a lifted truck with its brights on, spotlighting him as he shifted against the uncomfortable collar of his uniform.

He reached for the button, and wind sliced through the sticky, beading sweat on his collarbone, and silenced the crescendo of his sister’s vanilla perfume, bathing him at once with the scent of sweet earth.

Petrichor, pronunciation /‘pe-tri-kôr/, noun, the smell of rain on dry ground.

The truck passed, leaving Kosuke in shadow again, the muted squelch of rubber rolling down the slick pavement like strips of Velcro being pushed together only to be pulled apart. Water fanned out of the wheels of passing cars the color of iridescent wind spinners, the kind they used to give out at festivals.

“You’re getting the car wet,” his mother said.

Wipers flicked over his view. He kept his sigh silent as he rolled the window back up, and the parade of Mozart’s Symphony No 40 began spilling through the old speakers with suffocating perfection.

His mother turned up the heat until the fans were blasting, bobbing her head absently as she glanced in the rearview mirror for her daughter. Headphones dangled from his sister’s ears as she studied her score, tap-tap-tapping fingers ringing in perfect time on canvas seats.

His mother smiled.