Dead Hours — Track Seven, Page 9
By Suha · Published
Log in to see this page
Page 9 of Track Seven is for signed-in readers. Logging in brings you straight back here — and an account is free if you do not have one.
Transcript
Panel 1: Kaito paces behind the counter counting on his fingers, brow furrowed in enormous concentration. KAITO: Four. The bossa one. Panel 2: Tight close-up on his hands, four fingers raised on one hand, the other hand mid-count. KAITO: Five. The piano one. Panel 3: Kaito with his eyes shut, five fingers up, reciting from memory. KAITO: Six. The one with the ducks. Panel 4: Rin, deadpan behind the counter, phone raised, one earbud in. RIN: There are no ducks. Panel 5: Kaito rounds on her with six fingers raised, offended dignity. KAITO: There are ducks. KAITO: Seven. Whistling. Panel 6: Silence. A wide two-shot: Kaito stands with seven fingers raised and absolutely nothing happens. Rin lowers her phone a little. The store is empty behind them. RIN: You just said seven out loud and the room stayed the same. KAITO: Yes.
Image description
Six panels. Kaito counts the loop out on his fingers to prove track seven exists, reaches seven, and nothing happens.
About this chapter
The store's 47-minute music loop has run unchanged for six years, and Kaito can name every track by its first note. Tonight, at 3:14 A.M., track seven — sixty-eight seconds of whistling, a xylophone, and a woman saying 'have a nice day' — simply does not play. The loop goes six, then eight. Kaito spends the entire shift trying to prove a song he has heard eleven thousand times ever existed: he waits out four full cycles, interrogates the tracksuit regular, hears track seven playing as head office's hold music, and is told it was pulled from every store back in April. Rin films all of it. At dawn track seven returns — except it isn't whistling, it's Kaito's own humming, looped, because Rin has secretly been the store's music since the real player died in April, and tonight she cut the whistle out because it was ruining her audio. He gets nothing. She gets four hundred thousand listeners.