ephemeral // matty healy

forced nieceties

Blair woke up with her face on her keyboard. The letters were printed onto her forehead when he lifted her head off her desk. She tried to discretely rub them away, but Hamidi surprised her. He towered over her but kept a friendly smile.

"Uh, hello, Hamidi," Blair smoothed her hair and straighten up in her chair.

"Hi, Blair." He whispered, "Don't worry, I've been guilty of nodding off at my desk as well."

She sheepishly smiled the awkward air away.

"Would you mind stepping into my office?"

"Oh, yeah totally," she said. "Don't fire me, don't fire me, don't fire me," she chanted in her brain.

"Relax, you look like you've seen a ghost," Hamidi said as he closed the door behind her. "I only wanted to chat about your and Ronan's latest project."

She gulped, but she tried to keep her cool. "Oh yes, the music video. Um, still working on it, but it's coming along nicely." She finger-combed her hair back out of her eyes.

"That's lovely, I'm glad to hear it." He sipped his cup of plain Earl Grey. "I don't want you to feel nervous because your first project is with a high-profile client. I want you to have fun and flex your abilities."

Blair continued to shift in her chair and fidget with her hair. "Of course, Hamidi."

His eyebrows raised while he stared at her for a moment too long.

"You are having fun on this project, aren't you?" Hamidi's voice was assertive now, almost commanding her to enjoy herself.

"Of course, Hamidi."

"And you would tell me if you were struggling with something that made you not enjoy this project, wouldn't you?"

"Of course, Hamidi." The air was still after her last remark, but she meant it genuinely. Mostly.

The two were in a staring standoff until Hamidi looked into his tea again.

"Excellent," his tone softened now. She eased a shallow sigh of relief. "Now, before I start replying to emails, I wanted to ask another thing."

Blair's leg grew restless as she nervously looked at her boss.

"I'm going to run up to that shabby little café up the road, do you want anything?"

She smiled and denied the watery coffee. The two thanked each other as Blair made a quick exit.

-

Matty was barely awake as he dragged himself out of bed. He cursed himself for staying up late for the third time this week. The birds outside his window wouldn't stop tweeting and his phone wouldn't stop buzzing.

Adam had messaged him nearly fourteen times, something about having an idea during a rehearsal he was missing. He was fourty minutes late, and it would be ending by the time he got ready and met them.

Matty tromped into the kitchen and scavenged for food, then gave up. He wasn't hungry anyway.

Instead, he contacted Blair. His finger hovered over the "Call" button before he settled on a text message. A quick check-in on the video. He wanted to keep things light because he couldn't tell where he stood with her. The message grew less and less appropriate as he typed and erased and typed and erased and typed.

morning! how is the video going?

Jesus, he thought, is that stupid?

Before he had too much of a chance to dwell on it, Blair replied:

things are good, ronan can send you a small sample if you'd like?

Matty's eye lit up. From the sidewalk, a passerby saw him jump off the counter and dance around in his pajamas.

yes! that sounds great!

He decided that the video would be the perfect thing to bring to practice and anxiously paced back and forth until he received the clip. Matty's finger hovered over the notification on his cellphone. Open it. No, wait for everyone. Fuck everyone, open it anyway.

His internal battle yielded a long wait, but he softened the blow by making it seem like a movie theatre.

George's eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw that Matty had picked up some of his cinema favourites, namely anything sweet.

"Turn it on! Turn it on!" He said as everyone gathered around Matty's laptop. The screen illuminated as a short clip of a digital Matty in a matrix-like scene came on with cuts to a forest and back again. The second verse to "The Birthday Party" played as their eyes intently watched over every detail.  It looked high quality, but it also had an overall aesthetic of the late 2000s.

Somehow Blair and the team had brought every one of Matty's fragmented thoughts together into a beautiful mish-mash of something that made sense. It felt right to him. He sat back against his chair.

"Looks a bit funny doesn't it?" Ross spoke up after the video ended. "I like it quite a lot, but it looks funny."

"Doesn't it?" Matty said breathlessly.