On the edge of one of the rooftops of a building not too far from Beth, a figure lay, strewn across the edge of the rooftop, precariously close to the edge, so that it would only take a single good roll to the side to send him toppling off of the roof and to the street below. Though most people, especially those afraid of heights, might have shuddered at even the thought of it, there was a quiet smile upon his features that seemed almost natural. It was rare that he gave a natural smile, but then, even as of late he didn't have so much to smile about. Or so it felt. If he could really look at it objectively he did have much to smile about, but even though he logically knew that, he could feel himself sinking into the tar of depression every time he tried to force himself to look at things optimistically...
But tonight was different. He had acquired the mystical thing known as an iPod. Having heard about one from Dannika, he had pondered buying one, but had not really known exactly where he could get a decent bargain on one. Then, he had seen it, a sign glowing in the quickly setting sun, which was exactly the sort of thing that he was looking for.
The "Best Buy".
He had honestly expected the place to be more crowded than it was. After all, why was it that not everyone shopped at the place that was the best buy in town? It only seemed logical that no one would want to pay more than the "Best" price for something. Still, while it had been somewhat crowded, it had not been too hard to find one of the iPod when he asked one of the store employees in blue shirts about it. Of course, that had opened it's way to a far harder dilemma. Dannika had made it sound as if there were a single one of them! But when he had come to ask about them, there were so many, so many very colors of them. And in terms of coffee, they were somewhat expensive too. He couldn't believe that one of them would be worth 100 cups of coffee.
At first, when he had plugged it in, he had been apalled. It had taken many questions of the employee there to get the thing started, and the music that had been on it. If it could be called. It was like random cacophic screetching. It had almost been enough to make him send it to the ground, into a thousand pieces. But seeing his disgust at what could be called music, he had been directed to something called a "Geek Squad". He did not know exactly what it meant, but they did not seem to be much of a squad at all... still, the man there had helped explain things to him more.
Once Desmond had put a few hundred dollar bills out in front of the man, he had been more than happy to track down some Mozart cds for Desmond... do something called 'ripping' them, though it didn't look like he did anything to them at all, and then put them on the iPod. Upon polite request he had removed the garbage that had come pre-loaded onto the thing. In addition, having learned of Desmond's love of classical composers, he had suggested something called... showtunes. Desmond was skeptical, but he agreed to it anyway, once he learned that he could skip such things if he wanted to.
It had taken a full 3 hours in the store, and had cost him nearly another 500 cups of coffee or so, but it had been worth it!
Ah, to hear the wonderful compositions of such gifted individuals, as if a full orchestra were there in front of him! True, the sound quality of it left a little bit to be desired, it was not quite the same as having attended some of those first amazing performances. And yet, still, it was amazing, at the tap of a finger he could move from one movement to the next, or back again to rehear a piece that was so unbelievably moving that it nearly brought him to tears.
And the "show tunes"! What amazing voices people had, even to this day. This was music that was real... no screetching of random instruments, but rather pure vocal ability. Some of it was still less than ideal.... but the rest was worth it.