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screechthemighty · 2 months

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*holds my hand out like I'm summoning a cat* hey mithan fans psspsspsspss guess what fic update time (If any of this feels familiar, that's because it's a re-write of the anniversary chapter in milestones. And by "re-write" I mean "there's a lot of copy-pasting from that chapter," lol. Hope you enjoy it regardless!)

catch me floating circles in my fish bowl - part five:

May 28, 2021:

“You ready?”

He wasn’t. He thought he’d be. Ethan had been dreaming about this moment for weeks. That didn’t stop him from hesitating.

Irrational as it was, things had been going a little too well lately. He didn’t need so many injections. He’d been sleeping better. Things were great between him and Mia, all things considered. Finally having that talk hadn’t erased everything wrong in the relationship, or their individual lives, but there was no longer that barrier between them. They could work on things together. It was a relief.

So, of course, he was bracing himself for something to go wrong. For the other shoe to drop. Or, more specifically, for him to stand up and somehow spontaneously break his leg the second he tried to walk on his own.

Come on. Don’t be a wimp. Ethan took a deep breath and braced his hands against the wheelchair. Mia’s waiting for you.

That thought spurred him to stand. Tom was ready with the walker. It was the one concession Ethan had made, weighing how much the use of it counted as walking on his own against the chance of falling on his face in front of Mia on their anniversary. It suddenly didn’t feel like enough support. His hands would’ve been shaking if he wasn’t gripping the walker so tightly.

“Are you in any pain?” Tom asked.

“No.” The word came out with a shaky laugh. “Just nerves.”

Tom nodded. “You can do this. You’ve gotten a lot stronger since you started, and all your medical scans say you’re structurally sound. Trust me, I wouldn’t be okaying this if I was worried.”

Ethan nodded. He took a deep breath. “Time to go see my wife,” he said quietly.

Time to put all of that work to good use.

Ethan fixed his eyes forward and took his first steps.

It felt like their last truly normal anniversary celebration had been before Dulvey; what today lacked in normalcy, it made up for in pure effort. Carlos and Jill had Rose, and the people around Blue Umbrella had managed to get their hands on proper dinner for them. Mia didn’t know how, or who had set up a private dining space for them in one of the garden areas. Every time she asked Marshal, he told her it was a group effort. Enough of her things had been recovered for her to wear a dress and some makeup. She didn’t know what Ethan was wearing—he’d told her that he’d meet her down there—but he could’ve showed up still in hospital clothes and she would’ve been happy.

He was alive. He was there. He was staying. It was more than she could’ve hoped for.

As she sat at the table, Mia noticed movement out of the corner of her eye. A shape became clearer through the slightly distorted glass. It was Ethan. He was walking. She could just make out the shape of someone else in the hallway, probably one of the doctors, but whoever it was, they stayed a respectful enough distance away that they must have felt confident he wouldn’t fall. Mia jumped to her feet and met him at the door. Ethan was wearing a simple button-up and slacks, and someone had trimmed his hair back. He was using a walker, but Mia was glad to see he’d accepted the help. Ethan’s eyes widened as she opened the door. “…hey,” he said softly.

“Hey,” Mia responded. She was so caught up in how healthy he was now that she almost missed the look in his eyes—soft, gentle, the kind of look that usually preceded him telling her how beautiful she looked. He always seemed to get that look when she hadn’t tried to look beautiful, or when she didn’t feel like she was especially beautiful. She’d never been able to figure out what he saw in her in those moments. She especially couldn’t figure it out now. “You’re walking.”

“More or less, yeah. I’m not going to be breaking any speed records, but…”

Mia cut him off with a hug. The surge of emotion that swept through her was nearly enough to make her need a walker. He’d been inches from death only a few months ago. She’d been so close to losing everything. But he’d clawed his way back to her, to Rose. He had come back to her. Seeing him standing there just made it all real.

She wouldn’t have to worry about him anymore. She might forget that later, but in that moment, it was the truest thing in her life.

Ethan hugged her back tightly. His voice trembled slightly when he spoke: “Guess I managed to surprise you, huh?”

“Just a little.” Mia let go, kissing him on the cheek as she pulled away. “Here, come in. They’ve got everything set up.”

Mia was so wrapped up in her own elation that she almost missed Ethan sighing in relief when he sat down. “Are you okay?” she asked once she’d realized.

“Yeah, yeah, I was just kind of worried I’d eat dirt in the home stretch, you know?” Ethan laughed sheepishly. “If it was going to happen, it’d either happen when you first saw me or when we both got too comfortable.” His face softened again as he looked at her. “I didn’t know you still had that dress.”

“I’m just lucky that they brought any of my dresses. You might’ve had to see me in my best pajama pants.”

“You’d still be beautiful, though.” Ethan reached his intact hand across the table to squeeze hers before he picked up his fork. “I think we’re going to owe Blue Umbrella a lot of thank-you cards.”

Mia laughed quietly as she picked hers up. “Yeah. We definitely are.” They’d given Mia her husband back. She was never going to be able to repay them for that.

The conversation wasn’t one they’d usually have on a night like this. Instead of talking about work, they were talking about the developments with Ethan’s future prosthetic. By all accounts, his nerves had healed enough to allow for an experimental full-use prosthetic. It would require more regular visits from Blue Umbrella, just to be sure that it worked the way it should, but, as Ethan pointed out, “I get to be a cyborg, so that’s not the worst trade-off.”

“Just promise me you won’t go super hardcore into…what’s it called? The thing that the guy from your old job was into?”

“Trans-humanism?” Ethan laughed. “Shit, I’d almost forgotten about him.”

“Well, you weren’t the one he was trying to impress.” Mia rolled her eyes at the memory. “He’s permanently filed in my memory under kinds of men to avoid.”

“That’s fair. Shit, what do you think everyone back in Texas is up to these days?”

“Same old, probably.” Mia wondered if any of them ever thought of the Winters, or if they’d just become distant memories. Footnotes in a random documentary about strange disappearances. “I’ll tell you one thing, all of this has made me miss those office jobs.”

“Tell me about it. My boss never turned into a dragon…” Ethan paused. “Kind of felt like he might a few times, though.”

Mia couldn’t help laughing. She knew exactly what he meant. “What do you think you’ll do once we’re out?” she asked. There was a strange thrill at being able to even think about that future, no matter how strange it might be. She’d take any future with him and Rose.

“Honestly, I have no idea. I haven’t thought that far ahead.” Ethan shrugged as he poked at the last bites of his food. “I’ll probably have to find something remote. Or get into pro wrestling.”

“Pro…Ethan!”

“What? With a face like this, I’d make a great heel.”

“I…I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”

“…I’m mostly joking.”

Mia started laughing again. It felt like the most she’d laughed in months, maybe years. “I see your point,” she said, “but for what it’s worth, I like your face.”

“Even after all of this?”

“Even after all of this,” Mia confirmed. She reached across the table to touch his cheek. “Always and forever.”

Ethan smiled at her and leaned into the touch. The length of the table suddenly felt too far a distance. Mia moved her chair around so she was right next to him. As she did, Ethan pulled something out from under his shirt. It was his wedding ring. He’d been wearing it on a necklace all this time. Mia wondered now if he had planned on wearing it on the proposed mechanical hand, or was just waiting for his right hand to recover more fully. Fine tune motor control could still be hit or miss. “Why are you supposed to wear this on your left hand?” he asked.

“Tradition,” Mia said. She rested her head on his shoulder. Even with their reconciliation, there was something strange about the gesture, almost awkward. The ease of casual touch was slowly coming back, but she couldn’t help noticing he hadn’t gained back all his lost weight. He’s doing better, though. One day at a time. “They used to think there was a vein that ran from the ring finger directly to the heart.”

“Really?”

“Hmm. All your fingers connect to the heart, but it’s a nice thought.”

“That does sound more like what I learned in high school bio class,” Ethan said. “So, it…doesn’t really matter if I wear it on the other hand? Because if we’re going to be integrating back into society soon, I need people to know I’m taken. I don’t want to be beating off unwanted attention.” Mia laughed again. “What? I’m a catch. Everyone knows it.”

“You are,” Mia agreed. “I was lucky to grab you before someone else did.”

“To be fair, you were the only one who saw it back then.” Mia scoffed. “No, it’s true. I feel like at least half the people in that office didn’t know who I was.”

The thing was, Mia believed it. She even understood why, to a degree. Ethan had been low-drama in the office. He showed up for his scheduled hours, did his job highly competently, didn’t bother anyone, didn’t start anything. It was actually that lack that had made him stand out to her. She’d dealt with enough adults acting like high schoolers in her lifetime. Someone who behaved himself felt extraordinary.

“Why did you say yes, anyway?” Ethan asked suddenly.

Mia was caught off-guard by the question. It didn’t help that 2009 had been so long ago. Sometimes she felt like that part of her life had happened to someone else. “To the first date, or to marrying you?”

“Both.”

She started with the first one after digging through her memories. “Well, for the first one, you’re cute. Yes, even in the company-labeled polos.” Ethan groaned in mock pain. Mia bit back a laugh. They had not been flattering polos, but he’d made it work somehow. “And opening with do you like jellyfish caught my attention.”

“So, good looks and an air of mystery. Got it.” Ethan rested his cheek against the top of her head. “And when I proposed?”

She remembered that much more clearly. “I loved you. I loved you because…you were stable. You were reliable. You showed up. I’d never had someone care about me the way you did.” If she’d only known what that caring would lead to. “Do you remember when my car broke down during that freak cold snap? I thought you were going to stay on the phone with me until the tow truck got there, but you drove all the way out there so I wouldn’t be alone.”

Ethan laughed quietly. “Yeah, I remember. I was just surprised I beat the tow truck.”

“I’m not.” That was classic Ethan. He was always there for her, one way or another. “Honestly, if you hadn’t asked me when you did, I probably would’ve asked you.”

Ethan looked surprised. His expression now was almost the same as when she’d said yes back then. “Wait, is that why I barely got my speech out before you said yes?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit. And there I was nervous you’d say no.”

She almost wanted to laugh again. How could there have ever been a doubt in his mind? Why wouldn’t she say yes? The more accurate question was…

“Why did you ask me?” What about me was so special? She was afraid to ask, in a way, but she couldn’t help it. She had to know.

Ethan didn’t hesitate. “Why wouldn’t I? You’re funny, smart, beautiful…never give up kind of girl. I know how rough all those temp jobs were for you, but even when you were angry about it, you didn’t let it keep you down for long. And before you forget, you were the one who helped me deal with two moves and a major job change in two years. It wasn’t just me showing up.”

Mia did remember. He might have seen it as gumption, but not giving up had never been an option for her. If she didn’t fight for herself, no one else would…until him, of course. She’d always just thought that doing the same for him was the bare minimum. “You could’ve handled that on your own.”

“Maybe, but I didn’t want to. You were there for me, every time. It kept me sane.” His eyes defocused slightly, as if he were digging something up from the deepest parts of his memory, and a fond smile drifted onto his face. “It was the second move, when I was waiting to hear back about the new job. I had that storage shelf I couldn’t figure out because I hadn’t slept, so I called you for backup.”

“Oh, that thing.” Funny how she had so many holes in her memory, but she could remember her resentment towards that piece of shit pretty well. “I swore at the instructions, right?”

“You did, but it was very endearing swearing. And I was in the kitchen getting us both pizza, and…I don’t know. I just realized this was how I wanted it to be. You and me, together. I thought about asking right then, but with the job still up in the air, y’know, I wanted to make sure everything was stable on my end, first.” He ran his thumb along the ring’s surface. “But that was when I knew.”

He had waited a few months to ask her, if her memory was right. Mia wondered how he’d been able to keep it in all that time. She’d barely been able to keep from asking him more than once. She’d felt the same way for so long, even if she didn’t have a name for it, and that feeling had never faded. Not once.

“I don’t think I can get this back on without dropping it,” Ethan said quietly. “Give me a hand?”

Mia’s breath caught in her chest, just for a second. She was a little worried she would drop the ring as she pulled away to take the ring and slip it onto his ring finger. There was a moment where she wondered if it would still fit after all the damage and rehabilitation his hand had been through, but it slid on perfectly. As if he’d never taken it off.

“That’s better.” Ethan took Mia’s hand and kissed it gently. “Here’s to ten more years, huh?”

Tears welled up in Mia’s eyes, but she blinked them away. Today wasn’t a day for tears. Today was a celebration, and not just of their marriage. They were both still alive, against all odds. Still together. Still a team.

She wasn’t going to let anything bring them apart ever again.

“Ten more years,” Mia agreed. “I love you, Ethan.”

“I love you, too.” Ethan’s forehead rested against hers. For a while, they sat in silence, just reveling in the proximity to each other. Ethan was the one who pulled away first. “Oh, I almost forgot…”

“What?” Mia had to pull away so he could reach into his jacket. “What is it?”

“Jill gave me something before I came down here. Said it was from the three of them and that I should wait until I see you?” It was a plain envelope, not very thick but all the more mysterious for it. “I have no idea what it is and Carlos wouldn’t look at me, so I’m assuming it’s a pretty big surprise.”

“Well, now I’m curious.” Ethan held out the envelope to Mia, who opened it carefully. The exterior was a pretty standard anniversary card—cartoon otters holding hands, cursive font congratulating them on their marriage. When Mia opened it, though, something was taped to the inside left. A photograph of a house, out in what looked like either the countryside or an underdeveloped area.

Is that…?

Ethan read the hand-written message aloud: “We’re finishing up the final details with this. Once it’s settled and the docs give the go-ahead, you’ll…” His voice broke. “…you’ll have someplace to go. More details incoming, all the best…”

Mia put the card down and hugged Ethan tightly. He hugged her back, his body trembling with tears of happiness.

They could see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it had never looked brighter.

#fic: catch me floating circles in my fish bowl #resident evil #mithan

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feels-like-floating · 1 year

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Born in Hawaii and raised in Japan, Dustin Wong is an American guitarist and former member of art-rock band Ponytail. Represented through Thrill Jockey and (soon) Leaving Records, Dustin has also collaborated with musicians Takako Minekawa and Dan Deacon.

We recently had a chance to speak with Dustin about his practice and upcoming spring residency with us. Get cozy for this conversation that meanders through the architecture of sonic collaboration, landscapes of music-making, and being inspired by AI impressionism.

Interview conducted and edited by Light Liu, Director of Community Platforms at Floating.

Light: Let’s start by talking about your music, your practice, and what you're looking to do with music in general.

Dustin: There's been a lot of changes in process since I started playing publicly. At first I was just trying to figure out how to put together sounds using software by trial and error and incrementally try to understand the theories and how things worked.

It was all visual and shapes, like squares and triangles and rectangles, putting together shapes to create sounds. And as I started doing bands [in Ponytail], music was all based on ideas rather than theory, through trial and error working things out, [then later realizing] what kind of musical ideas we were actually [using].

[Then] it shifted more into solo performance and group-based music and that became more about studying the geography of the guitar and understanding the mechanics of how each note corresponds to each other, research and study of harmony, counterpoint, patterns & percussive elements.

I started collaborating with Takako, and that became the realm of sampling, the idea of taking a sound and understanding what those sounds can feel like in different octaves. While we were in Japan, at the end of the show, the promoter would [sometimes] suggest doing improvisations with the people and the bill, and I found that to be really novel. I started getting the bug for improvising, and we shifted into a more free form structure. We went on a few tours where we improvised [the whole time.]

Here in LA, I became way more interested in the idea of building something new every time when performing. There are more opportunities here to play more improvised music with other players here. I was so impressed with how people can catch a sound, play with it and return something back that’s resonant or challenging or [taken] to a whole new realm. It's been such a great practice for me what I'm trying to do with the Floating residencies.

L: Listening to your music & the way that you talk about your music, there's this very cross sensory feeling about your approach. It’s very visual and almost tactile, there’s a real sense of a concept or framework to your music. Would you like to talk about that at all?

D: It's changed a lot, my idea of the way I approach my gear, my interface, my pedals. When I was doing solo loop guitar, I associated everything as a kind of factory, each pedal corresponding to each other as this module of resources [where] sound is being transformed into another sound, into another sound, into another sound.

That has changed quite a bit. I don't see my gear as a factory anymore. The scenery has gotten wider. It's like I can see the things outside of the factory so to speak, where there's sounds that slip into the space, like cars, trucks, people yelling, sirens. It was a bit of a challenge in the beginning, because I always thought of those sounds as being intrusive, but the fault was mine, [because] in a sense, I had to include those sounds for the music to work. And now I welcome those sounds when I practice. It's inspiring. It's like, “Oh, I want that texture, and so I'll include that.” It's like, “Thank you for the tip,” you know?

L: How are you taking this kind of mindset into your residency at Floating this spring?

D: I'm hoping that the people I'll be playing with will create, you know, fun accidents. That can be a potential for something new.

L: Is there some kind of intent that you have for the residency or how you’re curating people?

D: The first performance will be with Cate Kennan and Celia Hollander. They're both excellent with the keyboard, the synthesizer and [have] a sensibility of the surreal and uncanny aspects of what music can do, and I'm just really excited to explore these new spaces. I want to grow more as a musician, I want to know what I can do beyond what I'm doing right now. And by playing with other people, you're able to reflect on each other and see yourself more through other people.

The second performance will be with Butoh dancer, Kyoko Takenaka. That'll be this whole idea of how movement, physical & bodily movement, can affect how I will change my sounds or how the sounds can change physical movement within the context of the environment. I'm excited about that. And then the third performance will be with Brin and Dylan Fujioka, and they're both drummers, so it'll be more of an exploration of rhythm and percussion & how I can navigate through that. It’s like trying to put together a fun obstacle course, by inviting your friends to play and maneuver and find yourself through that. [laughs]

L: That's a really nice way of putting it. Have you played with them before?

D: I have not played with Kate in a session before, and not really with Celia either.

L: So what drew you to their work?

D: I've played a show with Cate where we were on the same bill, and she plays these sounds that, it's so hard to put into words, it's not cerebral because it feels physical, but it does take you to a place that's otherworldly, a realm that's surreal, fantastic, dream-like, not in the sense of the landscape, but more of a feeling, that you're feeling it in your mind and in your soul.

Similarly [with] Celia, she's able to juxtapose different sounds that when you hear it it makes you realize, “Of course these sounds work together,” but you would never think to put those sounds together. It's poignant, simple, [but also] very intentional.

L: What kind of relationship do you feel like you have to the outdoors or playing music outside?

D: It's the best.

Floating was actually the first show I've played since the pandemic. That was with Jeremiah Chiu at the Japanese tea garden at Storrier Stearns. It was the most cathartic experience I've had in a long time, because I hadn’t played a show in maybe a year or so. And maybe more so now, but you feel comfortable being outside. You feel safe.

The way the sounds bounce, you know, it's different in every outdoor setting. If there's trees, there's a certain acoustic reverberation that the trees have, they soak in the sound, but they also bounce back the sound, and you have the wind. The sounds can be very welcoming, the rustling of the leaves, or even a person in a distance having a conversation, the sounds all integrate without being intrusive. Dogs barking, children crying. It all works for some reason, rather than if it was indoors, it would feel different I believe.

L: How so?

D: It'll be too much. It'll bounce off the walls too much. The pace of the sounds are different, you know, it's a lot more opaque. Outdoors, the sounds are more translucent.

L: That's a really lovely way to describe that, it's very poetic and also insightful in a way that's different from stating an objective fact about it. It's nice. [laugh] I really liked what you said earlier about the geography of the guitar. Is there any resonance between that and the geography of a landscape?

D: It's kind of like treading paths, right? You're walking through this environment that you're not accustomed to. When I was learning guitar, I was like, “How do I approach this?” And at first I was like, well, I'll just figure out, I'll make recognizable shapes that I can memorize. And the path to this environment, it just starts growing into the landscape more. It's like, “This is a shortcut.” Or, “This is the long way around, but a better view.” I just feel a lot more comfortable now with the guitar. It feels like a home where I feel comfortable walking around.

L: Cute, and very cool. Let’s see, is there anything else that you want to add?

D: The other thing I've been thinking about a lot is the recent AI stuff that's been happening with stable diffusion and AI-based music and where artificial intelligence is able to emulate imagery. It's reminding me of this idea of likeness. I don't know if you remember being a child and having a classmate that's really good at drawing and being like, “Wow, that looks like the thing you're looking at.” I've been really thinking about the idea of likeness, in the sense of music as well. It kind of sounds like music, and maybe that's just right, you know?

I think that's what the fascination of impressionism is. It's not a complete painting, but that's what makes it complete. I'm exploring that idea with my sounds right now, like two steps removed from “what it's like.” AI's making “what it looks like,” but I'm trying to redefine the idea of “likeness.” It's measuring like, where's “almost there?”

L: Do you have anything coming up that you wanna promote?

D: Two records coming out this year. The collaboration with Brin will be coming out with Leaving Records this year. And a solo record is coming up on Hausu Mountain Records. I'll be preparing for those releases soon.

Float with us this spring for Dustin Wong’s seasonal residency & check out his upcoming albums :)

#music #interview #music interview #outdoor art #outdoor music #nature #guitar #artist residency #floating #artist interview #dustin wong #celia hollander #cate kennan #kyoko takenaka #brin #dylan fujioka

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