Shopping for the Soul (tag Elise)

[François Laffont]

François loved his father. That was not the point. But the man needed to calm down. Seriously, if he said he’d come back at 10 and arrived at 10:05, it was not the end of the world. He got slowed down somewhere. It didn’t mean someone grabbed up and beat him half to death before living him in a gutter. He knew why Simon Laffont reacted this way. One day, had he arrived only a few minutes later, he might have found his son dead from exhaustion or of a panic attack. But it was over. His mother was not here. And he had yet seen any fanatic around. If they were, they’d more be about letting gifted people like himself loose and known in the world, not about killing them one by one and call that saving their souls. Anyway, he needed a break. The man was charming but he could use people not watching out for him at second of his life.

He knew what he needed: shopping. Going out in town, having fun, the whole thing. He just needed it, before going crazy. He was tired of training, tired of doing homework and tired of assuring his father he was fine all the time. He’ll take the next hours for himself only. And it will be great.

He didn’t really know where he’d go in particular, but just walking down the street felt good right about now. For a second, he did recall the weather was not like that back in France but he shook it off of his mind. Montana wasn’t so bad either. He did some window-shopping. In reality, he didn’t need anything. But he did have a certain feeling of satisfaction when buying new stuff on his own. It was great therapy. Then again, window-shopping also was. And with the amount of money he had, he knew he wouldn’t buy a lot. But he didn’t care. Right now, the cost of things was the last of his worries. He’ll think about that when it will be time to buy something.

He had no particular order for the shops to visit. In fact, he didn’t even know which ones he’ll visit. But as he thought of that, he came at the corner of a music store and figured life decided for himself. He walked inside and started looking at the rows of albums. He doubted they had any French music in there. Then again... it was true that people here came from many different places around the world. They could have something to satisfy all of their music taste. He will have to check...

[Deleted]

Elise was quite happy with the way her life had turned out. The beginning had been quite dramatic and full of events she preferred to keep buried, but as life progressed and she grew older, things got brighter. She was recruited to Bellefonte, got her powers somewhat under control, met a good guy, graduated, started her own business and got her music career on track. Yes, Elise had no complaints about the way her life had turned out, and she was happy. Very happy.

Walking down the street with her heads in the clouds, Elise flipped her phone back into her purse and let out a faint sigh. She pursed her lips as she looked around. She knew it was around here somewhere. The music store she had gone to when she was still a student at Bellefonte. It had been her best friend on many occasions and it had been a great part of her decision to become a musician. Well, that and the fact that her mother had been one as well. Her brown eyes gazed over the different signs hanging on the brickwalls of the perfect line of buildings down the street and shook her head.

It was somewhere around here... She was sure of it.

Then the familiar sound of a doorbell caught her ear and with a grin, she turned towards the sound and exhaled. Finally. The building had been painted, re-modelled and well, it didn't look as shabby as it had way back when. There was no wonder she hadn't seen it before. With a few, quick steps the brunette ran over the street and with childish excitement, she opened the door and took in the familiar smell of dusty records and plastic.

Walking around the room, Elise's eyes absentmindedly shifted over the different CD-covers, looking for anything familiar as they finally rested at a younger boy, maybe eighteen-ish years of age and she smiled. ''You don't see a lot of youngsters going to music stores anymore. I mean, with today's technology, most people seem to prefer downloading a song over actually buying the CD.'', she said as her fingers flipped up a cover and grimaced at the picture of a half-naked woman pressing her butt up in the camera. How... Tacky.

[François Laffont]

There was something great about music stores. He couldn’t explain why. Maybe because people kept predicting their death as people bought more and more music online and less albums. But he loved albums. He loved looking at the cover, to read the lyrics while the music was pounding at his ears, he liked to see the artistic style the singer tried to give to it all. He felt like there was something impersonal about just buying one song. Plus where was the point of making an album then if people only buy 2-3 songs? And then, what do you do? You put it in your computer, your Ipod, your mp3 player and so on? What if you lose them, what then? He liked having a copy on disk, to have an actual object holding the music he loved. Plus he felt like he knew the singer more buying the whole album, discovering songs people should know sometimes even more than the hit playing on the radio. This was a lot better.

Then again, it was sometimes hard to come over French stuff around here. He could still order them, he guessed. But he knew he shouldn’t just focus on his home country’s culture. There were many other great artists. They all deserved at least a moment of his attention. Then again, maybe not all! There were just so many albums, of so many different people. Some names he knew, others were obscure to him. He took one, started to look at the different songs in it. But he was distracted as someone came towards him. At first, he thought it was someone working there and he was about to tell whoever it was that he was simply looking around. But the voice didn’t ask if he needed any help. Instead, it talked to him about finding younger people in music stores.

He raised his head, understanding it must be another person who came here for the same reasons as he did. With what she said, he expected her to be way older than this. But she must be at most in her mid-twenties, right? “I like it better. You can’t know an artist by just downloading their song of the moment,” he explained with a light shrug. He watched her as she took an album herself before putting it back, apparently not pleased by it. He didn’t see the cover so he didn’t know it was the reason and only thought he disliked the artist or something. Not that it mattered. “You don’t seem that much older yourself,” he objected. How old could she really be? He knew you couldn’t ask a woman that. “So why are you denying today’s technology as well?” he asked in return.