Unlikely – 0.2
Kylie Unlikely is listless. The wind howls outside of the water tower and it is a dark and moonless night. The Caelocanth glides next to her in his tank, watching her through his slightly cloudy eyes. Spread in front of the tank are copies of Angler's Weekly, an effort Kylie made to make him comfortable in their new home. There are soft bubbles from the tank, but she can sense her friend is not at ease.
Kylie reaches for her TV remote; scans through the channels and settles on a music documentary:
“Die Spießer”, a documentary on the German synthesizer brothers from the late 1960's.
Rolf Spießer and Heinz Spießer are on a low stage in front of an audience of about four hundred students. The footage is in black and white and this is some sort of student gathering place and everyone here is studious in not showing any emotion or any hint of having a good time. The room is full of cigarette smoke.
Rolf and his brother Heinz are in black polo necks and both are making some interminable droning noise from some indistinct boxes in front of them. They occasionally frown at their contraptions and adjust dials from time to time.
The music pauses. There is a ripple of barely interested applause.
“Danke.” Says Rolf.
Heinz looks towards his brother and nods.
They start a new song. A bandsaw like drone fills the room. Rolf hits the panel of his instrument with a regular beat and notices that his brother jerks spasmodically to the beat. The audience are now interested and are up on their feet. The music gathers in intensity, Heinz's hands jerk erratically and his eyes are rolled upwards – there are beads of sweat forming on his forehead.
Rolf has disconnected an earth wire to Heinz's instrument panel. It is a petty revenge for years of sibling rivalry. The voltage passes through his brother's body in time to his frantic beating of his fists on his own instrument panel.
The audience are in ecstasy, they mimic the movements of the frenetic Heinz.
Heinz collapses to the stage, a thin wisp of smoke rises from his hair. His eyes rolled back, a trickle of drool from the corner of his mouth.
Rolf realises at this moment that he has invented a new form of dance music. In a zoom shot; close up, he stares manically out at what he has created.
The camera pans around the hall and just for a moment, a reflection can be seen in a large fish tank and two sad, cloudy eyes of a large fish.
Kylie Unlikely switches off her television.
She communes telepathically in that moment with the Caelocanth; who shrugs his pectoral fins and drifts off to the far side of the tank, and says:
“Poor Heinz. His brother was such a bully.”
Ah, mused Kylie: The Spießer brothers.. Geniuses both, but hell to work with. It was all so long ago now too.
Several albums ago in fact.
Besides, it was late and time for sleep. She switches off the living room lights, leaving just the eerie green glow of the Caelocanth's saline tank. The hum of the pump, the trickle of bubbles.
“Goodnight, Caelocanth.”
“Goodnight Miss Unlikely, sleep well.”