Work Text:
I sneak into the lab as if I'm a thief. I’m late for work today, so I need to be quiet so as to not disturb the team meeting going on. Of course, as our team only has three people, including myself, my presence is promptly noticed.
“Elaine.”
Our supervisor, Reid, coughs through his enormous foam bear head. He always wears it. I’ve never seen him without it, and all I know about him is that he’s finished grad school with a dual-degree in Rhythm and Love/Eternal Companionship. Whenever I ask him why he wears his foam head, he always gives the same answer: "I used to work at a zoo."
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! My alarm didn’t go off this morning!” I frantically scramble to the coat rack at the back of the lab to put on my lab coat, mandatory to wear inside the lab, and I bring all of my notes to Reid at the front of the room.
"As I was saying," Reid sighs. "We need better security on the lizard terrarium in the main lab."
"They got out again?!" My eyes widen. Those lizards are slippery ones, that's for sure.
"Yeah," Sebastian groans. "Second time this month. It's a wonder we ever found them last time."
"How did they get out?"
"According to the cameras, the male smashed the glass repeatedly with its tail. Then they both escaped through an open vent."
“That must be how they got out last time,” I point out.
“Good thing we installed those cameras.” Reid mutters.
“But now they could be anywhere in Rhythm Heaven!” I cry out.
“And the female was about to lay her eggs!” Sebastian adds.
“I know, I know.” Reid scribbles on his clipboard. “I’m already in the process of ordering a terrarium with stronger glass, but you two will have to go out and find them. We’ll have to postpone today’s Love Synthesis session. Sorry, guys.”
My heart sinks. I was looking forward to that all week. But now, maybe searching for the lizards with Sebastian would be a fun date?
“I’ll set everything up for when you guys get back. But just please find those Guiros. I’ve known them since I started working at the zoo.”
We nod as Reid pushes us out. We’re left with our notebooks and the bicycle Sebastian rides to work each morning. It’s a two-person bike, but he can get along just fine riding alone.
“Kay,” Sebastian begins sketching in his notebook and tears out the page. It’s a rough sketch of the Guiros, with the words under it reading, ‘HAVE YOU SEEN THESE LIZARDS?’ in big block letters. I admire his art skills. He’s always been better than me at scientific drawings. “We can post this in The Café downtown. Everyone who’s anyone goes there.”
The Café? I’ve never actually been there. I’ve passed by it on occasion, but since it’s not on my way to work, I never go.
We pedal downtown in near-perfect sync. I can feel my heart beat out of my chest with every revolution of the pedals. The hair on the back of his head sways lightly in the breeze.
Sebastian locks the bike outside and leads me in. We sit down at the stools and he orders us each a coffee. Espresso, of course, because we researchers need to stay awake.
It’s afternoon, and the lunch rush is in full swing. Despite the slight crowding, the Barista handles all orders gracefully, and Sebastian and I watch and admire his skills.
“Weren’t you going to put that paper up on the message board?” I ask Sebastian, referring to the Lost Lizards poster.
His face pales. “I forgot!” He hops off his stool to run to the message board.
“You’re a new face.” I hear a voice as I watch Sebastian frantically fumbling with the thumbtacks.
I turn to meet the voice. The barista, a small white dog with red earmuffs, smiles.
“Sure am,” I stutter. “I’m Elaine.”
“And I’m Barista,” Barista warmly replies. I guess that’s his name. “I couldn’t help but notice that you’re looking for some lizards?”
“Hm…” We haven’t mentioned the Lizards at all yet. “How do you know?”
Barista points his paw to Sebastian, who’s now speaking with a monkey who seems to be speaking way too fast. But the poster is up, and showing Sebastian’s beautiful art to all of Rhythm Heaven.
“While I wouldn’t know where they are,” Barista reaches under the counter. “I have something that might help.”
Barista slides me a small baggie of insects. They’re not the same insects we feed our lizards, but I’m sure they’d appreciate the variety.
“Wow!” I smile. “You had those lying around? I thought this was a café, not a pet store!”
“I carry a lot of stuff that I think people might need,” he replies.
“Thank you so much!” I say as I pull out my wallet to pay him.
“No worries.” He puts his paw on my hand. “These ones are on the house.”
I sit there with a big grin on my face. I like this café. The pride Barista seems to take in his work is incredible, and the coffee isn’t that bad either.
Sebastian returns with the monkey. It’s wearing a purple t-shirt with Pop Star’s face on it. The monkey cheers and chips.
“She’s telling me that she saw the Lizards this morning!” Sebastian translates. “She wants us to lead us there.” Sebastian grabs my hand and leads me out. I thank Barista again.
“Don’t forget to let me know when you find them!” He grins as he waves us out.
The monkey rides on my shoulder as she leads us out near a field in the outskirts of Rhythm Heaven. I see a barn in the distance, and one tall figure with a big straw hat leading a group of six others in the field.
This is the place, Sebastian lays the bike on the side of the road opposite to the field. It’s a grassy area, where the grass goes up to my waist. When we wade in, the monkey waves goodbye to us and runs back the way we came. I withdraw the insect bag from my lab coat, and open it, perhaps so that the scent of the insects would entice the lizards to come running back to us. I was foolish to think for a second that it would work.
“Let’s get looking.” Sebastian nods. “The grass here is a good hiding place for lizards. If they we’re here before, it’s likely they’d still be here.”
I search through the grass with the insects in my hands until the sun sets, making sure to check the grass so I don’t step on the lizards. As the sun is about to dip down into the horizon, I meet Sebastian face-to-face, and start crying.
“No luck, huh?” He stands and turns his head to the side.
I throw the insect bag down in anger. “We’re not going to find them!” I slump down onto the grass.
“Why do I feel like this is all my fault?”
“Elaine, it’s not your fault the lizards escaped!”
“Don’t you feel we could’ve done better at keeping them safe? After all those times they’ve escaped we should’ve learned by now. This time they’ve actually escaped the lab and we have no reliable way to find them! We messed up, Sebastian.”
“Don’t think that way.” He stands above me, scowling. He looks mad.
“Do you ever feel like there’s always something more we could be doing? We haven’t been productive all day,” I sob. “We got no work done today because we were dumb enough to not pay enough attention to the lizards and now we’re never going to find them!”
“Elaine. Shut up.” The wind blows through the grass, sounding like arpeggios of rustling leaves. His saying that punched me in the gut, and now on the ground, lying down and looking at the sky, I think about the first day I’d ever worked in the lab. When I first met Sebastian he seemed so sweet. What had gotten into him?
I close my eyes and focus on my breathing. It’s naturally rhythmic, and before long, a faint sound makes its way into my head. It’s the sound of the beakers when I shake them in the lab. I can hear the fluid shaking to a familiar beat. The sound of the rustling grasses strangely match up with the sound of the liquid. I feel like I’m hearing the beat of the universe.
“Soul beats…” Sebastian mutters.
“Hmm?” I ask, trying not to forgive him for snapping at me.
“You hear it too, right? The rhythms we’re so used to?”
“Yeah.”
“This is what Reid’s been working on since he graduated. He calls them soul beats, and they’re everywhere. When we work, when we listen to music, and every single pulse in this world is a soul beat. And Reid’s trying to figure out how they work.”
“I’ve never heard about this before.” I reply.
“Has it ever occured to you that this is the one place in the universe that this phenomenon happens? Do you remember anything from before you came to Rhythm Heaven?”
“I thought nobody does, and we’re not supposed to talk about it.”
“You at least remember a bit though, right? The rhythm in this world. Did you ever hear anything as perfect as this before arriving here?”
“No.” I answer truthfully.
“I want to know what’s so special about this place. We don’t know much, but what we’ve been trying to test all these years is what causes soul beats.”
“And what do you think it is?”
“Reid has a hypothesis. He thinks that it’s love.”
“And the lizards…”
“... have been shown to express the most love to each other out of any other creatures observed in this world,” Sebastian finishes.
I feel a stroke on my arm. It’s not Sebastian; he’s still standing, staring out over the horizon at the setting sun. I look over to see the female Guiro picking up the scattered dried insects with her mouth while simultaneously rubbing my arm rhythmically with her tail. I get up onto my knees, waiting for the yellow lizard to lead us back to her mate.
“They ended up finding us!” Sebastian laughed as we weave through the grass to find the green male, warming up a nest carrying four white eggs.
We help the lizards, adding more paper from our notebooks to make the nest bigger and safer, and allow the parents to ride in the basket of the bike on the way back, curled around the eggs. I stare at Sebastian’s hair again, blowing faster in the night air, and I feel a pit in my stomach. Is he still mad? I hope not. I like him a lot, and I want him to like me. I think of our soul beats. They’re not always in sync. Maybe we wouldn’t work out after all?
I try to hold back tears, and try to be happy that we found the lizards, safe and sound. Tomorrow we’ll go back to work.
I’m worried about how hard it’ll be to pretend nothing happened.