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Do you ever have those days when your playlist just gets you? Every tune just speaks to you and the mood is just right. Well Virgil was having the opposite. There had been two bars of a rubbishy kids song stuck in his head for the entire journey home, so to try and convince it to vacate his brain he had sat down at the piano on his return. He let his fingers run through his usual repertoire, but the familiarity meant that that it barely chipped away at the infuriating tune running circles around his brain. It just wasn’t cutting it, he lifted the lid on the piano stool and rummaged around in the assorted sheet music. There was stuff that he hadn't looked at for years, the study pieces were strangely comforting, but still were not clearing his head. He blasted his way through show tunes, flitted over classical pieces and threw himself into complicated passages that he had never managed to master. But none of it worked.
There was a musical itch that just refused to be scratched. Running his hands frustratedly through his hair he pushed the stool away and went in search of lunch, figuring it might just help. Still cursing Gordon for singing Baby shark across the radio, Virgil set his playlist going on the kitchen speakers out of habit and pulled out random ingredients hoping to find culinary inspiration where music had failed him.
Omelet, that could probably work, ugh not this song again,
“SKIP song!” Where the hell was the frying pan. What was wrong with this playlist, this song again?
“SKIP song!” What the hell had happened to this frying pan? Could you make omelet in a wok? Scratch that, how did the wok get a hole in the middle? Oh, today was not the day for a slow ballad.
“SKIP song!” Maybe just toast? Seriously, what were the odds of another ballad when the playlist was on shuffle?
“SKIP song!” Nope, bread shouldn't be fuzzy. Today was well beyond internal screaming now.
“AAAgggh!”
“You alright there grumpy-pants?” Gordon waltzed in from outside. A spring in his step and a grin on his face, clearly up for some bear baiting for sport.
In response Virgil lifted up the offending Wok and glared at him through the sizabe hole in its base.
“That one wasn’t me”, the crippled frying pan was also held up for inspection “not guilty, what can I say? Our Grandmother has a way with fire! Anyway, what are you up to? I heard so many Skips I thought you’d taken up country dancing” and he elaborated this comment with a few skips of his own in a tight circle.
There was a grunt in reply “Just trying to find something to listen to, I’m still trying to kill that sodding earworm you bastard, but shuffle hates me. But I suppose it doesn't matter as I look set to die of starvation soon on this island anyway”
“Ahh, so we’re at the melodramatic stage of Hangry?” Gordon rolled his eyes.
“Not melodramatic!” Virgil huffed, then after a pause “Am hungry though.” It was mumbled as he shuffled his feet and stared at his boots.
“Ok, no need to get your plaid in a tangle, ol’ Gordy has got your back, you sit yourself down” He guided the grumpy engineer to a seat. He patted his big brother on the back absentmindedly as he fished his phone out of his pocket and pulled up a playlist. Virgil may have huffed again, but Gordon didn't pay him any attention.
“Right, first things first, the earworm,” music started filtering through the sound system, “ I present to you, for your hearing pleasure and musical enjoyment ……. My Crazy Kitchen-Dancing Playlist” Virgil raised an eyebrow at that. “ What? It's a thing, it is!” he had made it as far as the fridge by this point, “Shut up or I wont find you food” Virgil instantly screwed his nose up, which Gordon spotted “ and before you say anything, no, not celery crunch bars…. We’re out of those too.” Gordon was now waist deep in the fridge, digging about in the back of the veg drawer. Virgil's heart sank lower, it was going to be another unholy green smoothie, maybe dying from starvation was preferable. But what was dragged out of the refrigerator was not some floppy greens and wilting leaves. Gordon had clasped in his hands a reusable plastic lunchbox, Virgil watched as the lid was unclipped and the whole thing stuffed in the microwave; definitely not smoothie then. As the contents of the box warmed through a familiar smell started to fill the kitchen. It was Gordon's special pasta from the previous night, the sort that never ever had leftovers. Gordon's culinary repertoire was not vast, mostly consisting of plain grilled chicken and fish, balanced but bland as Scott called it, throwbacks from his Olympic regime. But in amongst the perfectly balanced nutritional quotas he had a few specialities, one of these being his pasta, which was universally loved.
“Oh God Gordon, where did you have that stashed?” Virgil asked, already starting to salivate, and really hoping that his brother wasn’t cruel enough to sit in front of him and eat it without sharing.
“I siphoned some off before it went on the table, you know what Scotts like, the mans a bottomless pit, and if you tell him that I hide it behind the broccoli then I will enact an awful and, as yet unspecified, revenge.” Gordon dolloped the pasta into two bowls, grabbed some cutlery and strutted to the table looking very pleased with himself. “Bon Appetit!” Virgil's eyes may actually have welled up, but it was really good pasta.
“I knew there was a reason we kept you!” said Virgil through an indelicate amount of pasta. Gordon was about to come back with a witty reply, or at least an attempt at wit, when the next song started playing over the speakers. The brothers eyes met, eyebrows rising in perfect synchronization.
“OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS SONG!” they shouted in unison, narrowly avoiding spraying each other with pasta and bursting into laughter.
If Scott was disappointed when he came into the kitchen 20 minutes later, being unable to locate the fabled pasta that his nose could just detect the slightest scent of, he soon got over it when he caught sight of Gordon and Virgil. They were dancing around the kitchen like loons. When asked what they were up to they replied “crazy kitchen dancing” and Scott wisely decided to back away slowly and leave them to it.