Chapter 19: Proper Fluff Now, I Promise (Part 1)
It was a couple of days after the ping pong incident, and Reuben couldn't stop thinking about what he'd realized. It was… unsettling, to say the least.
He hadn't done anything dumb or embarrassing for the rest of that day (thank goodness), but that was probably due in part to the fact that he had very suddenly forgotten what he usually talked about. It was like his brain had completely blanked on him.
This wasn't one of those instances he'd read about where all he could think about was her, oh no. It wasn't even close. It was something else. Ever since that day… every time she walked into the room, his brain, and sometimes his mouth, stopped. Even if it was mid-sentence, the Galley Officer would fall silent the minute he saw her, and every part of his brain linked to communication turned off. It wasn't even that he didn't want to talk to her – it was that, with this sudden and unwelcome piece of information, he really and truly didn't know what to say.
What in the world could have equipped him for this? Romantic comedies? Sitcoms? The "awkward" barrier was always broken through some sort of life-threatening experience or romantic rival in TV Land, and aside from Thursday's Mystery Meat, there were no real life-threatening risks within the confines of the ship that Amy would actively seek out. Reuben shook his head.
I need a distraction. Reuben got out of the rec-room sofa and turned off the TV – he didn't want to watch a single mind-numbing second of The Young and the Stupid. Without a single word, he got up and left the room, walking with single-minded determination towards his own quarters.
There were two things Reuben liked about having his own room. One, obviously, was the privacy. The other was the fact that this particular room had sound-proofed walls, and he was free to blast his music as loud as he wanted.
However, today, he walked past his stereo system, CD player, and every other electric appliance in the large room. He approached his closet, and swung the doors open, kneeling down in front of a small drawer set against the ground. He punched in a passcode, and the drawer slid open. Reuben smiled to himself as the golden instrument glittered in the fluorescent light, and lifted the saxophone out of the drawer before shutting it.
He had picked up playing the sax almost accidentally – five years before, and as a means of defeating a threat to the entire galaxy, crazy as it sounded. He hadn't even planned on actually playing the darn thing – he'd been going along with the plan, and had grabbed the instrument for the sake of having something to go with the sunglasses he'd obtained. But then he'd started playing… and in an instant, it clicked. Forget super strength or walking on the ceiling, or, perhaps, even sandwich-making; this was his gift. This was his special talent, the one thing in the whole galaxy he could do better than any of the other experiments.
After that day, a few weeks after becoming Galley Officer, he returned to Earth to pick up supplies for the ship, and had passed by an instrument shop with a shiny gold saxophone on the display. Better yet, it was on sale – nobody on the island wanted it. So, with some of the money he'd saved up from selling extra sandwiches back in the old days, he bought the saxophone and some sheet music, so he could actually play something besides Aloha Oe.
It wasn't anything special, really – a hobby, a pastime. But it was something he had, something none of the other 626 had (627 included), and he liked it. Reuben admired the instrument for a moment, before closing his eyes and beginning to play. For a moment, the worries of the world washed away, and there was nothing else besides the sound of the saxophone.