Mike and Mick
Mike and Mick were joined at the hip, an umbilical plug, sometimes called an XLR, kept these conjoined sound-loving twins tethered forever.
Mike had a tall, thin stick for a body. And on his head, a long beak protruded. With his beak, he could slurp any sound he could set his sights on. Mick, on the other hand, was short and stocky. He had a boxy build and a large belly that could carry and digest whatever sounds his brother ate until he was full and ready to unload everything onto a memory wafer.
One day, when there was no work to be done, the two brothers went out for a stroll in the park.
This was their favorite thing to do, for there were many delicious and nutritious sounds for them to eat here.
“Mmm,” said Mick, “can you feel the vibrations in the air?”
“Yes,” said Mike, “I’m tasting them right now.”
“Look over there, see that bird? She’s singing a song. Point your beak over there.”
Mike did as his brother asked, and for a moment, they stood there as this bird on a branch filled the air with her beautiful song of clicks and chirps. They listened quietly and ate up every sweet decibel that she could deliver before she flew off into the sky.
“That was tasty, wasn’t it, Mick?”
“Indeed.”
And then a cold, hard breeze rolled through the park and hit Mike at the sides of his beak. He shuddered and shivered, the serrated tastebuds overwhelmed by the smattering of heavy air.
Mick could taste nothing but distorted blasts of noise.
“Brrr, it’s getting cold all of a sudden. Mick, can you pass me my coat?”
Mick gave Mike a puffy, furry windscreen to wear on his beak. This softened the harshness of the wind. Now, they could more pleasantly taste the sounds of the park, with its croaking frogs, its rustling leaves, and swooshing waves on the bay.
The next day, Mike and Mick hosted their friends Cam and Luz. Their cousin Spencer was also there. Luz gave the evening a pleasant presence with her dimly lit ambiance. Cam soaked everything he saw into his sensor so they could always remember their time together. Spencer, the speaker, had a large grill for a face; he liked to sing, he liked to talk, and he was always happy to fill the room with whatever treble and whatever bass his cousins could provide. They had handed him a card filled with all the previous day’s experiences. With passion and gusto, Spencer blared the sounds of the bird’s chirp, the frog’s croak, and the swooshing waves of the bay. Everyone there was so entertained by the sounds the two brothers had made. It made for a memorable night.
When the weekend was over, it was time for Mike and Mick to get back to work. Their assignment that day sent them in the way of a motivational speaker. They met outside of an office building next to a busy street. Cam was also there, ready to absorb the sight of this man for posterity.
“Hey Cam,” said Mick, “Luz coming today?”
“Not today, she’s not needed. We’re working outdoors today.”
It was then that Mick and Mike looked at each other with nervous eyes. They saw the busy road full of loud, swooshing cars passing left and right.
Mike gulped, “Uh, that’s gonna be kinda a problem for me. It’s hard for me to consume the sound of our guy with all these loud machines competing and getting in the way.
Cam nodded. “I understand. I’ll let our guy know and ask if we can move inside for this one.”
“Will that be ok with you?” Mick worried.
“You got it, boss, no problem at all. Our man’s got an office on the fifth floor with a big window that lets all the light in. It’s not as appealing to my eyes as out here, but we can make it work.”
Mike and Mick thanked Cam and expressed great appreciation for his accommodation.
Inside the motivational speaker’s office, there was nothing but flat surfaces. Flat tables. Flat walls. Hard tile floors. Minimal furnishings.
“Egad, so much flatness,” Mike muttered. “The vibrations are gonna bounce all over the place and multiply.”
“Don’t worry, Mike,” his brother said, “As long as he talks at a reasonable level, it should be ok.”
When the motivational speaker was ready, he sat at his corporate, lifeless desk. He began to talk in front of Cam, who stood laser intent on his every move, while above him hung Mike, lingering on his every word, sucking it in and pumping it through the cable to his pensive brother.
“Hello, my followers,” the motivational speaker began, “You like this c-suite office? It’s nice, huh? You wish you had one just like it, don’t you? But instead, you’re just sitting on your couch, eating chips, and playing video games.”
Mick rolled his eyes as he digested the words. ‘Heh, at least the echo isn’t too bad,’ he thought.
Mike nodded in agreement at this unspoken utterance.
“Yeah, well, you know what, pal?” the motivational speaker continued with his baritone delivery, “You should feel ashamed of yourself for that.” He paused.
“GET BETTER, BRO!” he suddenly said with a scream.
The vibrations propelling from his yelling mouth flew in all different directions, ricocheting and dancing around the walls and the surfaces and hitting Mike in his beak from all different directions. The sudden screeching loudness of it all was too much for his mouth to take in. He practically choked as it went down his electromagnetic gullet. When it finally arrived at Mick’s belly, it burned his insides as if they had just eaten a very spicy bowl of jalapenos.
“AAHH!” Mick screamed.
Cam immediately noticed their discomfort and stopped working. He and the motivational speaker turned to face the two.
“Yo bro, everything good?” the motivational speaker said, suddenly speaking at a more reasonable volume again.
“Ugh,” Mick said, his brother Mike still reeling from the jumpscare, “maybe you could warn us next time you plan on going from a whisper to a shout. I gotta turn down my sensitivity for that.”
The motivational speaker was an unpredictable fellow, but Mick was able to keep his level by adjusting his sensitivity up and down based on his mood. He could mostly accurately infer when he would get loud and when he would get quiet based on what he was talking about and the way he would pause for emphasis, eventually keying in on his idiosyncratic rhythm.
After the gig was over, Cam approached the brothers.
“Nice work today, guys. I know it wasn’t always easy.
“That’s why we’re the best,” Mick smiled.
Cam nodded. “Say, I just heard about a press conference coming up tomorrow. Wanna stop by?”
“Press conference? Never done one of those before.” Mike nudged Mick.
“Count us in,” Mick said.
The next day, they arrived at the capitol, where inside a giant room, a flurry of journalists, cameras, and, yes, microphones and mixers were there to hear what the president and the Prime Minister of another country were about to proclaim in a joint statement. It was a flurry of sights and sounds. Clicking shutters, murmuring indistinguishable voices, and stampeding feet. For the two brothers, it was almost overstimulating, but they kept their heads held up high. It was not their first time in a chaotic environment.
“Mick, look at all these other Mikes they got here. Why are we even here?” Mike said this emphatically when he saw a little colony of mushroom-shaped microphones all bunched up and chuckling at each other while sitting on a podium between the two dignitaries. Each wore a little t-shirt designating the different news stations they all worked for.
“I feel redundant right now.”
“Who cares if they’re all gonna slurp the same noises as us? We’re gonna slurp it the best.”
The president and the prime Minister sat next to each other. It was clear that though they held themselves with professionalism and poise, there was some level of animosity between the two. As the conference neared closer to beginning, Mike and Mick caught sight of a strange, dynamic duo. It was another microphone on a pole, except his beak was almost twice as long as Mike’s, and it was painted blue. The other mixer was double the thickness of Mick, and he had so many more buttons, knobs, inputs, bells, and whistles and just overall seemed more high-tech than him in every way.
They met eyes, and the other mixer was the first to break the ice.
“Hey there, boys. Name’s Essie. That blue fella up there’s my brother Shemp.”
Mike and Mick greeted Shemp and Essie with cordiality and politeness.
The conference started when the president opened his mouth and began: “We have a lot of important developments to bring to the people today, so please listen closely.”
As Mike rose above the president’s head, he was suddenly nudged away with a slap by Shemp’s beak.
“Ow!” yelped Mike.
“The heck was that?” Mick asked.
“He shoved me away.”
“That dadgum thinks he owns the space above the president?”
Then the Prime Minister from the foreign country began to talk: “Yes, it has been a difficult few weeks, but compromises are on the way.”
Mike quickly shifted his body to pick up the noises from the Minister’s mouth, and for a brief moment, he was slurping up some very good sound bites until Shemp shifted back and shoved Mike once again.
Mick couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Then, directly across from him, he could see that conceited mixer Essie laughing with delight at his brother’s bullish behavior.
“These guys are trying to mess up our sound!”
“Well, they are only hurting themselves. If we collide, then their sounds will be no good, too!”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Essie said, “I got filters in me so good, I can remove all the distortion from futzing with you guys. Mwahahaha.”
Thus, the battle began.
As the stakes got higher between the microphones and the mixers, tensions heated up between the president and the prime Minister.
“You know we’ve been trying to resolve this economic for quite a while,” the president said, “but some of us here are stubborn and difficult.”
The passive-aggressiveness was not lost on the Prime Minister. “This is correct, though I think Mr. President should re-assess who has been the difficult one on this matter.”
“I know you’re not talking about me. I’ve been nothing but resourceful and intelligent when it comes to problem-solving.”
“Oh, sure you are. Like that way you chickened out every time we came close to an agreement?”
“Me? Chicken? You must have me confused with some other world leader. You looking in a mirror?”
And as these men bickered, Mike and Shemp were swooshing back and forth from one leader to the next. Mike was always trying to hang high and eat those vibrations at their strongest and most resonant, but Shemp was always one to move him out of place.
“I don’t get it, Mick. With the size of his beak, this guy can pick up sounds from farther distances than I can. Why must he insist on being where I need to be?”
“Because some folks are annoying, that’s why.”
“Mr. President, you are a buffoon!”
“And you are an ineffectual weakling!”
Cam was there with all the other cameras, and he could not believe what he was seeing. All the cameras were so stunned that they paid no attention to the war of microphones playing out directly above the men’s heads. The two men were screaming at each other now, in plain view of all the journalists and the whole world.
It got so loud that Mick had to turn the sensitivity on his knobs down.
Shemp chuckled when he saw this. “Aww, what’s the matter? Your bit rate can’t handle the depth of this conversation? That’s adorable.”
Mick groaned. He had had enough. “Alright, they wanna play dirty? Let’s play dirty.”
And so, while the two microphones duked it out, Mick ran around the room and sneaked up behind Essie. When he least expected it, he tugged on the cable that kept Essie and Shemp connected and disconnected it from his audio port. Then he ran back to his station like a mischievous little critter.
Suddenly, everything went blank for Essie. He couldn’t taste any more sounds. “Shemp, Shemp! Where are you? I can’t feel any more sounds. Shemp!!”
Shemp was gasping for air. He, too, had no idea what had just occurred.
And yet, the president and the prime Minister kept going at it.
“You fool! You know nothing about governing!”
“And you, sir, have no stomach for leading!”
The screaming match had reached a boiling point, and at last, Mike could taste it in all its crispy, delicious detail. Essie had moved to the side of the room, no longer an intrusion, no longer a problem. By the time Shemp and Essie could figure out what had happened, the press conference had already concluded.
As they left the building, Mike and Mick turned to see Shemp and Essie crying in a corner that they had missed out on such a historical moment.
“I feel kinda bad for doing that to them,” Mike remarked.
“I do, too. I wish they hadn’t made me do it,” Mick added.
“Spencer is gonna love it when he hears everything we captured for him.”
“That he will.”
“But you know, Mick?”
“What’s that, Mike?”
“I liked it more when it was just the two of us out in the park, eating up all that nature.”
“Me too, me too. This politics is too nasty a game for me.”
They both agreed never to do another political event ever again.