Chapter 17: The Hymn of the Exile
Sunday, June 21, 2015
The summer solstice. The longest day of the year. Michael had spent it locked in the darkness of his makeshift studio.
The instrumental for "Star Shopping" played on a loop in his headphones. He had heard it at least fifty times in a row. The base was finally finished.
The guitar, with that subtle and perfect detunement, sounded exactly as I remembered it: a dreamy, nostalgic lament. The beat was simple, a steady beat that sustained the melody. The sonic canvas was ready.
But now came the hard part. The voice.
He leaned back in his chair, his eyes closed, listening to the loop. I knew I couldn't just "sing" this song. "Ghost Boy" had taught him that lesson. I couldn't act. It had to be real.
He turned off the music. Silence filled the room. He opened the text file that the System had given him. The lyrics of "Star Shopping".
He read it. Over and over again. Not like a singer learning a lyric, but like an actor studying a script, looking for motivation, subtext.
On the surface, it was a teenage love song. A plea to a girl. But as Michael read the words, a second story, his secret story, began to take shape. The words seemed to have been written for him.
'Wait right here, I'll be back in the mornin'...'
A broken promise. The promise that he, without knowing it, had made to his family, to his entire universe, the last time he closed his eyes in 2025.
'I know that I'm not that important to you...'
To the universe, he was nothing. A mistake, a displaced atom.
'But to me, girl, you're so much more than gorgeous...'
'You,' Michael thought, 'ain't a girl. It's my home. My lost life.'
Each line had a double meaning. She realized she didn't have to fake the pain of a teenage breakup. He didn't have to invent an emotion.
The pain was already there. It was the pain of the exile. The longing for a place I could never return to.
He closed the text file. I didn't need the script anymore. He knew the story by heart. It was his.
He got up from his chair and walked over to the AT2020 microphone. I was no longer nervous about the technique. He wasn't worried about whether his voice would sound "right."
He was only concerned with telling the truth.
…..
Michael stood in front of his new AT2020 microphone. The black metal felt professional, solid. In his headphones, the loop of the out-of-tune guitar sounded, a melancholy invitation.
He pressed the hotkey to record. The Ableton track began to move. He took a deep breath.
"Wait right here (wait right here)..."
His voice came out, a fragile whisper. The line hit him instantly. It wasn't a phrase for a girl. It was the broken promise. The lie he had unknowingly told his family the last time he closed his eyes in 2025.
'See you later.'
"I'll be back in the mornin' (mornin')..."
He sang the line with a dull ache, his eyes closed tightly. It was a promise he couldn't keep.
"I know that I'm not that important to you..."
A twinge of bitterness. 'Not for the universe,' he thought. The cosmos had torn him from his life as if he were a speck of dust. It wasn't important at all.
"But to me, girl, you're so much more than gorgeous (yes)..."
"So much more than perfect (yes)..."
Her mind replaced the word "girl" with "home." His life lost. His family. His sister. They were beyond beautiful. They were everything. A lump formed in his throat, but he swallowed it, channeling the pain into the note.
The following lines were not a performance. They were a confession.
"Right now, I know that I'm not really worth it..."
It wasn't the lament of an insecure teenager. It was the literal truth of his life. He was a sixteen-year-old boy, a ghost, a school dropout working at a Burger Barn. It wasn't valuable. Not yet. His voice came out with an edge of self-loathing.
"If you give me time, I can work on it..."
"Give me some time while I work on it..."
The energy in his voice changed. It ceased to be a lament and became a plea. A promise, not to a girl, but to himself and the System. A promise that he would build something from these ashes.
"Losin' your patience, and, girl, I don't blame you..."
"The Earth's in rotation, you're waitin' for me..."
This line was the hardest to sing. The image of his family, frozen in a time to which he could not return, "waiting" for a Michael who would never return. His voice almost cracks with guilt.
"Look at my face when I fuck on your waist..."
He felt a total disconnection with the lyrics. The sexual rawness did not fit with her pain. He sang the line with a deliberate apathy, a detachment. It was just a word, a noise.
But the next line brought him back.
"'Cause we only have one conversation a week..."
A dry, humorless laugh almost escaped him. 'One conversation a week?'
He thought of his father. In his mother. He would give his non-existent fortune, he would give his memories, he would give everything, just for one more conversation. One minute.
The longing in his voice was palpable, raw. He had finished the first half of the song and was already emotionally exhausted.
The music changed subtly. The beat became more insistent. Michael felt the energy of the song shift from lament to self-defense. His own posture changed in front of the microphone. He straightened up.
"That's why your friends always hatin' on me..."
He sang the line with a blade of disdain. He thought of the kids at school who looked at him mockingly, of the teachers who treated him as a hopeless case, of the manager at the Burger Barn who yelled at him like he was trash. He thought of the whole world that had discarded him.
"Fuck 'em though, I did this all by myself..."
This line. This was the purest truth. A wave of cold, lonely arrogance swept through him. It was not a rapper's boast; it was a fact. I had no one. He had no parents, no mentors, no adult to guide him. He was alone against the world.
"Matter fact, I ain't never asked no one for help..."
His voice came out louder, a declaration of forced independence. He hadn't asked for help because, who the hell could he ask for? Who could I explain to that I came from another universe and that I was using ghost music to build an empire?
"And that's why I don't pick up my phone when it ring..."
A total detachment. He sang the line with a coldness that almost frightened him. He was getting used to being alone. He was starting to like it.
The next lines were about a fame he didn't have yet, but he sang them as if they were already true.
"None of my exes is over Michael..."
"Nobody flexin' as much as I be..."
"That's why she text me and tell me she love me..."
It was a piece of paper, a mask that was being tried on. He was the "Michael Demiurge" that he would have to be, the icon, the star. It was the arrogance he would need to survive.
And then, came the line that was his deepest secret.
"She know that someday I'll be over the sea..."
"Makin' my money and smokin' my weed..."
It was not a boast. It was a prophecy.
"Over the sea". He saw his future tours. He saw his strength in Dubai. "Makin' my money". He saw the Ethereum chart rising. He saw the Nvidia logo.
He sang this part not as a rapper, but as a prophet, with a quiet, terrifying certainty. It was his decade-long business plan, hidden in plain sight in a teenage love song.
The song returned to vulnerability, and he followed it, lowering the tone.
"I know that I'm nothing like someone her family want me to be..."
The arrogance faded, replaced by the sadness of the impostor. He thought about the house he was about to sell. He was not the son that the fathers of this world had raised. He was nobody that any family wanted. He was a ghost, a usurper.
The contrast between his wealth prophecy and his imposter reality made the line hurt even more.
The song entered its final stretch. The defiant energy of the previous stanza softened, giving way to a plea, a question thrown into the void.
Michael moved a little closer to the microphone, his voice dropping from a defiant murmur to a vulnerable tone.
"If I find a way, would you walk it with me?"
The question floated in the makeshift study. It wasn't for a girl. It was for the future. It was a question for Leo, Sam, and Nate. A question for that Ohio girl, Chloe. A question for the invisible audience I expected to find.
'If I manage to build something in this shitty world, will there be anyone there to share it?'
"Look at my face while you talkin' to me..."
"'Cause we only have one conversation a week..."
The pain of that line returned, but this time it felt different. It wasn't just about his lost family. It was about his present. I was surrounded by people at school, at work. But they were all empty conversations. "How are you?" "Good." Noise.
"Can I get one conversation at least?"
His voice almost broke. It was the lonely boy's rallying cry. A plea for a single real connection in the middle of static.
And then, the lyrics changed. He went from supplication to purpose.
"Shout out to everyone makin' my beats..."
"You helpin' me preach..."
Michael smiled slightly. For now, he was the only one making his beats. But the line felt right. It was a nod to his own work, to the hours spent in front of Ableton, to his new guitar, to his pain.
And then, the line that summed it all up. The thesis. The reason he was alive.
"This music's the only thing keepin' the peace when I fall into pieces..."
He sang this with absolute conviction, an honesty so pure that it gave him goosebumps. It was the purest truth that existed.
The work at the Burger Barn, the meaningless school, the pain of his memories... everything was falling apart. But music, this act of creation, was the only thing that kept him sane. It was his only peace.
He arrived at the outro. The final part. The guitar felt more hopeful.
"Look at the sky tonight... All of the stars have a reason..."
He closed his eyes. He lifted his head, even though it was in a closet covered with sheets. He saw the night sky of his memory.
"A reason to shine, a reason like mine... And I'm fallin' to pieces..."
He had a reason. The System. Your knowledge of the future. The secret map in his notebook. It was a horrible reason, a terrible secret, but it was his. And he was tearing it apart.
He sang the last reprise, his voice fading away with the guitar, a final murmur of pain and purpose.
"Look at the sky tonight... All of them stars have a reason."
The last note of the guitar faded away. Michael froze, not daring to breathe.
He was emotionally drained. It had been like reliving all his tragedy in three minutes. He stood in the silence of the closet, trembling slightly.
In one slow motion, he walked over to the laptop and pressed the space bar. Recording stopped.
He slumped into the creaking chair. I didn't want to listen to her. It was too raw.
But he had to.
He put the cursor at the beginning. He pressed play.
The entire song was played. He heard the guitar slightly out of tune. He heard the lo-fi beat. And he heard her voice.
He heard the trembling voice of the beginning, the guilt, the cold defiance, and finally, the desperate plea of the end.
I heard the clear sound of the AT2020. He heard the imperfections. And he heard the story.
It wasn't a Lil Peep song. It was his story. It was his secret oath of vengeance and success, disguised as a teenage love song. Its secret history, told in plain sight.
And it was perfect.