Victoria D'Alamino lay with her legs crossed left over right in the reclining lawn chair on the cement porch in her backyard. In between scratching her ankles and shooing away mosquitos, Vicki stared at the Fourth of July night sky, waiting for the local fireworks to begin. The fireworks hadn't been that good the past few years. At least, not as good as she'd remembered them growing up back in Milwaukee. The fireworks there had been perfect. This was either due to Milwaukee's inherent perfectness or the fact that they were the only other fireworks Vicki had to use as a reference in musings on fireworks. And compared to the Milwaukee tufts of red, green, blue, and white, San Mateo's M-80s couldn't hold a roman candle to them.

It was a quiet night. Pretty quiet. Hmm... no. It wasn't that quiet. That guy next door was making some kind of racket. Vicki sat up and looked to the fence. He was moving around in his backyard setting up equipment and stuff. What was he doing? Vicki noticed some pole sticking up in the corner of his yard. There was one in the other corner, too. Were they lightning rods? Vicki got up and walked to the fence, expecting her neighbor to have a mad scientist table in the middle of his yard with some half-cat, half-dog creature on it waiting to be re-animated.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm gonna record the fireworks!"

"Ohhh, so those are microphones?" Vicki understood now, kind of.

"Yeah."

"Where's the camera?"

"Oh, no camera. I'm recording the sound to put on my next album."

"Album? You're a musician?" Vicki jumped over the fence into his yard.

"Careful, there. Yeah, I am. I want to use the sounds of the fireworks as background noise in a song. I'll probably make it a long last song to close the album."

"What's your name?"

"Marc."

"I'm Vicki. What kind of band are you in?"

"Well, it's just me. I record stuff in layers."

"Doesn't sound like much of a band. Let me hear some."

"Hold on."

Vicki looked around the back yard. A guitar sat in a chair as if it was waiting for something to happen. The fireworks, maybe?

"Here you go." Marc handed her a discman and some headhphones. "These are the first seven tracks for my new album. I burned them this morning. After tonight I think I'll be ready to finish it."

Vicki put the headphones on and lay in the grass to look up at the sky again while Marc went back to setting up. The first track began-- sounds of ocean waves and seagulls took her back to one summer sitting just above the waterline on a rocky beach in Maine. Two notes from a keyboard piano drifted through her head like the sound of a channel marker buoy. This was followed by sustained organ chords and a soft, strummy guitar. She closed her eyes and it was night on that beach in Maine. She was looking for Haley's comet with her dad.

"What do you think?"

Vicki turned to look at her dad. Oh. It was her neighbor. "Uh, it sounds cool. Really spacy. It kind of reminds me of this band my friend Paul always plays. I can't remember what they're called. Some Spanish word or something like that."

"Uh, Yo La Tengo?"

"Yeah. That's it. I think I like your stuff more, though. It seems to go places faster. Or at least have an idea of where it's going. I always thought that Yo Tango band was kind of boring. But then, I never listened to it under a night sky in my neighbor's backyard. When do you think those fireworks will start?"

"Any minute, I hope." He went back to his microphone setup while Vicki lay back down with the headphones. The tempo of the second song matched the first. As did the third and fourth. Eight measure phrases wound around and around her head like the "Dr. Who" theme did when she was twelve, bringing back memories of nightmares that show brought her every time she watched it.

POOOOSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

The first firework went off. Marc ran inside to start his equipment. Vicki watched the light fade from the puff of light in the sky. The music had her in a dream. It seemed to fill her surroundings without shutting them out, filling all the empty night spaces. She didn't notice the rest of the firework display banging above her. She didn't notice other people now coming into the backyard. And she didn't notice the mosquito that was back on her ankle.

-Chip Chanko