Signals & Static

Pattern Recognition

Chapter 2

Santa arrived at the center seven minutes early.

He always did.

He walked the same route, crossed at the same light, took the seat closest to the thermostat where the ambient noise from the wall unit hummed at a consistent 53 decibels. The group chairs were crooked again today, which irritated him more than it should have but he said nothing.

He'd said something last week. Layla hadn't corrected it.

So now he sat and endured it. Quietly recalibrating.

Except... someone different had been in his seat last time. Someone who moved like static and talked like lightning. Someone who didn't fit, but didn't seem to mind.

Perth.

Santa remembered the way he fidgeted tapping his knee like a syncopated metronome. His speech came in bursts, with expressive hands and too many words, but there was no malice in it. Just noise.

Still, something about that noise had lingered. Unsorted. Unfiled.

Disruptive.

Not unpleasant.

⸻

Perth on the other hand wasn't late.
Okay, he was late but not on purpose.

He'd slept through his first alarm, spilled oat milk on his last clean hoodie, and gotten stuck in a YouTube hole about how sound can physically change the structure of water molecules. It felt vaguely relevant.

He sat down across from Santa, who didn't even blink when their knees almost touched. Not in the way most people blinked, anyway. Like he'd expected Perth to show up again.

Perth chewed on the inside of his cheek.

"Too-literal face."

That's what he'd called him in his head. But it wasn't fair. The guy wasn't literal. He was... accurate. There was a difference. Perth hated how much that mattered to him.

⸻

Layla, the group facilitator, clapped once to get attention.

"Today we're doing something different. Pair work," she said, her tone annoyingly cheerful.

Perth instinctively looked around, avoiding eye contact with anyone who might pick him.

"Partners will be assigned," she added.

Santa straightened slightly. "Is there a structured rubric for interaction?"

Layla smiled. "Nope! Just talk. Share how you each experience sound and noise in your daily lives. How it affects you—positively or negatively. I'll give you twenty minutes."

Of course. Sound. The thing that made Perth feel alive and made Santa wince.

They were paired together, of course. Layla clearly thought it would be good for them.

Perth flopped sideways in his chair and grinned. "So, partner. Sound. Thoughts?"

Santa adjusted his sleeve. "Most sound is overstimulating. I categorize it by frequency, not by emotion."

Perth blinked. "That's kind of beautiful. You listen to the world like it's math."

"I suppose," Santa said. "You treat sound like a toy. Always interacting with it. Making more."

Perth laughed. "You mean I'm loud."

"I mean you respond to it like an echo chamber. It bounces through you."