Deadline for Writers. 12 Short Stories in 12 Months – October – Prompt: Excellence – Word Count: 1800.

Maida Vale felt a shiver blast through her spine as she pressed herself against the observation window. On the other side, a dozen or so people sat inside the sleek, semi-opaque chrome chamber, eyes closed, each wired to a matted nest of glimmering cables. The air hummed with a faint harmonic overtone, like a tuning fork struck in order to focus the minds being cleansed, as the Excellence Engine honed their skills.

It was beautiful in its own way, if beauty could be sterile. A single curved pod for each client, suspended like pearls in liquid silver with no dust, no scent or untreated air. The faint vibration was the only clue to the perfection being constructed.

She turned to her manager. ‘They all look so calm.’

His face remained passive. ‘That’s the idea Maida, the fear, distraction, the hesitation, it’s all stripped away. When they emerge, they will be flawless.’

Maida felt him turn her shoulder to face him.

‘As you will be too.’

She nodded but said nothing. It was all she had ever wanted. Ever since she had picked up her first guitar as a child, the stage was the only place she had ever wanted to be. The problem had always been that she didn’t feel like she was good enough to warrant her place.

Just last week, playing at one of her favourite venues, it just… wasn’t there. When she was on form, she could stand with the best of them, but performances like that, in her mind, were few and far between. That night, her guitar felt heavy, unnatural, and her throat was as dry as sand. She’d played these songs a hundred times, but the notes were tangled, the words stuck in her inflamed larynx and the sweat stung as it poured into her eyes. She stared at the end of the microphone when her eyes refused to stay closed, and tried to ignore the listless crowd jeering before her.

People said afterwards that it was great. They said that the crowd had loved it. The owner of the venue immediately booked more dates. But in Maida’s head it was an absolute disaster. She hadn’t heard the cheers, or the repeated calls for one more song. She had seen the couple towards the back shake their heads and walk away. She had stared as a group of drunken lads appeared to be on the verge of violence. She had heard the tightness and struggles of the notes she had forced out. It wasn’t good enough. She wasn’t good enough.

But now, she would be flawless.

Inside, it was much colder than Maida had imagined.

‘Excellence is a state of mind,’ said Dr Zen, his voice as even as a metronome, ‘The Engine doesn’t change who you are, it simply filters out the interference, the doubt, anxiety and fear. You will remain you, just a better you,’

‘Better,’ Maida repeated softly, ‘And is it permanent? Could it be reversed?’

‘I suppose that’s technically possible,’ Zen replied. ‘But rare. The brain learns quickly to prefer clarity. Talking of which, how far are we going today? Do you want to maintain your impulses as they are, or are we going all in? I know some clients find that any unfiltered residue emotion can still complicate performance.’

‘I just want to play perfectly,’ Maida replied, ‘Every time. Be at my very best, every single time.’

‘Good, good. Your management company has suggested that this is the way to go. If you’re happy, we will begin.’

Inside the pod, the cold dissipated as Maida felt a warmth slowly crawl across her skin, as if the sun was burning off the cold mist of a winter’s day. She felt flashes and twitches deep inside her head as a voice in her ear whispered numbers and soft, hypnotic phrases.

Calibration. Focus. Balance.

Colours, angles and memories flickered across the inside of her eyelids. The failed performance, the disillusioned crowd before her, the applause that had once thrilled her but now did nothing. Her first guitar. That Christmas where the whole family had sat around her as she had torn the paper covering her maiden instrument and gasped as her dreams came true. The struggles of learning what to do with it, the difficulty in making it sing.

All of it dissolved into pale light.

Let go, the voice seemed to repeat.

And so she did.

When she opened her eyes at some unknown time later, the world felt newly sharpened. Edges gleamed, colours had purpose, and their shadows outlined the details of the world vividly. Sounds aligned themselves into patterns she could almost see.

‘Welcome back, Maida,’ Dr. Zen said. ‘How do you feel?’

Maida blinked and stared into his dark brown eyes, studying the black rivers of his iris as she spoke.

‘Clear,’ she said. ‘Very… clear.’

‘Good,’ he replied, ‘Your gig is in an hour, you’d better get going.’

It was perfect. Flawless.

She sang every note as intended. Every strum of the guitar was precise and predictable. No trepidation. No fear. Maida owned the stage as the crowds watched in awe at the masterclass unravelling before them. She surged, confidence personified, every chord a harmonic perfection resonating across the room.

Afterwards, people congratulated her and told her how much they had loved it, just like they had before. But this time, Maida believed it herself. She had felt it… at least… she thought she had. The laudatory comments seemed distant and muffled, and she smiled back, polite and perfect, but nothing more. Rather than being fulfilled, she felt ambivalent.

Perhaps she was just tired.

She went back home after packing up and tried to sleep. It came, but only fleetingly, and for the first time in many years, she didn’t dream.

Performances became routine, as did her day. Play, rest, and recalibrate.

Her management company were happy, she had recorded an album in half the time allotted for it with most songs down in just a few takes. She had people begging her for lessons, but Maida didn’t teach anymore as she had found it hard to explain anything beyond the mechanics of producing the sounds.

‘You play like a machine,’ one of her last students had said in awe.

She had smiled and thanked him, but was unsure whether it was praise or not.

All she had ever wanted was to be great. To be perfect, to be able to perform at her best, every single night. And now she had it… but sometimes she thought back, trying to remember what it used to feel like – what her music had made her feel. How a wrong note could sting and trigger nerves so strong that it would make her fingers shake in a way that made her feel alive. No, not alive, scared, frightened, insecure – that’s what it was. It was bad.

Definitely a bad thing.

But the memories were blurred. Sanitised out of existence.

That evening she had another gig. This one was for her management company, and for Dr. Zen. An album launch coupled with a symposium for potential Excellence Engine investors. She had been asked if she would mind doing it, and had automatically agreed.

The music unfurled flawlessly, as it always did now. The rows of identical suits sat before her, as flawless as her performance, but as she played she felt a twitch in her finger. As she closed the penultimate number, it became a tremor and, for a fleeting second, she heard a single note waver.

Maida ignored it, and got to the end, but there was a sinking feeling in her stomach, a feeling that she had almost forgotten about completely.

Afterwards, Dr. Zen met her in private. ‘You hesitated.’

‘I thought I heard something,’ Maida replied.

‘Echoes,’ Zen said, ‘Residual emotion, it’s not uncommon. We can schedule a recalibration.’

Maida didn’t go home that night. Instead, she found herself outside on of the city centre streets, where the fog was giving way to rusted rooftops and the smell of cold rain. She hadn’t been to this spot since she was young, but saw the door of the small bar that had drawn her there stood open. Inside, a man was playing an old guitar that couldn’t keep its tuning, but produced a sound full of warmth,

Maida entered and stood listening, her heart heavy with something she couldn’t quite remember.

The man finished his set, and to her surprise wandered over.

‘You’re Maida Vale,’ he said, surprised.

She nodded, timidly. A feeling she hadn’t felt for a while.

He looked almost painfully at her, a lifetime of haggard experience etched across his face.

‘It’s a shame what happened to you.’

Maida was taken aback. The words stung, igniting an anger from nowhere.

‘How dare you,’ she said, ‘I perform to crowds a hundred times the size of this. I have a best-selling album. I bring it every night. I play… perfectly.’

The man didn’t flinch.

‘Maybe that’s the problem.’

She didn’t answer.

His face softened, laughter lines turning his features into an inviting glow. He picked up his guitar, and strummed a single, imperfect chord and let it hang in the air, the dissonant frequencies swimming in the night breeze.

‘Come on, sit. Play with me.’

He handed her the guitar. The strings felt rough under her fingers, resisting her coaxing. She tried to play, but the instrument sounded wrong. Flat. Unmeasured. Her fingers refused to improvise. They knew the shape of every chord, but couldn’t sense them.

‘You don’t need to fix it,’ he said as he watched her struggle, ‘You just need to feel it.’

She put the guitar down and left without a word.

The recalibration chamber was waiting.

‘It’s natural to doubt,’ Dr. Zen looked at her kindly, ‘The mind resists simplicity. But you want excellence.

Perfection even. That means release. Excellence is a freedom from failure.’

Maida hesitated. ‘But isn’t failure part of… isn’t it?…’

Zen touched her arm gently. ‘Let’s begin.’

The pod closed around her once more.

A couple of nights later, Maida was playing the biggest gig of her life. Everything was going perfectly.

But it wasn’t right.

The crowd seemed rigid, the stage seemed inert. The lights shone out onto the watchers, and that’s when she saw him. The man with the guitar, leaning against the fencing below the stage.

The words stuck in her throat. Maida started to panic as they caught, ripping her cords red raw. She started to scream, grabbing her guitar by the neck and smashing it down on the stage, shattering it into a million shards. The pieces morphed into the scattered remains of the Excellence Engine in her mind as she kicked over the amps, roared down the microphone, a tribal, guttural scream of angst. In the wings, her manager was horrified, but as she looked up at the crowd, they were also screaming. Raging. Egging her on as the whole auditorium erupted into a frenzy of raw emotion.

It was the one they talked about for years.

The gig that made her.