Part One.Part Two.Part Three.Part Four.Part Five.Part Six.Part Seven.Part Eight.Part Nine.Looking back now, I remember how Alina was about everything, she had been hugely worried about me for the whole time. I had felt empty for a week, cried for about three hours after discovering the news and when I went to the Hospital to see Mum I broke down again then. Alina had been with me the whole time, she had made sure I was alright and to be honest I had no shame anymore – I didn’t care about crying in front of her anymore. It was awful, normally I would have held stuff in, tried not to cry in front of a girl but I felt comfortable around Alina, I didn’t mind if she saw my pain and it was understandable anyway – I think she would have thought I was heartless if I didn’t, though she herself was one of the coolest characters I knew, showing little emotion, other than in front of me at times of course.
She had constantly asked me if I was alright, if I was coping and I regrettably snapped at her a few times – wanting to be alone with my thoughts. This was a girl I believed I actually loved, it was a big word for sure and we were both too young to perhaps experience what people would consider to be ‘true love’ but I believed it then. Wouldn’t have said anything about it to anyone of course, the boys would have ripped me to shreds for that sort of thing and that wouldn’t be fun to try and have to deal with. Alina was great about it all, I stayed at hers a few times, she argued with her Mum over it and stood up to her step father and whilst I was there he wouldn’t dare touch her.
I think she finally realised I was serious about her, even if this with my Pa had come at the worst possible time for our relationship to blossom. It’d be bad anytime it happened – but it had occurred at a poor time in relation to other events. I felt empty without Pa, he had always guided me through life, advising me on the correct decisions to make and almost giving me direction through life. Now that I didn’t have that I had to make my own decisions – me and Mum were arguing and had barely any relationship, poor Silvana had to look after little Jarik and it was almost as if our whole lives had gone to shit without Dad there to help us.
I was depressed, I was sure of it but I wouldn’t exactly try and get the problem fixed or solved. Silvana had noticed it and had told me to go to see a doctor or something, I hadn’t exactly given her a fair response – I’d been pretty honest sure, but it’d probably been a bit unfair to shoot the idea down in such a manner. I wasn’t exactly in a great frame of mind to make the decision.
Times were hard in Mytannion, the regime that had been deposed, Kalinina and all them they had made it that way. People were suddenly wildly liberal but the financial and economic issues people and the nation as a whole made austerity measures the only way forward. I became fairly knowledgeable about it all whilst I had myself cooped up at Alina’s, I read a lot of books, news, it was my life for about a month – some days I’d stay there reading about the latest political measure to try and cut the deficit and others I’d go out and buy some more newspapers to try and find out about the latest development.
Many would say it was a boring life but I found it fairly interesting. It wasn’t exactly me though, I wasn’t very interested in politics and found all that sort of stuff boring unless The Pink Skies incorporated something tangentially related into one of their songs. I know that Stefan had told me that when he wrote ‘Ibonian Heaven’, the bit at the start about drowning a woman was related to the now deposed Premier Kalinina, we all hated her guts up north and most of our families had been involved in getting rid of her.
She had kept us all down and where we had been the life and the soul of the country before she had come to power, we were just simply her workforce, doing her dirty work and allowing the south and the dickheads from the capital to live easy lives whilst we worked our arses off doing tough jobs for them, mining, factory work, other assorted bits of manual labour. Even I had been involved in some of it, I’d been about 11, 12, 13ish when it had gotten its worst and even I’d had to do some hard work in the factories. She cared none about us.
Music had kept us going, even if she had tried to make sure that it didn’t. Music was now our lives, we lived for it and without her our lives were so much better – even if our economy wasn’t.
Once I got worse and worse and stayed at home more and then Alina’s I really worried her, she was upset because I was and she didn’t know what to do about it. She constantly asked what I wanted her to do and I couldn’t answer because I didn’t really know what to say myself. I didn’t know what I wanted her to do. I felt useless, worthless at times and for no real reason, it was proper shit. I hadn’t seen any of the lads for a while either and apparently they were once again just writing music and practicing our old stuff.
Alina had declined to tell me of any offers we had had to perform – I wasn’t in the right state of mind apparently which was a ridiculous notion – I think it would have been something to do almost, something to take my mind off the grief that had stricken me for a month after my Pa’s death. I didn’t know how to respond to it honestly, it was something I hadn’t really encountered in any shape or form before. It was new to me and I had discovered I wasn’t the best at dealing with it – I wasn’t sure I wanted to ever actually have to deal with it ever again in my life. Life was tough and this compounded everything and it wasn’t something that I felt a 16 year old should have to deal with, it must have been even worse for Silvana – someone at an important stage in her life, she’d be heading off to University soon and this hadn’t been helpful to her.
I needed something to make me feel better and I probably made one of the worst life decisions I had ever made. Hannes had given us some contacts here and there – mainly within the music industry but he also gave us drug dealer’s numbers, in order to give us the stuff that made us perform and write music in the manner we did. At this time it probably was not a good idea to have access to one of them so easily. They could give me stuff that would surely remove my pain but would also make me irritable and moody on the comedown, which would not be fun for anyone who was close to me and particularly Alina – something I never would have wanted, but sadly back then I was younger and stupid and the drugs seemed the best thing to do to improve my mood.
The allure of the drug dealer’s phone number was too strong and I quickly found myself dialling it, Alina was out, her Mum and her step father were at work and I was in her back room by myself in the dark. It was a pretty sad life I was living day to day; I hadn’t been to school in a few weeks, they had tried to make me go in a few times and I’d just not paid attention really. They said it’d be good for my grief – taking my mind off it by doing school work but I didn’t see it really, I felt the music would have been better for me but Alina and Silvana had kind of said going back into it so quickly may not be a good idea.
A voice crackled into life at the other end of the line.
“Yeah?” It came.
“It’s Svet Jelic mate, need some gear.”
“Ah right, you alright Svet la’? Heard about your Dad mate.”
“Yeah, now can we get on with this, you got any gear for me?”
“Woah. Try to be nice and that’s the thanks I get, brilliant,” he said before beginning to focus more on what I was saying. “Yeah I’ve got some stuff, the usual ecstasy for you I presume?” He questioned.
“Nah, if I wanted that I’d get Hannes to sort me out mate,” I said, “Anything a bit more... Well, anything stronger?”
“Plenty mate. You have anything in mind or should I just give you something and not ask too many questions?”
“Yeah, that. Just whatever, just make sure it’s good stuff and it’ll make me forget about all this crap I’ve got going on.”
“Sure, as I said, I’m not going to ask too many questions rock star. I’ll have it ready for you in ten, meet me somewhere, any idea where?”
“Meet me at mine, I’ll pay you extra.”
“Alright, sound, see you there lad.”
...
The time passed fairly quickly, I had had to drag myself into the shower and to get dressed. My head hurt, I didn’t know whether it was lack of light or something slightly different. It was a head ache, a migraine perhaps, I wasn’t sure of the exact issue but my head was banging and getting fucked on some drugs was probably not the best idea given the state of me and the effects they would have on my body but I didn’t care anymore. I was almost liberated of caring about anything because of my Dad’s passing and that meant even my own life.
I didn’t care what state I’d be in by the end of the day, if it meant I died myself I wasn’t sure I was bothered. I felt empty and as if I didn’t mind, I wasn’t sure what I wanted from life anymore. I had wanted success, a little fame, Alina, my family safe. Now, I wasn’t sure I wanted anything, I was indifferent towards it all. Sure Alina was a big part of my life and so was my sister Silvana – but my mother and I had gone different directions and the success and fame were no longer important to me – I didn’t care whether I had them or not.
It wasn’t a big issue anymore; I stepped outside the front door and took the short walk down to my house, a little down the street. One advantage of living here was being so close to Alina’s, but of course, now I actually lived with her (kind of), it didn’t matter none. I couldn’t process thoughts; Dad was constantly on my mind. I just wanted him to be back and the grief that had stricken me ever since his death. Everything was muddled.
Confused was probably the best word to describe myself, I was unsure of nigh on every single decision I had to make. Silvana had asked me what to do with the stall down the market, our uncle had been running it in my absence which I believed to be very good of him really. He didn’t have to do that after all, it wasn’t his look out. I’d said if he wanted to continue to run it, that’d be a massive favour to us all until I was back in shape to run it. I didn’t know if that would ever happen though. I didn’t know if I’d ever be fully normal again, I doubted it. The pain was too much.
I leaned against the red bricks of the wall that was right next to my front door, these streets were the ones I used to play football on when I was little – Dad would come home from the stall and laugh at us all scampering around – occasionally Dad would get involved and play a good pass through to me to convert. Every time I’d run back over to him and we’d celebrate like two Atletik players down at Maine Road. Those days were gone of course, Maine Road no longer existed, I no longer played any football and Dad was quite simply no longer here.
I took a cigarette out of the packet in my pocket and then the lighter out of my jacket pocket, lit it up and took a long drag. The wait was quite painful, I just wanted to get off my head and not remember my own name. The high would remove the pain over my father for a while, it’d all go away and I’d forget what it felt like to grieve over a loved one.
The cigarette soothed my mind a little, I didn’t think I knew fully what was going on and I wasn’t even on the drugs yet. My brain was addled by emotion and that was enough to make anyone go a little mental. I did think at times I was turning insane, the sadness and emptiness had twisted me into a person I hadn’t been before – me interested in politics and spending all my time in darkened rooms and not responding to Alina when she spoke? It didn’t sound like me at all. I knew it wasn’t me at all.
I probably could have changed myself had I really wanted to do so but it would have taken everything I had, aptitude and desire and it seemed as if both of them things had been knocked out of me with Dad going. Everything came back to his death. I couldn’t blame him, of course I couldn’t but stupid life and the way it threw stuff at you was something I was very tempted to blame.
I had a few more drags of the cigarette, deep in thought just as a black moped whizzed up onto the street. It’d be him, no doubting that, he had his helmet on and came right over, stopping just next to me. I kept still, leaning against the wall, one foot pressed against it. He stepped off the ‘ped and went to the seat, lifting it up and grabbing a little bag out of it. It was full of what appeared to be almost off-white... nuggets off whatever the fuck it was. I couldn’t think of another word to describe the stuff in the bag, nuggets seemed to be the best word, even if it did sound a little bit bent. It had lots of jagged edges and didn’t look to appetising to say the least.
The man turned to me and handed me a little pipe as well as the bag, he still had his helmet on and his visor down. He wasn’t visible behind it and I didn’t believe it was the same man who I had spoken to on the phone, he had seemed fairly sympathetic to me and talkative. He was the head of the operation to be fair, this man was just one of his lieutenants, collecting money and distributing drugs. He’d be fairly hard too, to try and discourage anyone from running off without paying for their gear. I knew I certainly wouldn’t try and run from this fella.
I handed him the money I’d been told to pay and turned to walk away, I heard the man step behind me. “You’re gonna have to smoke that mate, use the crack pipe, I’d advise you not to share it with anyone.” Then his moped burst into noise again and he was gone. I was happy he’d left, I stuffed the bag into my pocket and looked the pipe over. I didn’t know whether I was looking forward to this or not, many had told me never to get onto this sort of stuff but I wasn’t sure I minded anymore. I walked back to Alina’s, opening the door and heading inside, back to my pit in the back room. I liked it in there, it was darker than everywhere else with the curtains permanently drawn and my personal effects strewn around the room. I took the bag out of my jacket pocket and looked over the small crystal like nuggets inside it, I opened it up and took one out, it felt like a little rock, rough edges and hard, I imagined it’d be tough to break down, not that I’d try.
I put the nugget in the pipe – not entirely sure if what I was doing was correct or not – and tried to light it from the bottom. There were fumes immediately and the vapour was a nasty smell, I could almost taste it in my mouth it was so grim. I couldn’t take it really but I thought sod it, I’d need to if I wanted to forget it all – I’d need to damage myself to get rid of the grief I felt and I did, I inhaled and there was no real effect. This was shit. I’d paid money to try and get over the grief and it wasn’t working.
I put another one of the nuggets in the crack pipe and lit it again, the fumes were there once again and I began to inhale some more. I felt a little woozy but not exactly because of the drugs, I think it was more because I was breathing in heavily rather than it being the drugs. I inhaled some more and there was still no effect. This was a new drug, it couldn’t be that it was taking time to hit me – there was no chance – I obviously just hadn’t had enough or something, so I did some more and some more until I had used four of the nuggets in the bag. There were only ten or so.
That was when it did hit me and I was too high, my eyes were rolling, I could feel it. It was horrific, I felt sick, and I was shaking. My body vibrated and my head ached, it felt as if my skull was being smashed, crushed. It felt ten times worse than being battered by them lads. That had no comparison. If I had wanted to forget about my father’s death I had sure found a way to do so, I was off my head – no doubting that. Quite literally, my head felt as if it had gone somewhere different to the rest of me.
I retched and the contents of my stomach came up, my mouth was salivating wildly, I had certainly had too much. This was beyond just whiteying, this was an overdose. I was surprised at how I could think of these things whilst also being as high as I was.
I wasn’t too sure whether I actually was high though or if this was just making my mind spin and my head hurt and my body produce such grim things as the bile that was currently burning through my throat as I retched again. The floor was awash with vomit and saliva, I was sweating, my eyes wouldn’t focus on anything in particular and my body was a mess. My physical appearance didn’t match my mental one though – I felt confident, wide awake, I wasn’t quite sure why but I felt as if I could do anything really. My body felt hot, the temperature rising quickly, my heart was beating quickly against my ribcage – almost painfully so.
My body felt like jelly, ironically enough given the nickname my friends had decided to give me and I felt my body almost convulse. My arms were wildly flailing and my legs almost bouncing against the floor which I had somehow ended up on. I couldn’t feel anything though, my body was numbed, I just felt as if I was wide awake but I was almost fitting, convulsing. I’d seen my brother do this when he was little because his body had overheated and it was one of the worst things I had ever seen. I dreaded to think what anybody who walked in would think of me – lying down in pools of my own vomit and sweat.
I heard the door click open and some footsteps come in.
“Svet, are you in?” It was Alina, she walked through the house, obviously going through the kitchen and then the front room and then through to where I was lying. I could barely see her, my eyes were hazing but there was a cry of desperation from her. As if she was scared of what was going on, looking back I knew I probably would be if the situations were reversed. I supposed they had been – from that night after The Switch gig.
She ran back out into the kitchen and came back with a towel, she held my head up and my eyes rolled again and she wiped my mouth clean and then tried to look into my eyes.
“Svet?!” She shouted, “Svet, look at me!” She slapped my face and then wiped my forehead again, “Svet, focus!” I could just about manage it, looking back into her eyes and holding her gaze. She had her arm around my back, under my arms, supporting my body and holding me up. My legs still seemed to have a mind of their own however and were almost dancing underneath me with a rhythm that was non-existent at that time. I could barely speak, my mouth was salivating wildly. I tried to speak but all that came out was an unintelligible garble.
“Alinaaaaa..” My voice hissed, it was all I could manage and she looked down at me, she whimpered. Tears struck her eyes. It would have been grim for her to see me in this state. Why did I put her through it? At the time these thoughts didn’t come to my mind, the thoughts that did were incoherent and made no sense – but when I recovered it was the first thing that sprung to mind and it was the thing that made me realise that I needed to clean up my act and get over this. It was time to do so.
“Svet, I’m not going to ring an ambulance, you’d get in trouble, look stay here.” She said, trying to push my body up onto the sofa and managing it eventually. She was skinny, her arms had no muscle and she could barely lift me but she managed it. They say it’s easier to do things for people you love don’t they. I wondered if she did.
She brought me a glass of water and almost forced it down my throat, the liquid was cooler and my body was beginning to cool down a little although I was still aware of beads of sweat rolling down my body. She pulled me close to her and I didn’t know why, I didn’t know what to do so I swung my arms around her, pulling her close and she did the same, pulling me closer to her. I was suddenly tired, the high and being wide awake being replaced by a feeling of almost like I had the ‘flu, I was tired, felt exhausted in fact and it wasn’t too long before I fell asleep in her arms.
...
“Svet, hey Svet,” Came a voice, my eyes snapping open and Alina coming into view. “Are you okay now?”
“Ugh, I feel exhausted Alina, I’m so tired.”
“I’m not surprised, you had crack! Why the fuck did you do crack Svet?!”
“I’m not sure, I wanted to forget everything, I felt cooped up you know...” I said, “I wanted to just get rid of the grief and I just asked for whatever. I wasn’t sure what it was at first to be honest, until the guy told me what it was...”
“You’re such an idiot, the state of you when I came in, you should be glad both my Mum and him were working late – they would have chucked you out if they’d found you in the state you were in. The state of the room alone took a little explaining and that was even after I’d cleaned everything up.”
I vaguely remembered throwing my guts out all over her back room and I could feel my top was still damp against my body. I was lying in her bed and all concept of time had evaded me completely, what time was it? I couldn’t even hazard a guess, the curtains were drawn and there was no light coming through – but it could have been bright outside for all I knew.
“What time is it Alina?”
“You’ve been in bed for about a day and a half Svet! I’ve never seen anything like it.” She looked at me with the most disappointed look I had ever seen on her face, she had massive bags under her eyes and she was even more pale than usual. It seemed as if she’d been crying too, there were various tissues all over the room and she did look very worried. Her face was lined slightly, as if she had aged in the past few days, going from a 15 year old to someone in their late 20s almost. It was mental.
Maybe it was just the light, I still found her as attractive as ever.
I couldn’t believe she had cared for me in the manner she had. She must have been here nearly the whole time and just as I thought on that a question formed upon my lips.
“Have you been here the whole time I’ve been asleep Alina?” I asked. She looked at me, her dark green eyes taking everything in and considering a response. She looked across my face.
“I have. I had to make it look as if I was still going every day so told my Mum I had to go in early to get some extra work done for some lessons, she bought it, so she thought I was gone before she even got out of bed most days.” She said, “I had to stay really quiet and then ring the school saying I couldn’t come in, they thought I was my Mum though... It was difficult. I’ve missed two days,” She laughed bitterly.
“I’m sorry.” Is all I could muster.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m glad you’re alright.”
“I don’t feel alright. I don’t feel too good at all.” I said, she laughed again. She picked up a glass of water from the bedside table and gestured for me to have it, “Thanks.” I said and sipped the water, the cool liquid cooling me down and clearing my head slightly.
“Well, you’re better now, I’m glad.” She said. I propped myself up on my elbows and moved nearer to her, giving her a peck on the cheek and she smiled down at me. “Anyway, are you going to get out of bed and finally have a shower? You stink.”
“Thanks and there I was thinking I was the model of someone in their prime.” I laughed.
“Get up, now.” She said, punching me on my arm. I laughed again and dragged myself out of bed. “You’ve got a big day ahead.” She said and I stood still for a second, shocked. I wondered what I could have ahead of me. What had she prepared for me.
“Why? What am I doing?” I asked, unsure of myself. Unsure of what was going on.
“Well you know how The Aurora haven’t done much for around a month because you’ve been off the scene? Well your mates have been graffitiing the whole town with the band’s name and it’s got the band some attention, notoriety, that sort of thing.” She said, taking her time to get to the point, “Well, more people have listened to your tunes as a result and Hannes has apparently sorted a gig of your own. You’ll be headlining it tonight. If you’re up to it of course.” She quickly added at the end of the sentence. I was reassured a little.
I didn’t know if I was, could I face all them people? I wasn’t one for stage fright or anything like that, I loved performing and being on that stage is where I felt right. I just didn’t know if I was ready for it myself. I had a couple of new songs I had written myself, more political stuff, one was called ‘Red Star’ and I loved it more than the majority of songs I had already written. It was quality. Then there was another one, ‘Don’t Have To Sell My Soul’, I was turning into a right anti-capitalist.
Was I ready to perform them? The lads didn’t know the chords for them or anything, it was something we’d need time to work on. Would I be able to perform them tonight? Doubted it. But I loved them more than anything, they were easily my favourites – other than Ibonian Heaven perhaps, but I didn’t write that, so it felt a little strange calling it my favourite of our songs. I don’t know.
These two songs had been an experiment on my part to see if I could write chords and stuff too, they came off quite well I reckon, though they hadn’t been performed properly yet – not with Stefan on the guitar parts, Polak on his bass and Laz smashing the drums to bits. I’d have to see if it worked, would we have time to get them up to scratch for a gig tonight? I wasn’t too sure.
Could I perform anyway? I didn’t know. I didn’t know if I was ready for this. I’d have to take the leap some time.
“Let’s do this.”
...
We were sat in the area behind the stage at a new venue, one I hadn’t yet been to. Inspiral was a big venue, 5,000 people would pack into this place and all for us. I wasn’t sure how people had heard our music, it wasn’t as if we had records going out or anything. But they had. Stefan hadn’t explained it fully to me, but we had practiced all day – this was the first time I had seen them since Pa died and it felt good to be with the lads again. They had welcomed me straight back into the fold and it was great.
We had got the new tunes sorted so quickly, it had taken Laz the longest to learn his parts on them – which wasn’t surprising, he wasn’t clever when it came to anything really and it just took him ages to get used to anything – whether it be academically or musically, he took his time. Eventually he got it though and I hoped he didn’t go too far wrong on his parts. Worst came to worst he’d just go into some form of solo, that’s what I told him to do. It’d be funny watching him improvise at the very least.
Polak had been quite comfortable in learning his bits and we all knew Stefan would pick the chords up easily as he always did, he was at one with music and it was insane how good he was at it. He picked everything up with ease and we knew he’d perform it excellently too. It was strange how no bigger band had tried to nab him off us as of yet. It often happened, bigger bands picking off the biggest talents in smaller bands and then using them to a good standard in order to make the best music possible.
We knew we were the best though. Maybe not on a Pink Skies level, but we knew we were better than the rest. Neon Hail had been established for longer than us and were now falling behind, there were lots of other bands too that had suffered the same fate and they were getting slightly riled at our fast track to success but the only reason we had managed that was because we were quite simply better than everybody else. We weren’t being cocky or overconfident or big headed, we just knew we had the best songs around on our scene and were good at performing. People liked us, we were relatable – we came from the red bricks of Thessia ourselves and this gave everybody else a little bit of hope – they believed they too could do something to get out of the place.
It’s not where you’re from, it’s where you’re at and all that – we were from Thessia, but that didn’t matter did it. We were still in Thessia, but we were at a crossroads in our lives. We were heading towards success and we needed to keep along that path. It was crucial for us.
The lads were getting pissed and I had said I’d have a few beers too to try and loosen myself up, but instead I’d just had a few slugs of vodka. It had loosened me up that was for sure, I was feeling pretty lucid and alive. I was ready for this, no matter what had happened and I think getting out after such a big overdose and Alina caring for me had helped me no end. It had made me clean myself up and get my act together. It had made me think about my grief and rationalise it in a way that had finally made me understand it.
Pa had always said, ‘always have fun no matter what you do’, he’d want me to remember him but remember everything good and not his passing. He’d want me to forget about that and move on, always moving forwards and always try and remember why he was great. He’d want me to remember the good times, forget the bad – including his death – and live my life in a manner he would agree with. Doing my best in as many things as I could, looking after the family, being honest about everything and just living life to the full.
I was going to turn things around starting tonight. I’d go out and do this gig for my father, I’d do it to the best of my abilities and then in the morning I’d go and apologise for being an idiot – Alina would hopefully accept it – then I’d go square things with my Mum if I possibly could, if she was being an idiot about things then I’d leave it alone to try and not aggravate the situation and then try and recover things again from there. I needed to salvage something from the situation with my mother, it wasn’t fair to leave things on them terms. It was all a bit much for a 16 year old to deal with.
A man came walking in, it wasn’t Hannes, it was someone doing his job but even more professionally. This guy knew what he was doing. He strode over to us with purpose.
“It’s time to go out boys, smash it.” He said, this time he wasn’t offering me any drugs in the way Hannes would. I didn’t think I needed any this time though. There was probably still some crack in my system somewhere. It didn’t matter anyway, this would be the most sober gig I’d ever done and though the whole crowd and the boys were all off their heads, I was not. This one was for Pa. It was going to be the best thing I had ever done and I would make sure of it. That meant that I would have to be sober.
...
We walked out onto the stage; there was a big sign behind the drums with ‘The Aurora’ written across it, with vivid colours curling around it. It appeared we had a logo now; things had seemingly gotten a lot bigger whilst I’d been away. Somehow the music had reached a wide audience, I wasn’t sure how but I wasn’t going to ask why. Someone had recorded stuff and obviously put it on unlicensed tapes and stuff, people had heard it anyway. There had even been a piece in the newspaper saying how good we had been at The Seahorse.
I walked over to the microphone like I had a few times before and it was slightly different this time around, I was ready for something big and I wasn’t off my head for once. It was slightly unnerving that I didn’t have my MD to rely on to put the performance on. I’d rely on it a few more times I was sure, but not this time around, I’d show Pa I could be successful and I would show I did not have to have drugs to do it too. This one was for him, it would be incredible.
“Hello Inspiral!” I shouted, a cheer going up straight off and my heart pounded with pride, “I don’t know if many of you know – but my father passed away recently,” I said, with the crowd turning to sombre quiet. “I would ask for a minute’s silence but it wouldn’t be fitting, so instead this show is just going to be for him – all of it, let’s put on the biggest fucking show in the whole of Rushmore tonight, this is going to be huge and it’s for my Pa. Let’s fucking do it. Come on!” I shouted and the place went off as the boys began to play the opening chords of ‘Don’t Have To Sell My Soul’.
It got to the bit where I came in and I joined in the best I could, this would be incredible.
“I don’t have to sell my soul,” I sang. The crowd was already dancing around in a trance like manner, they were all fucked off their tits from the alcohol or high on ecstasy.
This would be the biggest gig ever. I knew it would, I could predict it. Already the crowd were dancing along to the lyrics and when we got more into the show onto the more bouncy songs they bounced along to them too. We smashed it.
...
I picked up a newspaper from the corner shop, luckily being a smaller band meant not everybody knew who we were. The front page was the biggest surprise I had ever seen. It had our faces splashed across it, all of us clearly drunk, walking away from The Inspiral into the night. Polak had his bass in a case in hand and Laz had the most gormless expression on his face I had ever seen. It did look like a cringey band photo to be honest, but the fact we were all clearly out of our tree made it a little easier.
“Nice one,” I mumbled to nobody in particular as I read the headline. ‘Thessian band The Aurora play incredible gig at Inspiral’ it read, it told of how it had gone viral in a night with people ringing their friends and saying how it had been the biggest thing they had ever seen. This was so sound. I couldn’t believe it.
I walked back to Alina’s and as soon as I went through the front door she was pounding down the stairs, I showed her the newspaper and her face burst into a large smile. She was back to her usual self and I dropped the newspaper as she came up to me running, jumping up and wrapping her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist. We kissed and in that moment everything was perfect.
I couldn’t imagine things would get much better. But they soon did. The phone was ringing and Alina quickly ran over, breaking off our kissing at the most inopportune time and trying to prevent her Mum or her step father from being woken up at a fairly early time in the morning. It was only 8:30 and on a Saturday that meant a lie in for most people. Alina looked confused for a second and then her face dawned with realisation, a little voice squawked at the other end of the line. Alina gestured the phone to me.
“Svet, it’s for you,” She said, a smirk on her face, “It’s Stefan.” Stefan had been a little miffed when he had discovered I was staying at Alina’s but he knew what was going on now and although he didn’t know that I knew of his feelings for Alina – he still hid them and for some reason let it go that he knew I had been with her a fair few times, staying at hers. He knew we hadn’t exactly ‘consummated’ anything, but we were close and he knew we had kissed a whole lot – in almost a casual fashion, which is how I saw it mostly.
I thought Alina did too. I took the phone off her and could hear Stefan breathing at the other end of the line immediately, I didn’t know why he was breathing heavily. I thought he could have been running or something, in trouble or something along those lines. Never did I expect what was to come next.
“Hello?”
“Svet?” He asked.
“Yeah, it’s me mate.” I chuckled.
“Mate, everything is fucking sweet.”
“Why?”
“I just got a call to my landline from an agent mate, from the music industry.” Stefan said, I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing, “He apologised for ringing so early, but he said he needed to get us before anybody else could.”
“What mate?! So what does that mean?” I wasn’t sure where this was headed.
“He said he wanted to sign us up, that we should meet him and try and agree terms on putting an album together and doing a proper tour. Apparently someone videoed the whole performance and has put it on the internet or something.” Ha, the Internet, something that very few in our neighbourhood had access to, it was becoming cheaper though – Polak had it, he’d be able to show us. “Apparently it has got two million views in about nine hours, the
whole gig Svet mate!
Two million people.”
I couldn’t believe what my best mate was saying.
“You’re not pulling my leg are you mate? Serious?”
“Serious lad! It’s huge. We need to go see him. Apparently we could support The Switch at their outdoor gig in Kitzbuhel!”
Kitzbuhel. The big left-wing mountain city. The pirate city. They loved music, they had a massive outdoor venue called the Millerntor Bowl – 16,000 people would often come to watch big names perform outdoors and if this was true our rise had been more than meteoric, it had been the quickest rise ever.
I was speechless. We would have to go meet this guy, this money could improve everybody’s lives if we were successful and we ourselves had no doubt that we would be. Our songs were great and if this video had gone viral so quickly then it clearly wasn’t just us that believed it. The newspapers, everybody thought it.
All I could manage was the most Thessian word of all. One which defined our dialect more than anything else and when I explained what I had just been told to Alina, she came out with the exact same response. It was the only thing we could manage.
“Mega.”