Shine Down

I’m told these prompts are all band names, but I’ve not heard of most of them!  If you like this, please share it with your younger friends who may be familiar with some of these musicians:  the Ghost Inside, Monster Magnet, Shine Down, Sleep Token, Pretty Reckless, Vole Beat, Highly Suspect, Bring Me the Horizon, AWOL Nation, Alien Ant Farm, Imagine Dragons, Electrical Call Boy, Thousand Foot Crutch, Fall Out Boy, Bear Tooth, Future Island, Falling in Reverse (yes, I know it’s supposed to be crutch with a k, but I can’t do it)

Beth slips through the crowd, following her big sister Jilly into the party, mesmerized as pink and green neon lights Shine Down on the dance floor.  “Hey there,” Bobby calls out to her, “you look Pretty Reckless.  Or maybe you’re Reckless Pretty.  That’s what I’ll call you—Reckless Pretty.”

Beth has no idea what he means by this, but she doesn’t care.  She’s been crushing on him so long he can call her anything he likes.  But Jilly moves between them and sweeps Beth toward the punch bowl.  “Highly Suspect,” Jilly blurts.  “Watch out for that one.  He’s a Monster Magnet.”

Beth doesn’t know what that means either, but she does care what her sister thinks and does.  She immediately turns to Jilly, a questioning look in her eyes.

“Bobby collects girls,” Jilly tells her.  “Girls who are willing to re-make themselves for him.  He makes them into monsters, because he’s a monster!  Can’t you tell?  He’s a Fall Out Boy; he’s been drinking the contaminated swill from the collapsed nuke plant for years.”

“Jilly!” her class mate Courtney interjects.  “Stop spreading that nonsense.  You know nobody is allowed near the nuke anymore.  Ain’t nothing over there but vermin, and hawks that eat the vermin, and the vultures that clean up what the hawks leave.  It’s nothing more than a big ole Vole Beat over there.”

Beth can feel her breath catching in her throat at these weird stories.  Jilly grasps Courtney’s forearm.  “I’m trying to protect my little sister,” she hisses.  “You take your naiveté and go peddle it somewhere else, Courtney.  Anybody’s who’s paying attention knows we’re living in an AWOL Nation, something akin to an Alien Ant Farm.  There are crazy fringe Electrical Call Boys who camp out there drinking the water and growing potatoes in the soil thinking the added isotopes will make them strong.  It’s just a Thousand Foot Crutch they’re building in their fantasies, but it won’t protect them.  There’s nothing for them to lean on!”

“You don’t know what your’e talking about, Jilly,” Courtney seethes , then she slips something small and cool into Beth’s hand.  “Here,” she says softly.  “It’s a Bear Tooth.  If you show it to the guard at the gate, he’ll let you in.”

Jilly snatches it away from Beth and throws it across the room.  Beth watches the yellow tooth arc in the air, as if it can somehow propel itself.  She feels she is Falling in Reverse, sweeping backwards up onto a vantage point where she suddenly can see every perspective at once.  There is a Ghost Inside nearly every person at the party, and the living are doped on Sleep Tokens, unaware of their own captivity.

“Bring Me the Horizon,” Jilly whispers to her sister, and the Imagine Dragons the girls had conjured in childhood manifest now at the perimeter of the crowd.  The sisters join hands, rising above the fray, knowing they will be protected on their flight to Future Island.

Photo by Kajetan Sumila on Unsplash