Yep, I'm doing this again. I've been insanely bored lately and needed something to do while waiting for my guitar parts to come in the mail, so I figured I might as well start up a new companion piece to Memoirs. This is meant to take place somewhere in the current timeline - not sure exactly when, but I don't think it's all that important. Anyway, let's get right to it!
Journey of a Mad Guitar Player
Chapter 1
“Daddy?” a young voice called out to the sleeping figure.
“Mmrgh.”
“Daddy?” the voice said again, this time a little more forcefully.
“Five more minutes,” the still half-asleep figure mumbled.
This time, a new voice spoke up. “gh, if you don't get your sorry butt out of bed right now, you're really going to regret it. . . .”
This finally got gh's attention. Instantly, his eyes snapped open and he was sitting up, the sheets covering from his waist to his lower legs and his feet already touching the floor. “Saffa? How'd you get in here?”
Saffa smirked at gh. “You gave me a spare key, remember?”
“Right,” gh said, still trying to shake off his drowsiness. “Wait, what time is it?”
“Four o'clock,” Saffa said with a heavy sigh. “As in, PM. As in, thirty minutes before you have to be at work.”
“Oh, god da-” gh quickly stifled the curse word about to pass through his lips, noticing Leatherhead's presence. “Er, gosh darn it.”
“I swear, it's like I'm your dad or something- come on, gh, cover up already,” Saffa said as she covered her eyes. gh hastily picked a pair of jeans up off the floor of his thread. “You're lucky I'm here to watch LH. This is, what, the third time I've woken you up like this?”
“Sorry,” gh mumbled sheepishly as he made himself decent. “I should know by now, a RAFian never sleeps. And apparently, that should be taken literally.” Although this was meant to be taken as a joke, there was a hint of bitterness in gh's words. He had only laid down for a nap an hour earlier, after yet another sleepless night.
Saffa gave gh a lighthearted slap on the back. “Just hurry up, before you get fired.”
“Right.” gh threw on a black baseball cap and hurried toward the door. “Thanks again for watching LH for me, Saf. LH, be good for auntie Saffa, alright?” Leatherhead nodded at his adoptive father, a grin affixed to his reptilian face.
“gh?” Saffa sad, exasperation clear in her voice.
“Yeah?”
“Aren't you forgetting something?” gh didn't respond for a good few seconds.
“Uhh . . .”
“You're not wearing a shirt, you dork!” Forgoing the near-instinctual facepalm, Saffa threw a work shirt at gh. Before he could react, the garment wrapped around his face, temporarily blinding him.
“Oh. Yeah, might need that,” he remarked, quickly donning the shirt. He let out a small chuckle. “Y'know, if someone didn't know better, they'd think we were a married couple or something. . . .”
“If the kid wasn't here, I'd smack you for saying that.”
“Okay I love you buh-bye!” gh yelled over his shoulder as he exited his thread. With gh gone, Saffa went to the closet and pulled out a board game to play with Leatherhead.
“There's something wrong with that kid. . . .”
Thanks, guys :D
New chapter. Sorry if it's a little short, but I really wanted an excuse to do this song adaptation.
Chapter 8
“Back here again,” gh said loudly. “Great. Just great.”
Indeed, gh was back in the void inside his mind. A part of him expected Anderson to appear again. For a while (if time even meant anything), he waited. And waited. And . . . nothing. It's like a goddamn prison, he thought.
Then, he heard a soft, yet ominous drumbeat. It started out very quiet, as if it was coming from the distance, but grew louder and louder. As the sound grew closer, gh could hear a chromatic, atonal keyboard melody accompanying the drums.
He looked down and noticed that he still had the Hello Kitty guitar in his hand. How or why it followed gh into his mind, he wasn't sure, but now wasn't exactly the time for questions. He sat down on the immaterial floor, and resting the guitar on his leg, he began to play. As if on cue, a voice exactly like his own began singing.
Close your eyes,
Get ready, one won't stop the flow. . . .
Console your child,
Get him ready, one more, don't let go
Tonight
It's you
gh himself sang along with his vocal doppelganger for the next verse, somehow knowing the lyrics, as if by instinct:
Calm your eyes,
Get ready, one won't stop the flow
Soul coming around to the morning sun
C'mon, soul of mine,
You're ready, one more don't let go
Tonight . . .
It's soda water, boys
It's soda water, so. . . .
The music began to build in intensity as gh alone sang the next verse:
Ah, soul of mine,
Ah, sober
Ah, sold the mind
Ah, I'm so sober
I know the way,
Ah, stoned
Ah, so it ends,
Ah, I'm stone sober. . . .
The disembodied voice then took the lead, outright screaming at gh. He stopped playing out of surprise, but the music continued to grow into a cacophonous crescendo.
Ah, gimme that gun!
Gimme that acid!
I wanna lose everything that's policing us, and then everything must begin!
And I wanna kill everything!
And I wanna smash it all to bits!
I wanna lose everything but release,
Why don't you just BREAK THEIR ****ING SKULLS!?
gh tried to focus his mind, to break himself out of this nightmare. After all, this was all in his head, wasn't it? However, his efforts had little to no effect on the choir of voices around him, shouting all kinds of violent urges at him. He wanted to drown it out. He wanted to to ignore it. But it got louder and louder. Finally, gh had enough. “Face yourself!” he screamed, barely able to even hear himself. He didn't even know what he meant by that, but the words just came out of his mouth. He shut his eyes and clasped his hands together, trying to focus on something . . . anything but that damned noise. And slowly, very slowly, the noise subsided.
Source song. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxRMcr9Cy7U) Does it make sense in context? Not really. Does it make sense even with the lyrical changes I made? Probably not. Is it a great friggin' slow burn of a song that proves how much of a genius Devin Townsend is? Oh, hell yes :P
Thanks! I really do appreciate the praise :D
New chapter. This . . . this is . . . a . . . thing, I guess? I'm sorry, I really have no words for what you're about to read.
Chapter 10
gh continued walking well into the night, well past the point that any sane individual would have stopped. Of course, this was not the case for gh. Fueled by a sense of determination (which some might call stupidity), he pressed forward.
As the night went on, gh's body screamed at him to stop. He needed to sleep. He needed to eat. And dear god, did he wish he hadn't smoked his last cigarette at work. All of these things only served as a force pushing gh forward, however. Not only did he need to find his guitars, but he needed to prove to himself how strong he was. A little foolish, maybe, but it wasn't easy to think straight under his circumstances.
He continued until his stomach started growling. That was the point when he realized he had to eat something. He looked around for anything remotely edible. Tree bark? No, he wasn't a Hork-Bajir. Even in his current state, he wasn't quite crazy enough to try that. Grass? Not nearly enough sustenance. Dirt? Wait, that's just plain ridiculous.
There. Out of the corner of his eye, gh saw something growing in front of a tree. A small group of mushrooms.
“You think they're safe to eat?” gh asked Anderson.
“How should I know?” Anderson answered derisively. “If you don't know if they're poisonous or not, how would I?”
“Right,” gh said. “God, I'm forgetting we're not, you know. . . .”
“Literally the same-”
“Shut up.” gh knelt down to inspect the mushrooms. “I have no idea,” he concluded. He shook his head. “Screw it. I'm friggin' starving.”
Anderson shook his head. “It's your grave. . . .”
* * *
gh stood up, having finished his snack. “So glad I found those mushrooms,” he said, still chewing on the last remnants, “I was starving.” He looked around the forest surrounding him. “Y'know, this place is kinda . . . juicy.” When he said the last word of that sentence, the letters “J,” “U,” “I,” “C,” and “Y” flew out of gh's mouth and hung in the air, each of them a different color.
gh walked forward a little bit, making some rather odd vocalizations and observing the trail that his hand left when he waved it in front of his face. He especially made note of the forest scenery, which was much more vibrantly-colored than it seemed earlier.
When gh came to a clearing, something made him stop in his tracks. There, movement! Before gh could react, a tall humanoid figure covered in brown fur came into view.
“Oh my God, Sasquatch!” gh yelled with a laugh.
In response, the Sasquatch let out a roar, which was not quite as intimidating as gh would have imagined it would be. “gh, what's up!” the Sasquatch replied in a rather doofy voice. As gh ran up and hugged the tall, shaggy creature, he let out a big laugh. “What're you doin' out here?”
“I was just walking in your beautiful forest,” gh said, looking around once again at the psychedelic imagery.
“Oh, it's not my forest, brotha',” the Sasquatch said, “it's everyone's!”
gh once again gave the Sasquatch a hug. “You're so ****in' awesome, I love you!”
“I love you, too, gh! You're an awesome rocker!”
gh and the friendly Sasquatch both let out a series of roars, each more pathetic than the last.
“Can I be a Sasquatch, too?” gh asked.
“You already are,” the Sasquatch replied in a sage-like yet still idiotic tone. “You're my son, gh. My little baby Sas'.”
When gh looked down at himself, he realized the he was indeed covered in shaggy brown fur, much like his new friend. Without another word, the two began to frolic through the bright colors of the forest while music started playing from somewhere. “Time to fly!” the Sasquatch said, and as gh jumped onto his back, the two rocketed into the air. Feeling the greatest song of his life coming on, gh began singing along to the music:
Down where the Sasquatch hide,
In the misty mountainside,
He's got shiny diamonds that he's got to protect!
Look into the Sasquatch eye,
Did you know that Sas' could fly?
Sasquatch is my daddy and he's got to protect me!
Half man, half machine,
On the cover of a magazine,
Bigfoot is my father and he's got to protect me!
These lyrics don't make sense,
Think I've found my evidence,
That Yeti is my father and he wants to protect me!
“You know where I can find my guitars?” gh asked, interrupting his gorgeous song.
“Sure!” the Sasquatch chirped. “They're right over there!” He pointed ahead, and as a matter of fact, there Señor Butterball was, floating right in front of them.
“Let's get it!” gh said. “I can get it . . . if I stand on- WHOA!” With a jolt, gh was falling, and this immediately broke him out of his trip. He looked down, having seemed to have fallen out of a tree, and right below him. . . .
gh groaned as a tree branch rushed up from below him and he landed, straddling said branch. “Oh . . . not again. . . .” He limply fell off of the branch and landed in a heap on the dirt ground. He slowly picked himself up. “That was really weird. Sasquatch isn't my father. . . .”
. . . I will not apologize for my brilliant formatting. Comic Sans is glorious, even if it is F U C K I N G C A N C E R. Source for this absolute mind****, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2WqYidC_0Y) if anybody cares.
And yes, this is the third Tenacious D adaptation that I've done in one of these things. I shudder to imagine what song I'm gonna use if I ever write another companion piece. . . .