"Hey, we're the Hellion Hosts. Only one of us isn't high. Try to guess which one." The bassist speaks into the microphone with tenacity. Kicking out a fast riff. His guitar warped buzzing on the strings. Double picking with a metal cut coin. "Anything for distortion." Patches exclaim, delighted by dissonance. The bass drops, and the drummer hits the kick and slams out the bass tom, shaking. Pins laughs, "Well it's not the drummer." Even the organ player is jamming out an adrenalized tune. The bpm drops, "Did they just switch the time signature?" Patches shouts are barely heard over the amplifiers. Pins, looking at the guitar being treated cruelly exclaims, "It's the guitarist. It's the fucking guitarist."
"Oi, compensate. You'll drag the whole song down," says Ethix in the middle of the performance. Pins claps his hands, "I knew it, it's the guitarist. He's blitzed."
"Quit it, man. You'll bring this whole show to a halt." Amongst so many of the crowd that came to mosh before launch. They wanted something to feel empowering and lessen their insecurities as they dry out before travelling in tins to the only planet nearby that civilization could ever hope to reach. Fossil fuels are mostly expensed at liftoff. Most of the travel would rely on solar energy. In an awful aim to yield energy from the solar flares, using their mass to slowly control their trajectory. Ethix spits on a prick in the front row who brought proper tools to remove the barricade. The space in between security and the stage. “What? How are they in a row now?” the bassist swings his guitar at the rampage jumping up the stage. “This is going to turn into a riot.” Pins glances at the antagonized crowd. “You can almost see the lynch in their eyes.”
“Fuck it. I was enjoying it.” Patches lunge toward those trying to climb up had the distance to grab them off by the neck forcing them to spin out back against the crowd. One by one. Pins joins him jumping the guard rail while the security is busy with the mess pushing through the middle. Picks up the microphone stand and starts damaging the shit out of the equipment causing a writhing dissonance in everyone’s ears. Surprised when it didn’t phase the crowd just the singer, “Fuck that cost a lot didn’t it?”
“You destroyed the amps too. “
Your buddy spat on a fan and the bassist broke his face with a makeshift bat. Way to give everyone a good reason to leave.” He snidely sneaks off backstage and notices, “Snith!"
“This will be funny just count down from three.”
"Counts twice with two fingers up. “One.” “What am I blind?”
“Nope.” He takes my head and points it directly at a light in the warehouse. What came next he had not intended. The sound of a knee snapping after a scrimmage on the floor for a flashlight kicked frantically across the ground. "Oh, no. Back off." Tangent holds up a butterfly knife. "This is mine." Everybody calm down. He scoffs at the of must be a prankster too ignorant for bitterness to be the only emotion weighing on the mind. He holds it up to the stage noticing a punk with a Mohawk, "Pins." And a silhouette of someone that barely has an appearance, no distinguishable features... He considers that this might be the mark he was here but brushes it off as a sick game played by a teenager. Heading over to the sound of panic of someone who'd had her knee locked funny, dislocated in the pit for the flicked switch of a lightbulb. What kind of crowd swarms for one flashlight just because the lights went out? Damn, the kid probably thought this would stop the fucking chaos. "That's brutal. He hasn't been called that since he tried to steal another guy's shoe drunk." Pins exclaims, "and like, he was wired. That beer had caffeine in it."
"That's his mistake. Don't put caffeine in your drinks, for thrills at the show."
"Can you count to five for me?" Tangent says to the woman unable to move her right leg. She shakes her head. "Yes, you can. Just say it slowly."
"Five, four, three. "
The snap must've busted some sense into the crowd the second time around because the heated battle with the band had abated. "Ear popping as always, Tangent." "You're not going with them are you?" "To the red planet, no pulse of mine would've ever got me on those poorly made space ships to trace around the stars like lunacy hoping for better geography." "We aren't all heartless here." Says the man next to Pins."Sorry man, wait. You got a hit by a fucking bass!."
"So." "You've taken it like a champ. Look at my fingers now. Yeah, yeah. Good. Okay, someone call an ambulance now for shit's sake. He's concussed. Had to hear it twice, just to stop." Shakes his head. "Where the hell is that Damn kid?" The light turns back on. "He's gone man, you missed your mark." "What? Don't fuck with him. He just wanted to see a show before launch tomorrow." Patches says forcefully. "You had reason enough to pertain him from a lifelong dream."
"Sounds more like a nightmare, Tangent." the shows busted, sirens going people rushing out of windows and doors while a few just drag their feet wisely. Way to mess up everyone's last night on Globe."
*