“
If you hurl outside?” From his far-off hidey-hole, Dave was directing, not asking. “Shovel it up and put it in the trash. I don’t want my dogs to get to it because it’s whatever you ate plus the shrooms and they’ll gobble it all up and freak the fuck out.”
“I promise you. I won’t throw up,” Flynn heard Allison groan before her vomit hit the kitchen sink. “Outside.”
“It’s cold out there, honey,” LA Tina said with a deep, soothing voice. “Someone grab up all that pretty blonde hair so it don’t get puked on.”
As Flynn fully immersed himself in the music, the merry-go-round in the song was spinning sound and vision around him. Mushrooms were coming on quickly, powerfully, puckering his saliva glands and twisting his stomach into knots. Unsure if he’d actually made it to the bathroom, he was relieved when he saw his emesis kaleidoscopically stewing in the sink. Opening the spigot to wash the corruption down the drain, he splashed cold water on his face as he watched his eyes lit like fires from faraway camps, lips pushing the folds of his cheeks into reiterative grins. A timeless face reminded him of who he was and what resided within him as water drizzled down his chin and swirled into the drain.
Emerging back into the rest of the world, a melodic hum hung just above his head. He found his way back to where the notes fully unfurled the song’s motif. Throwing himself into an air-guitar stance, he grimaced as he acted bending out the first, bluesy guitar note. Sparking and glowing like a welding rod, the room around him blazed with his light.
Emma leered and licked her lips after glugging down a huge swig of Flynn pretending to be Pink Floyd. Tall, thin, somewhat handsome and exotic in his urbanity, Flynn was poised in a way Pogoner boys could never be. Something about him prickled wildly on her skin and excited her. Gliding from the kitchen to where he rocked, arms raised to reveal her Venus form, she sashayed with dabs of riffing blues, synthesizers scaling the air while guitars and bass vibrated through shabby carpet. As she joined him to take the music within, two objects in space edged closer and closer, gravity pulling both to an inevitable collision. In the gentle light of Christmas bulbs and uncountable candles, they circled round in time to the music, watching each other as neon Nazca-line insects scrambled across the walls.
“Remember when you were young?” Emma crooned deep and soft.
“You shone like the sun…” Flynn picked up before they both continued with the chorus.
“Now there’s a look in your eyes,” she watched him draw closer. “Like black holes in the sky…”
“Shine! On! You! Crazy… DIAMOND!” they both shouted, him with uncertainty, her full-throated and stepping into her own, reminding the house why no band playing in town turned down her offer to stand on stage and belt one out.
Continuing to spin toward one another, trading lyrics and leers, the two ground their desire like peppercorns, seasoning the diminishing space between them.
Whisper came out of the kitchen after a few verses, singing loudly and a bit off-key, Ra-Ra and LA Tina in tow. “You wore out your welcome, with random precision…”
“Blown on the steel… breeze…” the followers continued as a chorus.
Emma and Flynn unraveled from one another and gave the group a look of, Really? Now?
“Come on you raver,” all a chorus, “you seer of visions. Come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner and shine….” Everyone then fell out, shaking to various degrees as though they’d just been brought to tongues by some tent-preacher’s sermon.
”
”