Mindless Self Indulgence (Fuck Off)

Fire-Breathing Lady

The flames barely touch my skin surprisingly enough. Maybe it was because I jumped back just in time.

“Holy shit!” I shout.

Lindsey collapses on the ground. She’s laughing. “When did you get in here?”

“About the same time you decided to set me on fire!” I make sure she doesn’t have a lighter on her or anything. “Are you a mutant or something?”

“No,” She picks herself up, “I’m Lindsey. L-Y-N-Z.”

“I’m Jimmy,” I tell her as I shake her hand. “Jimmy Urine.”

“Mr. Urine, huh?” She gives me a suspicious look.

“That’s my name.”

“Well, that’s Steve over there,” She cocks her head to the side.

Steve was asleep on a couch though I think he was faking it because no one could fall asleep that fast. He’d just been talking a minute ago.

“How did you do that?” I turn to Lyn-Z.

“What?”

“That thing with the hands.”

“It was nothing,” she waves me off.

“What? People don’t just float!”

“I wasn’t floating. It’s actually very simple. Here, try it with me.”

“Alright.”

“You have to spread your legs out so you don’t tip over,” She tells me, “Then you bend your knees and then your back and…”

She’s doing it again and she looks majestic. I make an attempt at it and I’m doing good but then everything flips over and I hit my head on the dusty ground.

“Ow,” I pick myself up from the floor.

“Try it again,” Lyn-Z offers.

“No. Never again.”

“Okay,” She sits down on a chair.

“Where are you from?” I ask her.

She shrugs her shoulders. “Here.”

“You look like you ran away from a school,” I point at her torn up school uniform.

“I guess that’s right,” She takes a moment to look at me. “Did you run from school too?”

“I come here almost every day but I almost never find people because they all avoid everyone.”

“Yeah,” She leans back in her seat, “We have to avoid people because otherwise we’d get gang raped or something. I’m surprised you haven’t been robbed though, especially dressed up like a city kid.”

“I have been robbed. This dude stole my fucking backpack and the police almost found out about me coming here.”

Her eyes widen. “Who was it?”

“Some guy with a bandana on his head and a striped shirt,” I still remember that day very vividly.

She starts cracking up. “That was yours?”

“What?” Did she steal it?

“Steve brought it home one day and there were just school supplies and no food so he gave it to me.”

“Steve stole it? The Steve on the couch?” I shout. “Where is it?”

“I used everything in there,” She says somewhat solemnly, “But if you want I can show you.”

“Fine,” I stand up and follow her through a small doorway to our left.

And I’m expecting shredded paper scattered everywhere like confetti but instead there’s art. Paper panoramas of things I can’t even describe. And there are drawings. Lots of drawings.

This room was fucking amazing.

“Wow,” I sum it all up in three letters. “You don’t get out very much do you?” I ask inspecting one of the boxes that contained a small statue made entirely of paper.

I turn to other side of the room and there’s not really any art there but instead there are shelves and shelves of boxes. Boxes that have movies and music inside of them.

“Holy shit,” I scan through her collection. “Where did you get all of these?”

“Just around.”

“There are so many of them! NANON told us that there was nothing left. No media from before the war. And I knew they were lying because I found a few CD’s lying around but I didn’t know.”

“They lied so they could re-brainwash all of you. That’s why they give out all of those pills all of the time.”

“They were brainwashing us,” I jump up.

“That’s the theory.”

Steve comes into the room. “If you want to get back before the sun goes down, I think now’s the time.”

I look out the window and the sun’s almost halfway down. “Fuck! There’s no way I’ll make it back in time. I’m going to have the cops on my ass!”

“Calm down,” Steve says, “I have a bike you could borrow downstairs.”

“You are a god,” I follow him to the bike.

He picks it out of a hole in the wall. It’s an old one from before the war. Back when the bikes still had pedals. I hop on it and I leave Steve behind with a cloud of dust. I’m pedaling so hard I’m in danger of having the bike flip over on me. I go right through one of the biggest gaps in the fence and I head back into the city. I leave the bike next to the garage and then I make my way into the house.