Mindless Self Indulgence (Fuck Off)

Start.

I had three cups of coffee.

I love it.

Why did they take it away even?

"So Steve do you play an instrument?" I ask him walking around the room.

"Yeah," he says lazily from the couch, "it's over there," he points at an electric guitar.

"Have you guys made any music?" I jump up and down.

"We tried but we need someone to sing."

"Don't forget the drums," Lyn-Z joins the conversation, "you can't play rock music without drums."

"Here hand me my guitar," Steve sits up, "Would you plug it in?" He hands Lyn-Z a thick chord.

Lyn-Z starts hammering her notes and Steve joins in. They start making a little melody. They just need a voice.

Fuck it. They need me. I start shouting nonsense at them.

"The bass! The rock! The mic! The treble! I like my coffee black just like my metal!" anything that comes to mind.

"'Cause I can't wait for you to knock me up! In a minute, minute, in a fucking minute. In a second. I CAN'T WAIT FOR YOU TO SHUT ME UP!" I start head banging and screaming and jumping around even more.

Lyn-Z and Steve stop playing. "What was that?" Steve asks.

"It's the caffeine! It's so inspirational," I'm still jumping.

"No those lyrics. They made sense but at the same time they sounded like bullshit. Where'd you get those from?" Lyn-Z asks.

"My h e a d," I point to my head dramatically.

"Let's start that again."

"Okay."

They start playing that melody again.

"I CAN'T WAIT FOR YOU TO SHUT ME UP. SHUT IT UP."

Then I start making ooh's. I start jumping around everywhere until I land in that hole Steve used to make the coffee. I trip and fall.

"Shit," I brush off the ashes from my clothes.

Steve's cracking up. "You sing really high."

"Yes, I like to make prank calls and trick people into thinking I'm a girl," I say sarcastically.

"Really?" Steve stares at me wide eyed.

"No!"

"We just need a drummer, you know," Lyn-Z says.

"We have a drum set. I don't know if anybody wants to learn."

"I think there's one girl who knew at school. She played for the school band but she had to stop for some reason," I tell them.

"She probably won't want to live out here," Lyn-Z waves off the idea.

"Judging by her abnormal eye makeup. I think she might actually like it."

"What's her name?"

"Her name was Jennifer but I forget her last name. I think it was something like bun or pun," what was it? "Wait. It was Jennifer Dunn! I could go back and get-"

Oh right. I'm being tracked down by the police. Fuck.

"Dammit, I can't get her."

"Guess we'll have to find some punk out in the streets then," Lyn-Z says glumly.

"I could find a pay phone by the bus stop and call her," I suggest. It actually wouldn't be too hard considering it's less than half a mile away from the fence.

"If you want to risk it. Then whatever," Steve starts positioning himself to fall asleep.

"Maybe."

Lyn-Z gets up to go to her 'magic' room. I follow her.

"What are you doing in here?" She says protectively.

"I just wanted to look around. You know, read some of your comics."

"Yeah, sure," she sits down on the couch in front of the TV.

She turns it on. How? "How is there even have power here?"

"The government thought of it as a gesture of kindness to leave power here for the families that decided to stay behind. They wouldn't go into the city because they didn't want things to change so they left power on," she starts pushing the buttons on the remote.

We don't have buttons. There's only touch screens.

Music starts coming from the TV.

Adventure time come on grab your friends...

What the fuck? It sounds like some sort of a kids' show. And I thought I was childish. I sit down with her.

"What is this?" I ask after three seconds of watching.

"It's about this kid, who's the last human on a radioactive earth, and his dog who got slightly mutated by a nuclear mud puddle," she tells me matter-of-factly the way she'd tell me that the sky is blue.

"That's not what I'm seeing. Is that kid even human?" he's got ears and beady eyes. That doesn't look human.

"He got mutated and that's a hat. Okay?"

I keep watching for all of this Sci-Fi stuff Lyn-Z was talking about. All I see is a stretchy dog and a weird old-fashioned type robot called BMO.

I scan the room trying to look for something interesting. I get up to look at her drawings taped to the wall. I turn back to the TV.

"Are those candy people?" I ask noticing the walking candy canes.

"Yes."

"Holy shit," I run back to the couch. Maybe this show was better than I thought it'd be.

The episode ends. And it's the most amazing thing ever. It's so stupid but at the same time...

"You liked it didn't you?" Lyn-Z says proudly.

"I did. Do you have more?"

"Yup."

We watch another episode and another and another.

"Hey, Lyn-Z?" I ask her when one how ends.

"Yeah?"

"What are those really weird boxes over there?" I point to a stack of fat cardboard boxes with only three sides. They're filled with paper. I don't know why.

"Those?" She asks with a grin, "Those are books Jimmy. You know the ones you read."

"Really?" We only have tablets at the city. Those have books inside of them.

"Here," she hands me one that says 'Fight Club' on the cover.

"I've heard of this! It started a revolution before the war, it ended quickly but they did end up blowing up a few buildings," Supposedly every copy had been burned. Apparently somebody got lazy.

"The first rule of fight club is you do not talk about fight club," Lyn-Z recites.

"But I wasn't talking about fight-"

"The second rule of fight club is you do not talk about fight club," she walks away.