Madness In Literature

Four

Mel wanted to die. She wasn’t a dramatic person normally but right now, she wished that she could self-combust spontaneously or be blasted into tiny little particles by some atomic bomb, even though that would mean that everyone else, including the boy, would die as well. Anything would be okay, except for this.

“I’m really, really sorry,” she apologized again.

“It’s alright,” he sounded amused as he dabbed carelessly at his shirt with a cloth. “I shouldn’t have crept up on you like that.”

“No, no, it’s me,” she repeated. “Sorry!”

“Okay, okay, we get it,” Emily interrupted. “You’re very sorry, and he’s okay.”

“See? Your friends got it.”

“Aren’t you going to introduce us?” Kenny said, staring at Mel pointedly as though he finally understood why she had wanted to come here in the first place. 

“Er, right,” she stuttered. “Um…this is Kenny and Emily, my friends.” She waved her hand in their general direction. “And guys, this is…” She trailed off awkwardly as she waited for him to introduced himself. She borrowed his notes, ate his pretzels, and even had a really thought provoking conversation with him about emotional transcendence, but she didn’t know his name. It seemed as though the night had just gotten a little worse, if that was even possible.

“I’m Dean,” he told them smoothly.

“He takes a literature class with me,” Mel added lamely, as though that explained his existence or what he was doing here in The Hodge.

“Of course he does,” Emily nodded at him before raising a brow at Mel. Mel knew that look; that was Em’s way of saying Explain yourself, bitch. Feeling miserable, she shrugged back at Emily, who sighed and turned towards the boy. Dean. Or was it Dan? No, it was definitely Dean.

“So, you’re a student at Lynnwood U?” Emily asked.

“You could say that,” Dean shrugged. He glanced over their shoulders towards the stage, where a few guys in black were setting up.

“Is that the terrible band?” the words slipped out of her mouth before she could stop them. Dean raised a brow at her.

“First you spit on me, and then you insult my band…you’re making new records today, aren’t you?”

She flushed crimson, and then began to apologize to again when he stopped her with a laugh.

“I’m just kidding,” he said. “Yeah, that’s my terrible band, DEMO. GUYS! COME OVER HERE FOR A SECOND!”

“No, fuck you!” one of them yelled back.

“Martin is very polite,” Dean said as he turned back towards Mel and her friends. “That’s him behind the keyboard. The guy with the guitar is Jake. Dash-Beard is our bassist –”

“Dash-Beard?” Kenny asked.

“Yeah, he used be Clarence, but a few months ago he decided he need a badass name.”

“So he went with Dash-Beard?”

“It was either that or Trolling-Bear. And the guy swinging the mic is our lead vocals – Slasher. And no, Slasher didn’t re-make his name; his parents were big fans of Saul Hudson.” 

“What about you?” Mel asked. “What do you do?”

“I play the drum.” He glanced towards the stage again. Slasher had wrapped the microphone cord around Martin’s neck, and the keyboardist waving his arms wildly as though he was either a) enjoying himself immensely and asking Slasher to go tighter or b) dying. Mel couldn’t tell in the darkness.