A Writer's Bucket List

Coachella

A remix to Electric Feel was blasting through Blue's fucked up speakers. Blue is the name that stuck to my buggy. Blue is my favorite thing in the world. My mother gave it to me as graduation present from high school. I've had it since then and don't even think about buying a new car. It's an egg shell blue color and it has this metal, cage-like thing at the top that we always manage to fill up with junk. At the moment nothing was up there because we shoved the luggage into the trunk. The music from Pandora lowered and a robotic gps voice spoke. Turn left in 300 feet. "Only fifteen minutes left and we're there!" giggled Aur. Her excitement passed on to me and now we were both smiling huge, goofy smiles.

The day was immensely hot and humid. I tried driving faster so that the air would circulate inside. We were only five minutes away from Coachella. I had to slow my driving because the road turned into dirt and it was super bumpy. "I could hear it!" squealed Auriel.

"Dude.." I said a little to myself.

"GAHHHH! I know! I know! I'm so excited too-"

"No, look at that van!"

"What van?"

"That van righ- Is that?!"

"Holy Jesus. That's the guys from the bar.." she exhaled.

"They look flustered. You think they're heading to Coachella too?" I slowed down even more and maneuvered to the right. Mr. Hair Flip had his hair gelled but the wet air was making some hair strands fall out. Their outfits had totally changed. He was wearing faded black skinnies, and a loose flower print button up. It wasn't buttoned. Only two buttons were actually buttoned and he'd rolled the sleeves up. His friend had a bandana on and a similar outfit. I could see shorty waving his hands like crazy at Mr.Hair Flip. He looked pissed.

"Out of gas?" I asked stopping a few feet away. Shorty put his arms down and walked over.

"Uh, nah. Douche over here forgot to bring the anti-freeze." He said looking back.

"Hey! I told you to check the water! Don't blame it all on me. We're already running late- We're gonna miss the opening act." spat Mr. H.F.

"I have a little anti-freeze left in the trunk, you want?" I asked.

"That would be great actually," replied Shorty. Mr. H.F shot daggers at him with his look and crossed his arms.

"Hey. There are plenty of opening acts, don't worry if you miss just one." tried to cheer up Aur.

"Ha. Yeah," scoffed Mr. H.F, "But there's really only one we care about, and that's the one we're opening."

"Oh my god are you serious?" asked Auriel, failing at sounding nonchalant.

"Um, yeah. We're opening up for Arcade Fire this year. We're still underground though, no need to freak. Yet." joked shorty.

"You guys! Start the van!" I yelled. Mr. Hair Flip jumped in the drivers seat and turned the key.

"Ermagerd. YES!" Mr. H.F lost his cool attitude for a moment. It was kind of funny to watch him react like that.

"Hey, we totally owe you two. Follow us in." said Shorty.

...

The line performers had to enter through was a billion times shorter that the line for the watchers. And they had shaded parking for the cars. The security was skeptical about letting us go through with them but Mr. H.F told them we were with them. We still didn't know their names. Woodstock! We're up in three. Shorty was getting ready behind a set of keyboards. Some ladies rushed up to him to secure his mic. Mr. H.F had a guitar hanging on his shoulders and he was doing some kind of pre show exhale routines. He kept shaking his hands and fixing his hair. Narcoticasaid someone into the speakers. They were on stage and a small crowd started to gather. It was really small compared to the rest of the stages around them. Some really catchy notes came form shorty's key board. It started turning really psychedelic. Then Hair Flip started strumming. It was good. Hair Flips voice was like melting honey. It was thick and just added to the song they were playing. The crowd got bigger and bigger. At the end of the third song the crowd was as big as the rest. Thank You!They yelled at the crowd.

They walked off the stage soaking in sweat and flustered. Shorty was chugging water and high fived us with his free hand. "How was it?"

"That was amazeballz what the fuck!?" blurted Aur.

"It was pretty Narcotic", I laughed.

"Ha. I see what you did there," coughed Hair dude. He was in some kind of shock.

"Excuse him for being an asshole. He gets like that after a performance- actually he's always an ass. But he gets post stage fright." Explained shorty. "My name is Matt, this is my brother from another mother. Woodstock of 69."

"My name is Floyd," corrected Hair Flip, "You two look familiar." They sat across us and studied us.

"The bar." Realized Floyd, snapping his fingers. "You two were the ones cracking up at the bar day drinking!" At this he was smirking.

"What bar?" Argued Aur trying to pretend it wasn't us. She was red. I covered my face.

"Yeah. That was us. I think we also saw you guys at that new Norm's near route 66 motel." I confessed.

"I told you that was them!" said Matt throwing a towel at Floyd's head.

"So, are you telling us your names, or are you staying stalker girls from Norm's?" sneered Floyd with a smile.

"Nicholaus and Auriel" Chirped Aur. "You can call me Aur." She smiled shaking their hands.

"Nicole actually," I laughed at their reactions to Nicholaus and shook their hands too. "Well," I Interrupted, "We're going to head off and watch the rest of the shows." It took me the deadliest stare i could muster to get Aur to budge but it worked.

"You're a party pooper," grunted Aur.

...

Cage the Elephant had just finished playing and I really needed to pee. I told Aur to wait for me at the Muse stage while I went potty. Coming out those disgusting porta potties I saw a familiar silhouette walking out the stall beside me. He was trying to kick off some gross toilette paper that he'd stepped on.

"Floyd" I acknowledged, and walked past.

"Hold up," he kicked more, "Nicolas, hold on, you- dropped your pocket."

"Wha-," I looked down. Then looked back up at him. "Nice. You dropped your pocket. Way to bring back middle school" I laughed.

"I'm heading to the Muse stage. Come." He ordered. I didn't say anything. Just made my way to Aur. I found Aur because of the glow in the dark flower crown she was wearing. There was someone with her. "Are you guys stalking us now?" I giggled.

"Nah, it's purely and only coincidence" he lied.

The rest of the night was epic. The new dj's that started going to coachella were so amazing. We got lost like 7 times but it was okay because everywhere we went there were different stages playing music. Floyd and Matt disappeared at around 12. Aur and I started walking back to the car. I took my black biker booties off and changed them for the flip flops I packed in my sack. It was dark so I hadn't really noticed how horrible we looked until we walked in the parking lot. There were tents everywhere now. I stopped in front of Blue's door and fixed my smeared mascara and face paint. My curly hair was ten times frizzier than normal thanks to all the dancing and sweating. I saw a flash, but ignored it. I put my hair in a messy pony tail. More flashes. I looked towards the flashes. Floyd was holding this beautiful intricate camera. "What the hell?" I yelled, "Delete those!"

"Nah." He chuckled.

"Creep" I shot and got in the buggy. Aur was smiling with her eyes closed.

"They are so hot" she giggled.

...

Day 2 of coachella was better than the first and day three was getting even better. We met new people in every corner. Everyone here was here for the music and the environment was just so friendly and happy. Occasionally we'd bump into or see Floyd and Matt. Floyd always had his camera with him. Everyone used their phones, but not him. It was weird though. I never saw the people we'd meet twice, but they just kept appearing.

Coachella was over and I wanted to cry. All the cars were driving out, and people were asking for hitch hikes. I was in Blue already. Where the hell is Auriel. A couple minutes later she got in the car trying to mask something. "Let's go", she bubbled.

"What's up with you? You're scaring me. What did you do?"

"NOTHING! Don't worry about it." she gave me that double chin face.