Sasha and the Grateful Dead
by KC
"Sasha went on a vacation with The Grateful Dead for a year and a day."
- Celebrity Gossip
(to hear the story, click "open external link" at the right-hand side of the page.)
Sasha Foo Foo woke up on a bright Saturday morning, looking forward to several hours in front of the TV, watching cartoons. But from past experience, he knew full well that it was best to prepare himself with a big bowl of cereal, the sweeter the better, to give him the restless energy that somehow made the cartoons even more exciting. He'd often jump up during the best parts, and pretend to do whatever the cartoon characters were doing, right along with them.
So Sasha poured a huge bowl of Trix, and after pouring on lots of milk, sat down and began reading the back of the box. He was pleased to read that there was a free CD inside the box, and so immediately picked up the box and dug his hand into the cereal, feeling around, until he felt a plastic CD case. He pulled it out, along with quite a lot of Trix. That was no problem, since he knew that later he'd just put his cereal bowl by the edge of the table, and push the spilled Trix in, when he needed a refill of energy, after an hour or so.
He looked at the CD cover, while resuming eating his Trix. It had a group of musicians with long hair, like most of the music that his mom liked. She had lots of records from the 1960s and 1970s. The old fashioned kind of records that were big black discs with a tiny hole in the middle, and a paper label around the hole. She played them on a special machine, that seemed a lot more bother than Sasha's own CD player. And even tho the big black discs were so much larger than CDs, they didn't play very long, and had lots of popping crackling noises on the discs that had been played a lot.
The name of the band on the cover of Sasha's new CD was 'The Grateful Dead'. He was pretty sure that some of his mom's records were by that band, since the name sounded familiar. Sasha decided to play the CD while he finished his cereal, so he took his bowl of Trix into his room and put the CD in his CD player.
The music that started playing sounded similar to the music he sometimes heard when he was flipping channels on the TV, and stopped at the Country Music Channel. The music on the CD was a little different, tho. It seemed more 'dreamy' somehow.
As the Grateful Dead music kept playing, Sasha started becoming more relaxed, in spite of the energy he was starting to feel from the Trix he was eating. The music seemed to start changing the room, until Sasha suddenly realized he was on a stage with the musicians that had been on the cover of the CD.
The lead guitarist, who had bushy black hair, was playing a long, involved solo, with his eyes sort of glazed, as if he were looking at something far away. The rest of the band, as well as the audience were all watching the guitarist, so no one noticed Sasha at first. Then the keyboard player looked over and saw Sasha. He smiled and motioned for Sasha to come over to where he was. Sasha walked over, and once he was by the keyboard, the keyboard player leaned over to Sasha's ear, so he could be heard above the music, and said, "My name's Pigpen. You must have been listening to the music we sent into the future. We've set aside a special place for you." With that, Pigpen lifted Sasha up on top of a huge speaker, that had a nice soft rug on top, for Sasha to sit on.
It was really comfortable, and Sasha could easily see all the band members, as well as the audience. When he looked at the audience, he was surprised to see his mom, but as she had looked in the old photos that had been taken long before he was born. Tho he stood up and waved, neither she, nor any of the audience, seemed to notice him.
The song finally ended, and Pigpen signaled to the rest of the band to look up to where Sasha was. All of them seemed surprised at first, and then delighted. The lead guitarist walked over to where Sasha was, and lifted him to the floor of the stage. "Hey Future Boy," he said as he shook Sasha's hand, "Glad you could make it to the past. My name's Jerry". All this was very exciting to Sasha, He asked, "What do you mean, the past?".
Jerry laughed, and said, "Welcome to 1969. We have a song called 'Dark Star' that has a long instrumental jam section in it. We recently discovered that at a certain point, if I play my guitar a certain way, something from the future appears on top of the speaker next to Pigpen. It's usually a book, or some strange object." Jerry pointed to a table, where Sasha saw a bunch of things like iPods, playstations, and portable DVD players. Sasha laughed to see such common things being called 'strange'. Then he remembered his mom.
"I saw my mom in the audience, but she didn't see me." Jerry nodded, and said, "Only members of the band can see what comes from the future. We don't know why. We also don't know why anything that appears on the speaker only stays here for a year and a day."
Jerry and Pigpen then introduced Sasha to the rest of the Grateful Dead. Sasha liked them all, and became good friends with them, and grew to love all the music they played.
Whenever they performed, Sasha would take his place on the nice soft rug, on top of the speaker next to Pigpen. Occasionally during 'Dark Star', something would appear next to Sasha. After the performance, he would show it to the rest of the band, explaining what it was.
Finally, a year and a day after Sasha first appeared to the Grateful Dead, the band knew that Sasha would be returning to the future. They gave a special concert in his honor/ The audience had no idea who this 'Sasha' was, that Jerry kept referring to, between songs, as he'd look over to the speaker next to Pigpen.
When the band was playing 'Dark Star', and Jerry started playing his solo, Sasha felt the air around him begin to change. He looked around at the band members, who were all watching him and waving goodbye.
The next thing Sasha knew, he was back in his own room, in his own time. The Grateful Dead CD in his CD player was just ending, and his bowl of Trix wasn't even soggy. He was hungry, so he finished the Trix.
Sasha was too excited to watch cartoons, so he went to his computer and wrote down his experiences as this story that you've been reading.
the end
