Mixtape For The End of the World

12. Brendon throws his Walkman against a wall.

12. Brendon throws his Walkman against a wall.

On Sunday morning, Gabe and Ryan came to my house, and we tried to figure out how to keep Gabe's next vision from coming true. The Uries were at church, but Brendon promised that he would join us after he was, in his words, "done with purging all of that Mormon brainwashing from my head." While we waited for him, Ryan, Gabe, and I played Super Mario Bros. and discussed how to keep Brendon from throwing his Walkman against a wall.

"I might be able to sneak into his room and steal his Walkman," Ryan suggested.

"What if he steals it back?" I asked.

"I think I know a place where he'll never find it," Ryan said.

"How is Brendon doing, by the way?" Gabe asked.

"He was pretty hung over Saturday morning, but he seems to be fine now," Ryan said. "Now, that I think about it, stealing his Walkman seems kind of cruel. Do we have any other ideas?"

"Brendon knows about the visions," Gabe said. "He should be able to keep himself from throwing his Walkman against a wall."

"We thought that he wouldn't get cast in The Sound of Music just because he knew about the visions, but it happened anyways," I pointed out.

"You also know about the visions, and you stopped me from talking to Patrick anyways," Gabe said. "We all need to get better at preventing these visions from coming true. It's been less than three weeks since I had the visions in the first place, and eleven of them have already come true. At this rate, I'm going to be dead by the end of July!"

"Gabe, it's going to be fine," I said. "We'll find a way."

All of a sudden, Brendon ran into the room screaming. "Brendon, what's wrong?" Ryan asked, but he didn't respond. Instead, he kept screaming, lifted his Walkman into the air, and hurled it against the living room wall. The Walkman crumbled into pieces on the floor, and all three of us glared at Brendon.

"Why would you do that?!" Gabe shouted.

"iDKHOW is breaking up!" Brendon screamed. I could see the tears in his eyes as he looked toward the broken Walkman.

"That's a terrible excuse," Gabe said, still glaring at Brendon.

Brendon paused for a moment and then said, "Oh, this was one of your visions, wasn't it? I'm sorry, Gabe." He looked back at the Walkman. "I really shouldn't have done that. I can't even listen to music anymore. It's like somebody stole my car radio and now I just sit in silence."

"How do you even know that iDKHOW is breaking up?" I asked.

"Dallon and I sat next to each other in church today," Brendon said. "I told him about how amazing the iDKHOW show was on Friday..."

"I'm surprised that you even remember anything from that night," I interrupted.

"Shut up, Pete," Brendon said. "Anyways, he said that he didn't think that being in iDKHOW was worth it anymore. He wants to break up the band."

Brendon sat down on the couch next to Ryan and began to cry again. As Ryan comforted him, I saw the way that he looked at Brendon. I had been around enough couples to immediately know how Ryan felt about Brendon. It was a shame that Brendon was too obsessed with Dallon to ever notice what was right in front of him.

"I don't get why this is such a big deal," I said.

"What if the Sisters of Mercy split up?" Brendon said. "How would you feel then?"

"They did split up," I said.

"Maybe that's not the best example, but iDKHOW is my favorite band!" Brendon exclaimed. "They can't just break up like this!" Tears rolled down his face, and instead of listening to Brendon's sobs, I got lost in a memory.