Enter Night 《Cliff Burton》

10

             "Hey, wanna play more Iron Maiden?" I grinned at Michael, running a thumb and forefinger along one of my strings. He smiled back at me. "Hell yeah!"

The afternoon was going pretty smooth, despite the awkward morning. Michael didn't seem to be about to bring up the whole thing with me, so I had slowly relaxed as well - which in turn led to things going almost back to normal between us for now.

               The big white elephant, however, always lurked around. Nagging.

               We finished playing Aces High by Iron Maiden. Michael gave me a high-five. "Man that was great! You might as well be Bruce Dickinson's daughter!"

I smiled. "Well, he already has a daughter."

                 Michael shrugged and got up, grabbing his guitar by the neck. "Hey I gotta go now, my mom's probably steaming. I'm late for lunch."

"Late for lunch, huh?" I looked at the time. It was half past five. I raised an eyebrow at him. "We had lunch in school."

                  Michael froze. "Oh, uh... tongue fart. I meant tea. Anyway I gotta go! Bye!" Then he picked up his guitar case and sped out the door.

I squinted my eyes after him. He looked back, almost secretly, at something behind me, then finally went out of sight.

                  I followed his gaze. My eyes focused on my wardrobe. I ran my gaze over it, from bottom to top.

Nothing seemed to be sinister, so I brushed it off, and began to finger some strings on my guitar.

"That kid is up to something," I heard someone say from behind me, making me hit a dissonant chord in surprise. I spun back around to see Cliff, leaning against my wardrobe, with his hands in the pockets of his denim bell bottoms. He stood straight as I turned around, and switched his hands into the pockets of his jacket.

                 "Maybe," I said.

"It's goddamn hard to be dead sometimes," He chuckled. "How'd Michael react if he actually saw me?"

"He'd probably go insane," I replied, not so amused.

              Cliff looked around my bedroom, specifically at all my posters, as if seeing them for the first time. I saw a wave of sad nostalgia flash through his eyes as they scanned a giant 80s Metallica poster I had up by my bedroom door. Then he looked at a poster of himself - the one with a picture of him holding out his fists at the camera, with his birth and death dates written on the bottom.

                 "I like that one," He pointed to the latter. "Reminds me that I'm dead."

I tore my eyes away from him and looked at the bass guitar in my hands instead.

Silence fell in the room as Cliff walked around my room, examining all my posters, including the ones of other bands.

"Are you still a fan of me?" Cliff suddenly asked.

"Um, yeah," I replied, caught offguard by the abrupt question.

               I wouldn't be lying if I said I was scared of him, but I was still a fan of him. He did do some influential things in his lifetime, which had made me pick up bass more than 20 years after his death.

"Are you sure?" He asked. I looked up at him. "Yes," I replied. At that, his face lit up, and he genuinely smiled at me for the first time since this whole thing started. I couldn't hold in a smile myself.

Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all, I thought, there's nothing to be scared of.

                "Ronnie?" Cliff and I both jumped as my mother called me from downstairs. He gave me another smile and waved. I waved back, but he was already gone.