~1–Don't desert me now
I sit comfortably sitting in a cushioned, desk chair with the heel of my Dr. Matrtin's on the back on one chair and the other foot resting on a round table near by. I look at the television screen with a plastic garbage bag over the top so the dripping water wouldn't demolish the only technology we have left. I slouch down in the chair even further and make my legs straightened at a ninety degree angle, my calf slid to the top of the chair where my heal was. I pluck at the strings of my sweet bass while watching 2D go kill Mario for the fifth time on Super Mario Bros., on the first board for the hundredth time. The screen finally says GAME OVER. He throws the square controller on the ground in a tantrum. I hear the drops of water piling up upon the plasma screen, it splashes in large amounts and pours over onto the cusp of 2D's Nintendo system. Everyone is silent, except 2D kicks the sizzling video game with his ripped up shoe and only said nuts to end up laying on the floor face down. I hear something tap the top of my plastic-brimmed hat. I watch a piece of dirt rolloff the edge of my sailor's and hit my black skinny jeans. I take off my hat and look at the mound of soil on top. I dump it off onto the ground and put my hat back on my bowl cut, which is rather straggly and ratty from not trimming it for so long, but like I should care!
The water on top of the t.v. quivers again. I hear a silent thumping. Noodle comes over and taps on my shoulder, but she doesn't take her cat mask off her face. She point to the top shelf with a silver suitcase sitting and begging for someone to take it. I get up and stretch. I put the strap of the bass on and throw it around my shoulder like a sash to be clinched to my back. I grab the case from the top shelf. She opens it up to get out a machine gun and starts to put it together. I go underneath the chair I was sitting on and grab my two 21 mm and strap them to my belt. Noodle picks up the first layer of foam that was holding the weapon in place and throws it across the dirt cellar. She puts a second gun of the same brand together and hands it to Cyborg, the robot that is a duplicate of her. It takes off its hat with the star to grab ammo from underneath and grows a deathly smile quickly. We walk up the metal stairwell besides the television. I go up last. 2D was still laying their. I tap the side of his head with my boot. He moans.
"2D," I said, "we have to go. There's something strange going on up above and I'm not planning on dying with a pile of shit collapsing on top of me."
"I don't wanna go," he moans through the floor. "Life just sucks without any plants or other animals, Murdoc. I don't wanna go."
I look around and hear the ground above vibrate, dirt shaking down on top of us in layers with it's master plan to drown us. I pick up Stuart and run out of the room to "dash" up the stairs to where Russel awaited us with a rocket gun. I smirk at him and switch my pipe to the opposite corner of my mouth. "Who is it," I ask him.
"Beatles," he said in a starch voice, "obviously, they think we're up to something...again."
"Again? Let's kill 'em off!"
Noodle comes back to peak in to see what we're doing. She stares at us and waves her hands in a motion that would mean "hurry up" in her language. Cyborg grabs her arm and drags her off to outside. I drop 2D. He snaps out of his stupid daze and gets up to rub his scalp. "Where are we going?"
"How the bloody Hell was I supposed to know," I snap, "we'll just have to find out though." We go up the rest of the stairs and end up above ground, to where we see all the rotting tree stumps surrounded by hay, which is dead grass, and dirt fields out to the gray, smoggy horizons. Three men with lame mustaches and shinny shoes with the stupid, red wardrobes standing their with 9 mm guns watching another man with the same get-up pounding the crap out of a small, twisted up, mutated plant that is pitifully standing.
"Come on man," one of them say, "we gotta jam before they come for us, dude."
I walk up to the front of our group and get belligerent. "Ello," I greet them. All three of them turn towards us to gasp. The floor collapses below the feet of the one of the stomping guy and gets buried by lose, falling sediment, dirt, and rocks. "here for your acid, Dung-Boys?"
"We're The Beatles, not Dung-Boys," a second one points out.
"Whatever, you drug addicts!" I take out my guns and shoot. On gets it in the head, another in the chest, one in the arm, and the last ran. Noodle finishes them off. I watch the other one run into the distance. Cyborg picks up a rock and launches it with correct calculations. It hits his head and bounces off. His "ouch" echoes through the clear distance. We jog over to the body moaning on the ground. I manage to squeeze his neck in between the heal and the main bottom of the boot. He chokes. "What do you want from us?"
He struggles to get my foot on his throat, managing to get his hands under the heal and trying to pry my weight off of him. "I'll talk," he said in a whimpering, petty voice.
Russel stomps by and grabs his funky looking collar. I step off and the drummer lifts him into the air, his shinny shoes hanging limply on his ankles. They sway like tall grass fields in the wind. "First of all," I start, "who are you?"
He rolls his eyes, "Maybe I won't talk if they're gonna be senseless blooming questions like that."
I take off my brown glove and slap him across the face with it, then put my glove back on nonchalantly. "Let's try that again." I talk more slowly like he's a div, "What is you name, little kiddy?"
"John Lennon," he mumbles out. His eyes looking in a completely different direction with his arms crossed like a little five year old boy pouting his way through an argument with his parents and not talking.
"Ah," 2D gets an idea, "so you guys really are The Beatles."
"Yeah, why don't you get three dimensional sometime, flatty."
2D taps my shoulder and looks at me, he keeps tapping constantly, "Murdoc, you killed the greatest tween rock legends ever." He repeats it again to make sure I knew.
I interrupt him the second time, "I know 2D, you don't need to inform me of that, you barmpot!" I manage to stretch his sailors hat down enough to cover his eyes. He starts to drift the other way blindly with his arms moving up and down to feel for a surface. I don't look, but I hear a slapping sound behind me, so I'm assuming Noodle slapped him square in the face. He starts to sail to random spots. I continue my questions, "Question number two; why was that dung-beetle of yours stomping that plant."
"Well," he tries to remember, "we new that you had a song called 'O Green World' and your whole Plastic Beach album has environmental messages, so we were assuming you guys cared for the nature with this situation these days," he looks at all the tree stumps around us to point out the obvious situation, "so, we were thinking that the last green plant would be above your hideout and do it in, man."
"Well," I began, but didn't exactly know what to say, "it caved in, but killed your poop eating beetle as well. But if you wanted to kill us that way, then why didn't you all jump on it?"
He has a moment of realization, "That would have been a lot easier."
"Of course it would." I hold my gun up to his forehead and keep my thumb on the safety, ready to switch it off any second. "Tell us, why were you trying to kill us?"
"There's only one obvious reason that apparently every band knows about, and of course you idiots don't know!"
"Don't make a divvy move, John Lemon. Just keep it," 2D runs into my side as I am trying to make myself look tough. I pull the hat up off his head and throw it like a Frisbee. He goes after it, "Just keep it simple."
"John Lennon. It's the battle of the bands, for real. A battle with weapons and blood. Soon it really will be a liver-pool in Liverpool. All over the world, they announced that the world of music has destroyed all individuality because everyone is trying to act like someone in the band these days, so they don't want anyone with the same personality. So they only want one band to exist, but the problem is that every band, dead or alive, has to do this so that one band with all their albums are the only ones that work or still are available, this ain't recyclin' either man."
"There has to be a better prize than that if we're playing that game," 2D blurted out mindlessly.
Lemon stares at him. His eyes dilate, "You seriously don't know what you get if you win?"
We all look at each other and shrug our shoulders.
"The winning band gets all the fame, fortune, money, girls, drugs, and whatever they want! It's the Monopoly of bands. If you can get them all, you make all the money that every band in the entire world would make combined for eternity until some other band has the guts to stand up and kill them! It's everything a rockstar would ever want!"
"Lemon, you were never a real rocker. You don't know the gritty filth in it all. Hell, I'm getting' me that prize with some rum," I point out to the sixties band member.
"Lennon!" I shoot him in the head so that was his last word. The hole in his forehead makes him go limp. Russel opens his hand to let the corpse fall to the ground. We all turn to look at our home, which is just an above ground ditch. We walk over and stare down at it. A moan comes out of the ground and Cyborg shoots with immediate reaction. It beeps and twitches when it looks at me afterward. It opens up its stomach and hands me a glass of rum. I take the glass from its hand and gulp it down in a matter of seconds.
"Well," 2D looks up from what used to be our hide out. He looks at me for an answer.
"We can't get back to Plastic Beach, can we?"
Noodle shakes her head.
"The bloody hell with it all!" I go over into the forest of stumps and stand on the largest one. "Heck, it doesn't matter if we can't get back or not. Plastic Beach is probably crowed with bints and other jackasses that think they can do whatever the bloomin' hell they want! It is probably a country by now and us idiots don't know it for our own good. So I say," I hop back off the stump, "let's win this thing."
Noodle shakes her head in disagreement.
"Why not?"
She lifts up her mask and sets it on top of her head. "That stupid! We get kill! Not worth it!" She puts her mask back down in front of her face to become silent again.
"Noodle, we're going to get our asses killed in the first place even if we say we ain't doin' it. So we're gonna die anyway! Plus, you 'n' Russ were supposed to be dead anyways. "
2D shuffles his feet to the front to talk, twiddling his fingers with uncertainty. He looks at me in his round, black holes. I can see the dullness in them, which never happens. "Murdoc, I don't wanna die."
I finally remember what is in my hands and put the guns back in their holsters. I look back at the ditch. The green, shriveled up plant pops back out of the ground and lays just above the surface. I look back at the group, all staring with unknowable minds, not knowing what to do. "There's still hope. We could win this thing, but we better make sure with all the others that it is real. Don't leave on me now. I'd promise you guys that I wouldn't let you die, but Murdoc's way is not to make anything stupid up. My way's the real way."
Noodle lifts her mask back up, "Why you say this?" She puts it back down.
I cock my head, "Why do you do that?"
She stays in the same position, not answering.
"Alrighty then. Well, we're gonna die sooner or later, so why not get our lives over with sooner than having to suffer through them and get killed miserably by some old faggot with a gun."
"Like Susan Boil," 2D said.
"She's not that old, she's just ugly." I look at the plant again and keep my eyes on the last living thing. "No offense Susan, but you know it," I mumble to myself. "Take care plant." I turn to the robot that looks like noodle, "Cyborg."
It twitches to attention, ready for the question to be flung out at it.
"Who's closer; Lou Reed or Snoop Dogg?"
It beeps a couple of times and does what robots do best, or cyborgs...still don't know the bloody difference. "LOU REED. QUEST-ION ANS-WERED." It hands me another glass of rum.
"Oh, don't mind if I do." I take it and slug it down. I hand it back. "Well, off to ol' Lou's place then." I point to a random direction.
"Uh," 2D says while picking his nose, "are you sure his place is," he stops scratching his brain and points the same direction as me, "that way?"
"No, I am not sure. Cyborg?"
It does more beeping and points the way I was pointing.
"Off we go then."
It's been days since we've seen any other living thing, just deserts of dead forest and rotting dumps for miles on end. "I think I've lost my sense of smell," 2D complains.
"Shut your pie hole, Stuart," I retort to him, "you've been complaining for the past couple hours. Just shut it!" I wipe sweet off my forehead and it clanks on a rusted soda can that is partly in ground.
Noodle freezes in her path and just stands there. She looks down at the ground at another stumpy, green seedling peeking out a small puddle of pasty mud.
We all turn around to stare at here in question. "Why you standin' there like a freako," Russel asks. Noodle looks up at him with her mask to show no expression because it has no eye-holes, which I don't understand how she can see. She looks over at a huge heap of rancid trash that has overwhelming fumes of rotting food and burning tires and rubber. "I don't see any thing." He takes off his yellow hat that was on upside down and scratches his head, squinting harder at the trash pile. All our eyes turn to a figure popping up from behind a more small pile. A sissy grunt comes from the figure and I can see a disco mirrors on one side of its face. "Lady Ga Ga?"
"We don't even need weapons for her," 2D points out the obvious once again. I take off my bass from my back and hold it by the neck. "It's not worth it! Just kick her in the nuts."
I look at him strange. I shrug and put my bass sash back on. "What you talkin' 'bout 2D? If it's a girl," I realized it was useless when I saw him digging for gold once again. "Never mind. But I wouldn't be surprised if she did have any." She slowly comes down the hill of garbage with her arms out balancing. "Oh, this'll be as easy as drinking rum!" Cyborg takes something out, but I keep my eye on the stupid lady in the garbage-bag dress tripping over a rundown refrigerator and falling on the one side of her mask that has mirrors. Cyborg pokes me. I look over at it with a glass of rum in its hands. "Oh, thank you." I take it and chug it. I give the glass back to it. The lady gets up and holds the side of her face that she landed on with a whimper of petite pain. She stumbles her way to us, walking strangely. Almost like she's failing a drunk test with the fuzz, which I wouldn't be surprised if that happened either! She gets back to her normal stamina and runs over with a knife above her head. She runs slowly with her giant high-heels. I play with my horribly long nails while I'm waiting for her to stumble over. She gets off the dump land and comes toward me, still in the same position. I bring my fist back and punch her on the side that doesn't have the disco-ball mask. She falls to the ground more easily than I thought she would.
We all walk over to circle around Lady Ga Ga, holding her bleeding nose and her oozing lip. We all stare down at her for a good minute or two.
2D kicks her in the crouch effortlessly and I end up chuckling quietly to myself, sounding a little like the dog from Wacky Race, who is 'e...Muttly!
Cyborg twitches its head to look at me, "ILL-LE-GAL."
"I know," I said, "you weren't supposed to hit women, but it doesn't matter at this point."
"What do you want with me," she asks between sobs and tears.
Noodle lifts up her mask, "Do you know contest?" She puts her mask back down on top of her face and commences to be quiet.
Lady Ga Ga sits up in sobs. 2D puts his hand on her forehead and slowly pushes her back down to the ground. She stays there. "Of course I know. I'm the one going to win this though!" I hold her hand with the knife in it and pry her fingers open to take out the knife. I stick the blade in between my belt and my jeans, so the handle holds it up so it wouldn't slip out.
I put the gun to her head, "You'll have to do better than a blade. At least an Exact-o knife so it can cut." Cyborg gets to her first and shoots her. We all look at it holding the gun while coughing up the smoke and powder. I slowly put the safety back on my gun while staring at the hole left in her bare stomach. We all stare. "I think this may be the time of my life where I see the most dead bodies that don't turn into zombies."
"Sweet," we look beyond the corpse to see 2D in the trash with a Nintendo and a big Super Mario Bros. cartage sticking out of the top. "Can we play this at Lou's place?"
I smile from his stupidness, "I think he would have better systems than that, but we don't even know if he's waiting for us with a snipper or not."
