Chapter 1

How many times have I been brought back into doing the thing I hate?

"Read the fuckin' lyrics correctly, faceache!"

I could've sworn that I promised myself not to go back, but something just always forced me back in.

"Ah'm tryin' to! Ah jus'-"

I seem to have no choice on what I want to do next in my life.

"The next punch will be even 'arder, ya hear?"

When I find a new way of living, life always has something else in store for me. And it always brings me back to the BAND.

I'd say that I've only had free will for about 1/4 of my life. One fateful day changed that forever, and now I'm stuck doing this shit job I hate so dearly. Makes me think of the days that I was free.

...Those times that I was free, man was it good. I always had a strong connection to music, but I never really thought of going on a musical career before. In fact, I didn't know WHAT I wanted to do with my life for a really long time.

If I had to guess what I was interested in doing, it would probably be making a zombie film or something. I was always fascinated with zombie flicks ever since I was a kid, so that would've been cool.

I probably watched my first zombie film when I was around 10... or maybe 11, around the same time my first change of appearance happened.

I remember climbing this really big tree and resting on a branch for a while, but eventually I slipped. I hit my head pretty bad, and the impact caused me to go on a coma for 3 days.

For some reason though, all of my hair had fallen off from the impact. I was shocked at my new bald appearance when I woke up, but it only got weirder. My hair started growing blue.

Let's just lay I was the most unique one in my school. It's not every day you see a young man with striking blue hair. It was so odd to many but attractive to a lot of women, it was also very unique at the time.

Nevertheless I really began thinking that my hair might've taken me places in life, but that REALLY took effect later. Nearly a decade later, I had graduated and I was left at crossroads. What now?

I decided to take small jobs, like some store that sells things. I didn't think that I was going to do anything big at the time, so why not? I think my first job was at a thrift store or something.

After going from one job to another, I had finally gotten into the music store where it all started. I had woken up early and gotten me some breakfast, then went on to getting ready to leave.

"Stu! Are you sure you don't want me to give you a car ride to the store?" My mother said. "Ah'm sure mum, ah can walk there jus' fine." I said. I buttoned my shirt, tied my tie, and laced my shoes. Just another day, working.

It was a pretty cloudy day (no surprise there) as I walked through the cold streets of the city. I was on my way to Uncle Norm's Organ Emporium, a place with pretty nice keyboards for good prices.

I was surprised it wasn't so popular, the keyboards there I would kill for. But I guess a certain someone found them nice too. "Ey Stu! You're 'ere earlier than usual!" Said Norm.

"Yeah, I 'ad ta change mah schedule a bit, wanna spend a little moah time wif' mah family y'know?" I said. "At least yew still 'ave that option mate." Oh Norm, quite the downer.

Nearly an hour in and the store emptied up a little bit, surprisingly. Since there were very few people there and most of the workers had gone to get a bite, I played around with the instruments a bit.

I had gone to my favorite model, and put on a "Doors" sounding tone and improvised some fine tunes if I have to say so myself. "Pre'ee good stuff there mate!" Said a fellow employee.

I had some friends of mine tell me that I should've started a band, but for some reason I never really acted out on doing that. I guess I just found that it wasn't me.

I improvised for like 5 minutes on that thing, in fact, I could've sworn I played a bit of "Dirty Harry" on that thing! But the workers eventually came back and customers began repopulating the store so I turned it off.

An hour into my working hours, I had spent all that time standing and I was just tired. I began spacing occasionally, something I was very used to. I snapped out of my distracted state when I was called by Norm.

"There's a 'Paula' calling fo' you, Stu. Do yew know 'er?" He asked. "Oh, yeah! I'll be righ' there!" I headed over to the counter and picked up the phone. "Ello there, luv. I'm kinda busy righ' now, wha' is it?"

"Oh nothing, I was just wondering what time we could hang again, it's actually been some time!" "Oh, abou' that, I've jus' b-" "Don't worry, I know you're workin' hard and all that, but I just wanted to know if yew still hav' time for me?"

"Course I do luv, in fact, I-" Let's just skip the rest of this dialogue, I don't like reminiscing on those times. After about 15 minutes of talking, I headed back to my spot; right next to a big window with a grand view of a boring parking lot.

There I could space out all I wanted, until I was called to help that is. I watched the sky as I heard some people beginning to worry about something. I eventually looked down, and saw this car headed straight towards me.

I slowly backed up worrying that it would hit me, but I didn't think that they would possibly crash through onto the store. *SMASH!* went the window, MY window. The car bounced up and all I saw was a car bumper in front of my face.

Time seemed to have slowed down, and I had thought about life all of a sudden. Memories that I hadn't even remembered came back to me all out of nowhere, life seemed to have completed for a second.

Then, I felt a really short sting of pain to my head, then blackness. Silence. This was an era of my life that had been missed. It's hard to explain how it was like, all I can say is that it was a big nothing.

It certainly felt like nothing, no sensation, no memory, no smell, no taste, and obviously no sight. Sometimes I'd wish that my life was just that, blackness and silence. No involvement.