QUESTION!
A feel Good Inc. story and the sequel to both "Rhythm", and "One-way glass".
Disclaimer: I don't own Gorillaz or Feel Good Inc. Although, I was quite happy this weekend when I was playing laser tag at the Galactic Circus and it was the first song that came on. Really put me in a mood to whoop some butt. It's too bad that instead, I got hit 46 times. Ah, well.
"What are you playing?"
It was an innocent question. I never thought what it could do.
He stared at me, first dazedly and then more focused, as though waking up.
"….Pardon me, what?" ha asked, white-out eyes locked onto mine.
"What are you playing?" I repeated.
I'd lost Noodle somewhere between here and the entrance. I guess I could just wait here with this guy, and maybe she'd find me.
He scratched his head with one drumstick. "I'm not sure. It's more like it's playing me."
"Then… why don't you stop it?"
He looked puzzled. (Or maybe it was just the eyes that always looked confused.)
"I don't think I can," he answered.
I looked around once more for Noodle, and then shook my head. I was the one that really wanted to be here. She was probably looking for me.
"Well…. What's your name?" I asked, climbing up onto a massive stereo speaker and making myself comfortable sitting on it.
"I don't know." He answered again. His eyebrow furrowed like two black caterpillars.
This guy didn't know much, did he? Ah, well, he looked nicer than that guy who was surrounded by whores, and the other blue-haired guy was busy singing and staring out the window.
"You have to have a name!" I insisted. "Like me- my name is Aishi."
"I don't know my goddamn name, OKAY?" he snapped. He sounded slightly hysterical. I also noticed that, like me, his American accent came out when he was upset.
"Fine, I'll give you a name." I thought for a second. "Drum. Your name is Drum."
"Drum..." he repeated.
I didn't find Noodle the next day, or the day after that. Instead, I sat on the speaker and talked to 'Drum'.
The more I talked to him, the more he seemed to wake up. Instead of me asking all the questions, he began to reply with a few questions of his own. What was the point of Feel Good Inc., anyways? Where had he been before he came here? And most importantly- just what WAS it that he was playing?
He took to looking in the direction of the massive window on the front of the tower when he wasn't talking to me. Yet he never stopped drumming, always tapping out that same rhythm on the hollow instrument, and it was almost like he wasn't even aware that he was doing it.
And I continued waiting for Noodle. Had the tower just swallowed my fellow teenager? Did it come to life like a monster in the closet and gobble her up?
'Drum' would drum, and I would sit on the speakers, playing a game of twenty questions that rarely had answers besides "I don't know."
I lost track of the days, but at least two weeks passed this way. And then one day the massive screens behind us flickered to life.
'Drum' looked up at them. And then, something catastrophic happened- he stopped playing his instrument namesake.
"Wait! Do you know who I am? What am I doing here? Are you the ones keeping me here?" ha asked of the image on the screen.
Words pumped from the speakers, causing them to vibrate and shake. Mine shook so hard that I fell from the top of it and landed on the ground hard. The angle I landed prevented me from seeing what was on the screen.
"Steady, watch me navigate! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-a!" blasted all the speakers.
"Wait! Please! I remember!" 'Drum' called out. "My name is Russel Hobbs!"
"You gon' bite the dust, can't fight with us, with yo sound you kill the Inc!" rapped someone.
I blacked out.
The next day, 'Drum' or 'Russel' or whatever his name was didn't look at me, or even the window. He looked pointedly towards the wall. He was drumming again.
"Russ…el?" I asked, the name sounding odd.
He ignored me.
"Drum?"
No response.
"What are you playing?" I said, my voice sounding small even to me.
"It was just an innocent question!" I protested.
I waved a hand in front of his face. I even took off his hat and set it atop my own head. There was nothing.
I pulled my knees up to my chin and wrapped my arms around them.
"Just an innocent question?" asked a heavily accented voice.
I turned to see Noodle. I should have been relieved, but I wasn't. I didn't ask what had happened to her.
"It is what drove the singer mad with longing to escape," Noodle said, indicating the guy pressed against the window.
"Will I end up like that?" I asked her. "Either blissful in ignorance or wishing I could get out?"
She shrugged. "You ask me another question. Your question pulled us in here, your questions drove Russel to this, a question made 2D stand in front of the window all day. Perhaps we should stop asking questions!"
I shrugged. But one more question lingered on my mind, and I couldn't hold it in. "Still… what was it that Russel was playing?"
Hello again! I am so honored that people have graced my story with their reviews, so happy in fact that I will now… um… do something for you! So on this, the day of my happiness, you may ask a favor of me and I will grant it within my power! -- I know, I'm weird, you don't have to tell me. Anyways, with the fifth … installment of this little collection, I wanted to change it up a bit. My style was getting monotonous and repetitive even to me. So I wrote in a style that I rarely write in- first-person. It makes the whole tone of things change, I think. I'm used to separating myself from the characters and the story, looking over it with a view like some kind of god watching from somewhere, controlling the events. In first-person things become so much more humble, so much more personal. Anyways, in your review tell me what you think of this style. I might use it more. Anyways, I know nobody opens a fanfic to read a three-page-long author's note. So review as you please and I will try to make the next chapter come along quicker! JA ne and daisuke!
