”Registry office?””Yeah, what the hell dude. Stop being a patriarch, man, we're here to get fam- er be, like, authentic, right?””No, dudes, he means the kilts! It's a joke, yeah?””You shit! You... you racist bastard! My great-grandaddy went to S- was Scottish, man! YEAH! EM EEE SEEEEEEEEEE FIGHTING THE POWER!”Without warning Bagpipes Debbie leaps over the reception desk and jumps the poor dude manning it – she whips her bagpipes round from on her back and starts beating him severely. You trod on your mum's cat once, by accident. It kind of comes back to you.
”DON'T WAIT FOR ME, COMRADES! ONWARDS AND UPWARDS! COME BACK FOR ME WHEN YOU'RE FAMOUS!””Shit, we gotta go. Quick!”Before you can make sense of what's going on Quebecca dashes towards the pair of elevators at the end of the entrance hall and pings one open; she gets in, Harun following, and trance-like you follow too. There's a button that seems to say
live radio performance and you watch Quebecca's blurry fingers press it. The lift shoots upwards.
You think about passion; you think about feeling; you think about blustering – hell, that part went well so far; you think about how to burst uninvited into a radio studio and just kind of take over with your literal stage presence, you know?
The lift doors slide open and you see before you a door that, again, seems to say
live radio performance in a strange light like the xray warning in a mental hospital but you shake off the strange feeling and stride towards it. Harun's in his strange mix of kilt and ethnic Peruvian-Pakistani shirt and headgear, his cricket bat on his shoulder and his tambourine in his other hand; Quebs is happy in her kilt and your shirt, radiating a kind of certainty; you stand flanked by both in your new kilt but topless, empty-handed like Quebecca, the band stripped down to its bare rhythm department, stripped down like standing stones in the wet wind millennia ago, but probably more righteous, more magnetic, less mossy.
Quebs looks at you, and you look very briefly down, unseen biting the inside of your lower lip as you realise you've made a decision. You look her in the eyes and nod.
She steps forward and kicks the door down, and walks into the live radio performance, and waits politely for the current tune to finish. It's some form of modern popular music. You've heard it dozens of times before and actually know who it's by, but you couldn't admit this without several drinks first and even then you'd feel dirty tomorrow.
Harun stands there menacingly with his cricket bat.
”Hi. Um. We're the Maeshowe Ethics Committee – and we've been invited to play you our latest hit single, Standing Stones of Rebellion.”“Wow,” starts the DJ, “That was some rock and roll entrance, dude – please, tak-”
But he's literally silenced by Quebecca's imposing silence. You can tell by the fire in her eyes that she's totally feeling this. It's radio dynamite.
Harun starts pittering away on the cricket bat, and you know that he's building to a stronger rhythm; he's building to meet a climax in Quebecca's silence, and although you can't quite tell how far ahead it is, you can feel it menacing in the dark ahead, and you know that when they reach that climax you have to join in with something as matchingly powerful. Something that will announce you to the listening hundreds.
But what?Current band members: Nigel, Competent Death Growlist, Adequate VocalistQuebecca, Competent Silenceist Bagpipes Debbie, Adequate Bagpiper and Adequate KazooistHarun, Competent Cricket Bat Player, Dabbling Tambourinest and Dabbling Rugby PlayerCurrent key influences: the death growl, silence, Scotland, Peruvian Cricket Music, Oppression
Current clothes: kilts
Current portfolio:Free Speech – bagpipes, tambourine, death growl, and silence
A Babby’s Tomb – kazoo, cricket bat, death growl, and silence
Current fans: that small boy in the park? The G and N store staff.
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Topic: You are Nigel and the Maeshowe Ethics Committee! (Read 10920 times)