Strike Up the Band

(a short story)

The alarm went off at 5 am. Buddy groaned, hit the snooze button, and rolled over.

BRRRRAAAAAAHHH, it went at 5:15.

“Guuuuuuh.” Buddy pressed one hand against his head, silenced the alarm, and tried to blink the sleep from his eyes. It was obscenely early. “The things we do for love,” he muttered, eyeing the tunnel leading out of his underground digs. His body cried out viscerally for five more minutes of sleep, but he knew it would all be worth it. The mosh pit, the incessant THRUM THRUM THRUM, the writhing bodies, the red eyes—the one girl, gazing up at him. And after the concert, they would slip away …

The bands would be setting up at ground level by now. He stretched, yawned three more times, gave his apartment of seventeen years one last look, and started along the tunnel. He felt a pang of regret as he shrugged off his leather jacket. It was his pride and joy, with its huge pink letters spelling BUG PUNK COLLECTIVE. But it was a warm day, and he wouldn’t need it.

A moment later, he was standing on the lawn of a quiet two-story home, staring around at a dark, desolate landscape. The sun wasn’t up, and the street lights still cast an eerie glow. No humans were stirring. Well, he wouldn’t have expected them to be. But—

“Where is everyone?”

Buddy’s band and the rest of the lineup should be swarming the streets of Cincinnati by now—careening through the air, catching up, and, most important, making beautiful music and starting their magical summer of love. Yet here he was, all alone, feeling a little bit foolish and quite a bit resentful. What’s a band with just one member?

He spread his wings and flew a few feet into the air, scanning his surroundings. There was no sign of his friends, but something floated toward him. He saw a flash of newsprint. Fluttering down on top of it, he walked across the surface, reading carefully. “DEWINE LIFTS STAY-AT-HOME ORDER; NUMBER OF CONFIRMED OHIO CASES APPROACHES 30,000.” And above these words, a date: May 19, 2020.

Buddy slumped back on his hind legs.

2020.

Not seventeen years. Sixteen.

His hand must’ve slipped when he programmed the alarm.

That’s why no one else was here. They were all snug in their burrows, still fast asleep.

“I knew it was too early to get up,” Buddy moaned.

His mind was blank. Going back to sleep was impossible—in a daze he remembered taking off his jacket on his way out of the tunnel. His burrow would be assigned to a new tenant, at triple the rent.

He would never see his band. He would never meet that one special someone. He would never experience the aching joys of love.

For years he had imagined what it would be like to be surrounded by others like him. He would never know now.

“Brood IX.V, that’s what I am,” he said bitterly.

He sat breathing heavily, his anger mellowing to a gentle sadness. And as always when he felt sad, he did the only thing he could do. He began to sing.

Still singing, he flew to a low branch of a nearby tree. He sang of loneliness and longing, of the children he would never have, of the mate who was destined for someone else, of the band who would set up their instruments behind a different lead singer.

The rhythmic thrumming in his abdomen calmed him. And when he was satisfied with his song, he closed his eyes and went to sleep.