I Swear I Would Follow Anything... Just Get Me Out of Here
Author: Frannyglass
I had gone to Athens to buy a movie made by the band Bright Eyes. I found the film in an indie music store. Everyone had been talking about it, saying that it was a really cutting-edge piece of art. I couldn't wait to get it home and watch it.
When I began watching it, though, I was met with an unpleasant surprise. The film's supposed artsiness really disturbed me. Bright Eyes songs played in the background while the film showed all these scenes of lead singer Conor Oberst being abused by his parents when he was little. I turned off the movie, but I couldn't get the images out of my head. I went to talk to my dad about it. We were, inexplicably, in the house I lived in until I was nine. Everything looked exactly like it did in the 1980s. The TV and VCR were ancient.
My dad didn't seem to understand why I was so disturbed by the movie. I tried to describe what had happened, but I couldn't express how scared I felt.
The next thing I knew, I was in an airplane with a guy who was supposedly my boyfriend, Adam. Except Adam didn't look like Adam at all. He was blonde and wore very a very preppy polo-shirt-and-khakis ensemble. Also, he was filthy rich. He owned this very modern plane that had no walls or doors. There was just a floor and a ceiling, and a few seats. He and I sat in the front. The pilot was in the baclk. The plane was going really fast, but it was only ten or twenty feet above the ground. I was afraid we were going to crash. I also noticed that though there were no walls to the plane, I couldn't feel a rush of air from the outside. From where I sat, I could feel the fresh air, but it didn't seem as though we were going fast at all.
"Adam" put an arm around me and said we'd be at our destination soon.
It turned out to be Athens again. I went back to the indie music store where I'd bought the Bright Eyes movie. I was by myself, but there were plenty of people in the store. There was an entire Bright Eyes department on one side of the store, and there was a salesman on the floor talking about how great the band was and how everyone should own some Bright Eyes paraphenalia.
I was looking through the racks of t-shirts when a girl came up to one of the shelves and started saying something about the Bright Eyes movie I had.
"I have a copy of it, if you want to see it," I told her.
It was apparently a very rare film. I had bought the only copy that the store had had in stock. I abandoned the t-shirts (which were very ugly. They had pictures of vegetables on them) and glanced at the shelves of videos and CDs. I found a CD I wanted and thought about buying it. Then, suddenly, "The Calendar Hung Itself" began being broadcast on the store's sound system, and I started hallucinating. All I could see were images of Conor Oberst being hit by his parents. I screamed, and my whole body went limp. I couldn't control any movements I made. I had fallen on the hard floor of the music store and was writhing around, hoping the music would stop.
