Hari was a-waiting at the pub he had met Eleanor once upon so many winters ago, the "Rose And Crown". That filthy place gave him terrible memories. It was when he was hanging around, helping a drunken musician, that ended up scoring musics for the London Philarmonics. He remembered exactly when he saw her enterning the pub, looking around to see if she wouldn't be caught, and sitting down in silence. She didn't drink anything, she just stood by one window - the same window he was standing at now - and cried her anger on the world. She looked so sad, so terrible alone that it almost tore his heart apart. That made the Heavenly Man send him to help her, because he was able to feel her sadness as his own. But that was way back then. When all the dreams were young.
When all the dreams were young...He tried to remember how it was before. Before he become what he become. All the images came into his mind like a thunder. Julia. Aunt Mimi. The teachers that never seemed to understand the world, teaching to yesterday, not for tomorrow. Woolton Fair...the destiny that was written at the palm of his hand. Just one dream away. It was always just one day away. Until the day there wasn't nothing else to expect. Paul and him and George, looking for a drummer. And for a chance, for a day in the sun.
And then he found out he had to begin all over again to understand why. But then...it was too late to re-start.
If he ever met again that Chapman, what would he tell him? What would he try to tell him? So many years after the crime, was there something in his mind regretting it? Was he regretting? Time would tell. And now that he was gone, he had all the time in the world...
He saw Brittany entering through the door, and his thoughts turned to the present days. To Brittany, to her sullen black eyes, like a hopeless prayer."God, she’s a mess", he thought. "But when I was like her I might have not looked better. My Goodness, was I like her? She looks like a beggar! She’s not alive, is she? she is just a walking shadow now... Was I really like this one day?"
"Thanks for coming, Hari.", she said.
"Britty, you do look terrible.", he said, flatly.
"Thank you for informing me, dearie, but I am not on the mood for jokes."
"I noticed."
"Well, like, will you let me sit down?"
Hari made a movement with the hand, and let her friend sit down. Once she noticed there wasn’t any tabloid journalist or other bore, she held her friend’s hands as she would hold a life board. "Help! Please, Hari, help me.", she said, barely in a whisper.
"Slow down, Britty...of course that I will help you."
"I can’t stand this anymore. Today I dreamed of my funeral, Warlock. I saw my own death! I saw me at my bed, and I was dead, and Mary and Danny were crying over me...and I tried to shout, and I tried to make'em listen but they didn’t...and then... Oh, man, I am too young to die! Too young, you see, too young."
Hari faced the friend. Damned are the times when you can’t trust in someone you like. And she caught herself not trusting in Britty’s words. But there she was, shouting, crying, needing help. "I can’t do this alone, Brittany. You got to want it.", he finally managed to say.
"I want it! I want to make a pact with God, if it’s that what it takes. May I lose my voice, may I lose my hands, but I can’t go through all of that again!"
For a moment, Hari heard his own voice. I will be a good boy, please make me well, I promise you anything, take me out of this hell.
For a moment, she was him. For just one moment, Brittany Willians' fate met with his, before the end.
She sank on the hair, holding her hair in despair. She was thinking. "You know... in the beginning is good. It’s funny. You find yourself floating...all of that thing we read and we don’t believe we can feel...the visions... Those deaths, like happened to Joplin, were just accidents. We believed in that, blindly believed...so we couldn't have any regret. But now...it’s turning into a nightmare, a bloody nightmare, do you understand me? I cannot handle this anymore... I don’t want to die, damn it. I don’t want to die like that, I don’t want to die like that. I am only twenty-five, I am too young, too young."
Hari just stared at the friend. When you have a broken ego, the chant "drop in, turn in, turn off" doesn’t work. The last part simply don’t work. You go on and on and on till there is nowhere else to go. You hit the end of the swamp. And, most part of the time, you don’t have how to come back, because the swamp up your body doesn’t let you go to the surface again.
"For so many times I thought I wasn’t doing nothing of wrong", Britty went on her monologue. "And I wasn’t really, not according to the Laws of Rock. Fuck the Law of Great Britain, the show biz is another country, another planet. Lots of people take shots, all the time. It is the Law of Rock - get stoned and you will prove you are strong. But I am wounding the only law I am ever able to follow - my own law. My own will. I thought I was having fun, but now I am calling the angels to dig my grave. And I don’t want them to dig my grave. I want to stay alive. I need to, you see."
"Do you want really to get out?", Hari suddenly asked.
"Fuck it, Warlock, you can’t be that blind! I am here in front of you, I am begging you - throw me a lifeboat, PLEASE! Do you hear me? Several times I refused Danny’s help, Mary’s, Eleanor’s. Now here I am supplicating, asking for your mercy. Please, Winston. I want to live. I need to live. I am too young to die."
She sighed, and spoke one last phrase.
"For auld lang zyne, man. For that Brittany I used to be. I need to remember who I am. And you are the only one who knew me before I become what I become."
That did it. Hari held her hands. "Then I will do it, Fair Lady. It won't be easy, but we got to give it a try."
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