Ridiculust Ch. 04

"Those bushes are looking better and better," Roger replied as their eyes locked. "Though I don't think they'd hide us very well the way we are, or what will probably happen once we really get going." They were in a shadow cast by a large tree from the lights from the stage and out of the pools of silver light from the tasteful lamps that lined the walkways as the rock band continued its performance. "Why are they having this event, anyway?"

"It's the annual Midsummer Festival. Nothing special is being celebrated, save for the Civic Holiday on Monday. Nobody will say it, but the festival this year coincides with Lughnasadh."

"I believe in the lunacy part. I think that the Magic Plague seems to be ramping up to a whole new level." There was a fair-sized crowd around the stage that they were approaching. Everyone seemed to be in a good mood, with the ample quantities of beer flowing seeming to help. Peddlers were selling glow sticks, though a substantial number of the people were glowing from various body parts on their own, and Roger and Sarah fit right in. The band, consisting of a black woman on bass guitar, two white guys on regular guitars, an Asian woman on drums, a Hispanic woman on keyboards, and a white woman and black man on vocals, was putting on an energetic performance and the crowd was mostly dancing to some degree, while trying to not slosh their beer too much. Roger could also see three relaxed-looking cops on the right of the stage, keeping an eye on things.

"Not lunacy. Loo-na-sa," Sarah corrected him, loudly over the noise of the band, giving him a jab with an elbow. He tried to look innocent. "It's the ancient festival between the Summer Solstice and the Autumnal Equinox. But you know that already, don't you."

"It isn't associated with magic the way Beltane and Samhain are," he said as they made for the beer tent, located to the right of the stage. He noticed that the cops were keeping an eye on its patrons as well. "I wonder if it's just a coincidence." It didn't take long for them to wait through the short lineup to purchase two edible plastic cups of the brew, which was light and had a clean, sharp flavour to it. "Wow, this is good stuff!"

"Thank you," said the woman serving it. "It's our locally-made brew."

"Our compliments to everyone involved," Sarah said. "Don't you dare make a pun," she warned, dragging him out of the tent. Roger pouted and whined, then snickered helplessly at her expression.

"How many students did you terrify with that look?"

"Many. And they had good reason." Despite the evening heat and humidity, he shivered and consoled himself with another swallow of beer, just as the band finished with whatever song it was that they'd been playing. The audience cheered, whooped and clapped.

"Thank you, thank you very much," said the female vocalist. "It's a magical evening of a magical day - Lughnasadh, the Midsummer Festival!"

"She did say it," said Sarah, surprised.

"And it's Loo-ne-seh," she continued. There was scattered laughter and applause. "It's a traditional time for singing, dancing, and partying!" There was a small commotion behind her as the band members were whispering and pointing at Roger.

"Oh, fuck," he muttered, trying to interpose Sarah between himself and the stage.

"What are you doing?" she asked suspiciously. "What are they doing?" she added, even more suspiciously. Roger looked around, trying to find an escape route, but the crowd had thickened behind them and there was nowhere to go.

"Whoa!" said the male vocalist as the band members broke out of their huddle. "It appears that we have a celebrity guest in the audience! Shine the spotlight over there!" One, mounted on a tree and operated by remote control, was aimed in their direction, and had Roger and Sarah pinned in it. "Everybody, it's Roger Matheson, of Roger and the Homewreckers and their improbable hit, 'Oompa Loompa Love'!" There was enthusiastic applause from the crowd, and the two found themselves pushed to the front of the stage, which was at about the level of their necks.

"Don't let us on the stage!" Roger hissed at the three cops who were there to meet them. "We're dangerous and a threat to the band members!" They just chuckled and pushed them up the steps amidst the hooting and hollering.

"Hey, it's Mrs. Burns! Hi, Mrs. Burns!" shouted a few voices, and Sarah looked out to see a group of teenagers waving and jumping up and down. She smiled and waved at them, generating more cheers and applause, while Roger tried to quietly fade into the background, only to bump into the drum kit and nearly fall over. He was propelled back to the front of the stage. He smiled weakly and waved at the crowd. Sarah looked back at the band members, who smiled at her.

"So, this is what you've been up to," she said. "Long time, no see."

"Hi, Mrs. Burns!" they said brightly. Roger quirked an eyebrow.

"Hi, Roger," said the female vocalist. "I'm Ellen Dawes, and we are the Purple Chimps. To answer your question, we have all been students of hers. Usually good ones." Sarah nodded, somewhat reluctantly. "We want to tell you that you and the Homewreckers have been an inspiration to us. We figure that if a bunch of middle-aged men can get famous without even trying, what can happen with a bunch of young folks who really are trying?" The band members gave him a round of applause, and Sarah noticed with interest that he actually blushed a bit.

"Well, Ellen," he said into a microphone that she'd handed him, "I can honestly say that if anyone deserves a shot at the big time, it's you guys. We've been listening to you for quite some time, and even in the distance you sound great! Everyone, I think that you should show the Purple Chimps some love! They've been working their asses off for you tonight!" The audience broke into loud, enthusiastic cheers and applause that went on for a minute and a half before slowly dying away.

"I'm Pat Marshak," said the male vocalist. "Since we have you here, we were wondering if you could share the story of how 'Oompa Loompa Love' came to be." Roger looked uncomfortable.

"Yes, please tell us," said Sarah sweetly into another microphone. "Inquiring minds want to know." There were scattered hoots and laughter from the audience.

"You're in trouble now, Roger!" "Sounds like a detention coming!"

"Well," he replied, "alcohol may have been a factor." There was more laughter and comments. "Oh, fine, alcohol was a significant factor." He shrugged his shoulders and rolled his eyes. "Late in January some friends and I were at one of their houses watching the NFL Conference Championships. The beer was flowing, and we were all at least half wasted. The half-time show had come on, and we were channel flipping, killing time until the second half started. One channel had the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on, and it had just come to the part where that horrid brat Veruca Salt had turned to her dad and said 'Daddy, I want an Oompa Loompa!'." He then said in a squeaky falsetto "One of us said 'Oooh, I LOVE Oompa Loompas!'"

"That was you, wasn't it?" asked Sarah. "That sounds like what you would say."

"You've only known me for a few hours, but it's like you can see into my soul," he replied with a grin. She couldn't help but smile back, and it lit up her face. There were a few wolf whistles. "Yes, it was me. And that's how it started. Some of the other guys had musical experience. We ... " He shrank under Sarah's basilisk stare. "Uh, mostly I, since I was the most sober, wrote most of the lyrics in about half an hour. The other guys made musical arrangements, called in friends, and in the middle of one of the best football games in recent memory, we did a couple of rehearsals, recorded the third round, and posted it on YouTube. I was the guy with the tambourine," he added. "I can't even play a triangle on key."

"Yet somehow it went viral," said Ellen with mock sadness. "A catchy beat..." The bass player played a few of the opening chords and Roger groaned loudly and made to plug his ears. "Nonsense lyrics, and a bunch of old guys doing a silly dance, and somehow you get fame and fortune." The drummer and guitarists had now started up, and the crowd cheered wildly.

"And Roger is here to do the dance for you!" said Sarah with a wicked grin.

"Was Mrs. Burns really this evil?" Roger mock-whined.

"You don't know the half of it!" someone shouted.

"We are going to have to talk after class!" she replied sternly and they all laughed as the full band launched into the song. Roger drained his beer cup, turned it upside down on his head (as it had been in the video he so dearly regretted), and gamely launched into the dance. It can't be adequately described here - go watch it on YouTube like everyone else if you really need to see it again. To his credit, he managed to dance without losing his cup, despite a couple of half-hearted swipes from Sarah as she danced along with him, their eyes locked on each other's.

"She fits me like a glove, with her Oompa Loompa love," Roger sort-of sang when the line came up, and her breasts momentarily flashed. Fortunately, she was facing away from the stomping, dancing crowd at that point and the band was busy whooping it up, so only he saw. There were a few wolf whistles, and several more when she responded with the following line,

"He slides in with a shove, with his Oompa Loompa love." He had to turn quickly away so that the flare from his crotch wouldn't be seen by the crowd, but he made sure she saw it. Eventually, even the "extended version" of the song played itself out and the crowd, which seemed to have gotten even larger, went nuts for several minutes.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the next big musical group, the Purple Chimps!" shouted Roger and Sarah over the din, and they went to shake hands and/or hug all the band members and the tech people off to the side. They were looking for somewhere to place their microphones so they could skedaddle (the band members all had cordless headsets) as the crowd settled down, when the keyboardist said,

"Whoa, not so fast you two. You're not escaping that easily." The crowd quickly hushed and waited expectantly. Roger and Sarah stood next to each other, with deer-in-the-headlights expressions. "You two are an item, aren't you?" Her soft Hispanic accent somehow made the sentence sexy. They looked at each other and nodded. "Turn down the lights, would you?" she asked the lighting tech, who did something and the lights faded to about a quarter of their original intensity. Much to everyone's surprise, including Roger and Sarah, they were both glowing gently from head to toe in their colours. They had involuntarily held hands, and how their colours merged with each other was clear. The audience said "Oooh". "New love is reborn from the ashes of old."

"You are absolutely correct," said Roger.

"Yes," said Sarah. "Yes, it is." They both glowed a little brighter.

"Part of the Lughnasadh festivities included matchmaking," said the bass player, with a gentle Caribbean lilt. "A couple could even start a no-strings-attached trial marriage in some places. Though I don't think that will be necessary for you." She turned to the audience. "I'm Sadie Corcoran, with Bryan Boyle and Arthur Weller on guitar, Luisa Ortega on keyboards, and the marvelous Anna Lam on drums!" There were more cheers and applause. "As a special encore, we will present a new cover of an old song that I'm sure you've heard before."

When the band played the first notes of the song, Sarah clapped her hands to her mouth and looked stricken. Foreigner's 'I Want to Know What Love Is' had been playing on the kitchen radio shortly after they'd come home from the funeral of a friend who'd died young from cancer, so long ago now, but still fresh in her memory. There wasn't much room in the small kitchen in the apartment where they lived just before moving to the town to start their careers, but all they needed to do was hold each other close, sway slowly around the floor, and kiss away each other's tears. One thing had led to another, which soon led to the bedroom and his hard, thick cock frantically pounding her hot, tight pussy until she came so hard that he was locked in place and she felt the impact of every spurt of his cum. Later that night, she had mounted and ridden him as he fondled her breasts and teased her nipples until orgasms had rocked their bodies and sent them crashing into oblivion. Ever since, whenever they heard that song, they remembered that night, and a few years later, one of those remembrances led to her getting pregnant with their first child.

The past was revisiting Roger as well. He had been a rather unusual teenager in that he was more interested in books and schoolwork than he was in contemporary music, but when he had heard "I Want to Know Where Love Is" over a downtown bookstore's Muzak one summer day, it stuck with him. He had bought his book and had turned towards the door to leave when it had opened, and Jeannie and three other girl friends had walked in. He recognized her from high school, where she was two years behind him, though he'd never really looked at her until now. She was tall and slender, with a small bust line and long, shapely legs. Her long brown hair, feathered back the way it was in the day, framed a round face with a prominent nose, dimpled chin, and her most entrancing feature, bright blue eyes that danced with life and laughter. When she had turned to look at him, even from several feet away, he had been entranced (by her entrance, as he later punned, earning a gentle smack). Their gaze broke as her friends had carried her away into the store, and he had left, forever changed.

When Roger and Sarah returned to the present, they looked around and saw that the audience and the band members were all glowing, with a variety of colours and levels of brightness. The two of them were by far the brightest. Ellen and Pat had reached "Now this mountain I must climb", in the second verse, and their voices harmonized beautifully. The audience had paired off and the couples were all doing slow dances as the song washed over them.

"Would you care to dance, madame?" Roger asked, with a gallant bow.

"Do your shoes have steel toes?" she asked with a brilliant smile as they moved together.

"Do yours?" he replied, smiling back and looking into her eyes. Dancing had never been his strong point either, but somehow they moved together as if they'd been doing so all their lives. "This song brings back so many memories for me."

"Me too," she replied. "It's been years since I've heard it, but the memories came back as if they'd happened yesterday."

"Can't stop now, I've traveled so far," they both sang along as the Purple Chimps was gearing up for the first chorus, "To change this lonely life."

"Come on everyone, sing along!" shouted Ellen and Pat. Roger pushed Sarah back and gave her a twirl, and made one himself, and suddenly their glows slipped off them and snapped onto the ghostly figures of John and Jeannie. The band members were startled, as were Roger and Sarah, but kept on.

"I wanna know what love is, I want you to show me," they and the audience sang, surprisingly quietly for such a large crowd. The ghostly figures appeared to be in the prime of their lives, unmarked by time. John was close to Roger's height, and in Sarah's colours of red, blue and yellow, and Jeannie was a few inches shorter than Sarah, in Roger's yellow, turquoise and green colours. They glided over to their thunderstruck former spouses and took up the dances.

Jeannie's ghost had enough substance that Roger was able to place his hands in the proper places, and he could feel her cool touch where hers were on him. "You're as beautiful as I've ever seen you," he said, not sure if he'd get a reply. "I've missed you so much."

"I loved you with all my heart," he heard her voice in his head as they continued to dance. "But I've moved on, and you must too. Don't be afraid to love her."

"A woman as wonderful as you shouldn't be alone," John's ghost said to Sarah as they swayed and twirled, as they always used to.

"You were the light of my life," Sarah replied shakily. "When I came in and saw you dead on the couch, it was like the light had been turned off, and I would never see again."

"The light is back," said John lovingly. "You see it in his eyes every time he looks at you. It's only been a few hours, but you know he is the one for you. Your fire has been re-lit, and he will not let it be quenched." Many in the audience had stopped their dancing to watch the stage, holding their partners.

"I've got nowhere left to hide; it looks like love has finally found me." This time it was Luisa and Brian singing, with the others providing backup. The four dancers on stage whirled gracefully together, and when they parted, Roger and Sarah were partners once again, while the ghosts danced off together, and somehow faded away into the darkness.

"You and me, happily ever after?" asked Roger, tear tracks shining brightly in her reflected light.

"I can't promise the happily part, but I'm game for the ever after," Sarah replied. They fell into each other's arms and kissed hard, practically eating each other up, and their colours flared, merged and swirled around them.

"I wanna feel what love is, and I know you can show me," sang the band, and the part of the audience that wasn't hooting, whistling, and cheering. The remainder of the song had the band, the audience, and even Roger and Sarah, singing it all-out. Everyone was glowing, and the whole area looked like an explosion had occurred at a kaleidoscope factory.

"There's so much love here tonight!" said Ellen. "Can you feel it?"

"I can feel it!" said Anna, the drummer.

"Let's make it do something good," said Sarah, held tightly in Roger's embrace.

"I have an idea," said Roger, with an impish grin. "Everyone, look at all the light we're making!" he said loudly. "This reminds me of the story of the Hand family. There were six of them, all electricians." As he was saying this, they all started thttps://sharesome.com/xikifuru/post/63c50138-a333-4229-88d5-0cd92de70055/

o feel an odd sensation of power in flux. "Their family motto was 'Many Hands Make Light Work'." The chorus of loud groans and boos, including from Sarah, initially drowned out what sounded like a rapidly-increasing rush of wind through the trees. As they watched, all of their lights merged, whirled around in a dazzling wall of colour, and then suddenly and noisily exploded outwards in a circle from around the stage, blowing through the town, passing through buildings and people alike. They stood silently, looking at each other and feeling decidedly odd.

"Such is the magic of Lughnasadh," said Arthur and Sadie together, breaking the strange silence. "Of all the magic there is, love is the strongest of all. Good night everybody, and thanks for coming!" The audience cheered and applauded and began breaking up to go home. Roger and Sarah took a few minutes to once again thank the band members as they began taking things apart and putting them into the myriad cases and containers that seemed to be needed to transport a band's equipment. They then got off the stage and followed the stream of people out of the park.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

A note to readers: this is the fourth chapter of a 23-chapter story. Chapter 5 marks the end of the first part, after which the focus expands to include more characters, more situations, and of course more puns. Thank you very much for reading the story this far, and I hope that you enjoy the remainder.

Ridiculust Ch. 04

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