The Firefly Field Theory

|9| I Wish You'd Just Stop: Part I

PART I:

Heaps and heaps of painfully perplexing words litter the inside of my hoodie encased head. In my brain, there is a clutter of baffling sounds on every floor. The incomprehensible argument continues, back and forth sentences are tossed and I stand empty handed as I catch none.

Ten minutes into the madness and my only theory is-the flustering drivel echoing in the hallway must be the attempt to build a negotiation. Colonel-crazy-pants doesn't lower his shotgun by the slightest of degrees and that happens to be the only thing that counters my theory. The blabbering continues between the Colonel, Z and Bravo, which quite strangely makes me feel a little left out, which just confirms that it's about time that the Mayor of Crazy Town erected a pillar in my honor. And all this delay could only mean one of two things, 1. There is someone who qualifies to be crazier than me or 2. I'm the mayor.

I don't think the undivided attention of the shot gun or the manifestly angry grandpa would be particularly delightful, yet the feeling of being completely ignored right now is just killing the mood. It's like watching a movie in a language you don't understand, it's not your fault you can't connect. You don't know what they're saying. The fear begins to dissipate slowly, for all I know they could be debating over the importance of shoe laces. And that isn't very intimidating.

Twenty minutes into the madness, the craziest thing happens, the fear I felt changes to confusion and confusion changes to boredom. I force my cold hands into the attached pocket and start counting the amount of times someone gets interrupted.

Z:"Blah, blah, blah..."

He is interrupted by the Colonel who says, "Blah, blah, blah..."

Bravo cuts in and adds, "Blah, blah..."

And then Z chimes in, "Blah, blah, blah..."

And then they all are interrupted simultaneously when the 'bakup' plan shows up dressed in the white T shirt given to her by Z. She looks so stunned it's comical. And it's so comical my boredom vanishes for a tiny instant.

Now around this time I find myself desperately hoping they will let me in on their enthusiastic exchange,

But no.

The snappy foreign discussion continues from the top, fueled with a new member leaving me once again outside the circle. I lower my head with disappointment, the pangs of elimination pinching at my ego. I start thinking how this whole thing was so not worth it and if I hadn't escaped with these guys I would be asleep all comfortable and more importantly safe. I hope nobody wakes up and finds out we're gone, especially Mom. This will be a tad hard to explain. I'm about to go back into 'Aloof Mode' when the entire crew standing in the hallway of conflict, jumps in unison at the sound of a bang.

No, that's not it; it's not the sound of a bang.

I mean you wouldn't imagine that sound to erupt from a gun. Simply because it's the sound of a woman saying the word 'Bang' which kind of sounds like the shriek of a ferret being dropped into boiling oil. Also it emanated from Bravo's portable boom box, a.k.a her back pocket.

Z snaps his head and Sigma lets out a shriek and clings to Z's arm. This does not please the Colonel very much, his scowl furrows deeper, he angrily says something to Sigma and the girl immediately distances herself from Z. then Colonel yells at Bravo, which I am sure is something by the lines of, 'Stop it with your spastic dance and answer your damned phone already'. All the while Arianna Grande continues to enlighten us how she plans to 'take us all back'.

Bravo finds her phone and takes a moment to stare at the screen. I'm thinking she'll answer it, because it's probably her friend from before, but she holds out her cell phone to me and says,