Hey, Cruel World - (Marilyn Manson)

And There's A Light On, Heavy Glow

  A little less than two weeks after Zim had come back, everything seemed to be back to normal. When I'd come home with Twiggy from Laney's, Zim had been in the bedroom alone, playing his guitar. I'd gone in, wanting to talk to him alone. Ginger and Marilyn were in the living room, and it looked as if Marilyn hadn't even seen Zim yet, and was staying away from him. Zim was very apologetic, and so was I. I had been angry, yes, beyond belief, at least for my usual self, but every last bit of anger I held vanished as we talked. I knew that I couldn't be mad at Zim anymore, I loved him, and I didn't want to feel as I had the days he was gone, not again. By the next day, we were working in the studio together as one, in perfect harmony, as always. As if nothing had ever happened, like it was forgotten forever. Marilyn and Zim were completely back to their normal selves, without having made up or talked or anything.

  And that was one thing I would never understand about guys.

  "You know what word I really like?" I asked. Zim and I were laying on our usual side of the bed, alone and on top of the huge comforter. He was leaning his back against the backboard of the bed and I slouched, my right side and my back against his front. His arms were around me, his hands holding mine on top of my stomach. I twisted my neck up to look at him when I asked, and stared into his bright green eyes that I loved so much. I was so glad to be back to normal, having forgotten, or at least having tried to forget, everything that happened after the Nine Inch Nails concert. "Mushroom. I mean...it's just so...soft."

  "It's soft." His voice was dull and he raised his eyebrows at me before cracking a grin.

  "Well, yeah! I mean, like, just the sound of it...soft, kind of fluffy. I like the word 'fluffy', too. But mushroom is just...I picture a mushroom, and then I picture letters spelled out in my mind, and it's pretty and I see the 'mush' part in brown letters," I said, trying to explain to him my random thoughts. I was always thinking about or saying something like that...and no one ever seemed to understand, even though I explained as well as I could.

  "Do you have Synthesia or something?" Zim asked, frowing at me like I was crazy and had just escaped an asylum or something like that.

  "Sometimes I wonder..." I responded, looking back down from his face and across the room at the wall in between the bedroom and closet doors. Zim and I did this a lot. We'd sit back here on the bed, just together, like we did in the morning, and talk. I wasn't sure if we were pretending we were watching a TV as we stared across the room, which there was none in the bedroom, but I'd realized that spending time together was much better than watching TV. Zim wasn't the biggest fan of laying around and doing that either, unless we were watching movies. So this was always nice. And wherever we were and whatever we were doing, there was a pretty good bet that we would have the radio on.

  "HEY!" Marilyn shouted, busting through the door quickly. Zim sat up in a rushed movement and I was forced with him. His eyes were almost frantic, wondering if something was wrong. Marilyn held a CD in his right hand, and his phone in the left. His expression was excited, but he didn't smile yet. He held up the CD and I recognized it immediately as the newest Marilyn Manson album, the one we'd all recorded. To think that some of my own sounds were on that CD was incredible.

  "First day, and you're not going to believe how many we've sold..." Marilyn said, shaking his head, but waiting to see our reactions, as if we were his audience. It was Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, and the newest album had been released approximately twenty-two hours ago, at midnight. Ten o'clock, and Marilyn was the first to hear how sales had gone during the day. I tipped my head forward and raised my eyebrows at him, waiting for him to tell us. Zim held his arm around my back tightly.

  "Twice. Twice as many as Mechanical Animals...Mechanical Animals was THE MOST SOLD OF ALL OF OUR ALBUMS," Marilyn shouted, waving the new CD in his hands. "People are apparently really excited to have you back in the band," he said, nodding to Zim, "And very hyped about not only the first ever second guitarist, but a female guitarist."