Monkee Mania ✓

Take a Giant Step (Mike)

I sat up in my room staring at the walls. I thought about all the times where I was having some fun, the time before all this sorrow in my life. I sighed and fell back on my bed. I stared at the ceiling now.

I sat like that day after day, hardly moving from my bed.

One day my mother told me, “Emma, you need to go out and get some fresh air!”

“I don't want to,” I said.

“I don't care, you're going out of this room.”

“Fine.” I sighed, took a quick shower, and got dressed.

I went out of my room for the first time in what felt like ages. I realized I had forgotten what outside felt like.

The wind whistled through the trees. I ran my fingers through my hair and took a deep breath. Maybe I really did need some fresh air, I thought. It was relaxing me, but I still felt the bitter edge of sorrow trying to press back into my life. I was too weak to fight it off alone.

I was about to walk back to my house when I was suddenly almost trampled by a huge crowd running the other way. “Where is everybody going?” I asked.

“The diner,” a girl told me and ran off.

I ran after her and asked, “Why are you going to the diner?”

“The Monkees are playing there, of course!”

We were both still running. “Who are the Monkees?”

She gasped in disbelief, “The best band in the universe! Come on! I can't let you leave without seeing the Monkees!” She pulled on my arm and forced me to go with her.

“Okay,” I sighed. I went along with her, seeing that I had nothing better to do with my time.

We walked in and I saw the diner was packed full of people, standing room only. A group of four boys walked on the stage. She whispered to me their names, “That's Peter, Micky, Davy, and Mike.”

I automatically took a liking to Mike, the tallest one. He was the only person I had ever seen that could pull of a plain green wool hat like that.

They started singing a song, “Though you've played at love and lost,

And sorrow's turned your heart to frost,

I will melt your heart again.

Remember the feeling as a child

When you woke up and morning smiled?

It's time you felt like you did then.

There's just no percentage in remembering the past,

It's time you learned to live again at last.

Come with me, leave yesterday behind,

And take a giant step outside your mind.

You stare at me in disbelief,

And say for you there's no relief,

But I swear I'll prove you wrong.

Don't sit in your lonely room,

Just staring back in silent gloom,

That's not where you belong.

Come with me, I'll take you where the taste of life is green,

Each and every day holds wonders to be seen.

Come with me, leave yesterday behind,

And take a giant step outside your mind.

SOLO

Come with me, I'll take you where the taste of life is green,

Each and every day holds wonders to be seen.

Come with me, leave yesterday behind,

And take a giant step outside your mind.”

The one the girl said was Davy left the diner and nearly all the girls followed him. Peter and Micky left and soon it was just me and Mike left. He smiled at me. “What's your name?” he asked.

“Emma,” I said.

“I'm Mike,” he replied.

“I know,” I grinned.

“Come with me,” he said, stretching his hand out.

I took it, “And leave yesterday behind?”

“Precisely.”