Amberian (Gods of California I)

Chapter 14: Distortion

Her alarm flashed 12:00 AM in her face when she opened her eyes that grey morning. There'd obviously been a power outage at some point during the night.

Grabbing her phone from the nightstand, she saw it was actually nearly noon. The drugs had worked, and they'd worked overtime. Knocking her out for almost ten full hours.

She saw the date and was reminded her Christmas break had officially started. She'd be off for the next three weeks, and not having to worry about school for almost a month was a weight off her back as she paced about the room, wondering what to do with herself.

Christmas seemed wrong.

She peered out the window and saw many houses still aglow with Christmas lights in the dreary, early afternoon, some with half-dead strands.

But what caught her eye more than anything was the massive blackbird perched on the corner of the roof, sitting perfectly still, staring off nowhere in particular. It began to caw so incessantly it was like it didn't even need to breathe. Surrounding curtains soon ignited with the golden light of lamps being switched on. Ally opened her window to yell at it, but then her phone vibrated off her desk.

Shit!

She knelt down and scooped it up, flipping it open, seeing Ethan had just tried to call her.

Shit again!

She started dialing, then glanced back outside to see that the crow was gone. For a long while she stared blankly at the vacant space, then shook her head to try and cast off the dazed confusion she'd become accustomed to only fairly recently.

When the number was finally dialed in full, she put the phone to her ear, and called him back.

"Hey... Yeah. That sounds sick! Uh... Van Gogh's Ear? Yeah, of course I've heard of them! Alright, thanks man, see ya soon!"

She hung up and smiled. Ethan had invited her to a concert at a venue called 'The Venusian' downtown. Someone named Nick's older sister, who was twenty-one, would get them in.

It had been a while since she'd sat down with Ethan and just listened to music. She didn't know what he was into. Hell, she wasn't even sure what she herself even liked anymore.

God, I hope they're not country. Oh, wait! Google!

She opened her laptop and got to searching. There was very little information about the band on the internet. A Myspace page, but no official website. The profile was rife with pictures of past shows, arms around each other in front of small crowds.

Some of them had blue hair, some had red, but absolutely none of them had what anyone would call normal hair.

Their bio had the basics.

ORIGIN: Portland

GENRE: ?

Well, shit, I don't know either, dude.

Amber had started getting into hippie shit before she fucked off. She'd had a poster of Janis Joplin smoking above her bed along with shots of John Lennon and Hendrix. Ally laughed as she imagined her hazel eyes growing tall upon hearing she'd smoked weed. She'd probably look both ways and say something like, 'does your mom know?'

Stupid bitch...

__

As she headed for the park bench where she'd agreed to meet Ethan, Ally's mind wandered.

Dark roast coffee at 4 in the morning. She's asleep when he leaves, and asleep when he gets home.

She doesn't get to tell him Happy Birthday on time. Until the next day when he takes Amber and her to the movies.