text: The Perfect Band I was tasked with making a story about three random items. They were a pedalboard, hair follicles, and silicon dioxide. The Perfect Band I have an odd story to tell. This happened during my second year of college during a rebellious faze in my life. One night I was with a buddy, whom I didn’t know very well but would hang out with on occasion. We were having a few drinks in his dorm and we began to talk about different kinds of music we enjoyed. We both agreed grunge and 90s rock was both in our taste. He mentioned that he always wanted to put together the perfect band and tour the world, becoming a sensation. I didn’t realize once we got to this point in the conversation things were going to get...weird. “Let me show you something.” My friend said as he crouched down and retrieved something from under his bed. He tossed what looked like a huge piece of junk on his bed. I wasn’t a music specialist in the least, but could tell it was some sort of homemade pedalboard. It was about the size and shape as one of those old school Ataris and looked older than dirt. “Oh this thing?” I said trying to take interest in it. Upon closer inspection the pedals on the board were marked with some weird letters. One was ‘O’, ‘N’, ‘H’, and ‘C’. There were also smaller pedals with many other letters scribbled on them which seemed to be unreadable. My friend seemed to be impressed with himself. “You see man this is how I’m going to make my band a reality. Forget this school stuff.” I kept focusing on those big letters. I knew I had seen them before. Then the biology major in me realized it. “Hydrogen, Carbon, Oxygen, and Nitrogen”, I said pointing out the pedals. He smiled and laughed. “That’s right my man. The main four elements that make up the human body.” He leaned in closer toward me as if he couldn’t wait to explain. “I just need some bodies dice them up and use this pedalboard to make the perfect band mates.” At this point he didn’t seem to be joking anymore. I backed up toward the door a few feet, trying to laugh it off. “Oh man that’s really cool. So um what’s that pedal?” I pointed out a smaller pedal that had the letters ‘SD’. He looked down at the board and chuckled as if I asked a dumb question. “You know man. Silicone Dioxide. I can’t have the band mates thinking too much man so I put that stuff in their head instead of them having a brain. They don’t want any of the glory. It’ll be all mine.” I was very concerned now as he was describing this sick dream of his. I quickly turned my body and grabbed the door handle. He grabbed the back of my shirt and tried to pull me back into the dorm. “Where you going my dude?” He said as he used his other hand to hold the door shut. I pushed my elbow back hitting him in the nose. Once I made contact I was able to pull the door open. He made one final attempt to pull me in by grabbing at me. He was able to clutch my hair and pull a large wad of follicles from my scalp. I got out of there nevertheless and slammed the door behind me. I ran all the way back to my car got in and just drove. Not feeling safe I went to my parents house to stay the night. The next morning I had a text message on my phone from him. It just said ‘Ditching this school thing. You’ll never hear from me again.’ That was eight years ago. Now may daughter is thirteen years old and she was begging me to buy her tickets to a concert she HAD to go to. Naturally I did a little research of the artist. It was a three person band consisting of a drummer and two guitarists. I watched a few interviews of the band on YouTube and oddly enough only the lead singer speaks in every single one I found. It sounds crazy but I think that’s him. He looks completely different now though. His hair, eyes, the way he talks it’s all changed but I know it is. The other members just stand there playing their instruments. They dint speak they don’t do anything else. They have a soulless dead look in their eyes. Oh and their eyes....are the same color as mine.