We'll Go Down In the History Books

This will go down in history as one of the best nights of my life.

The sweating, jumping bodies meant nothing. The simple fact that this could have been a massacre inside a mosh pit went unnoticed by my leaking eyes and pounding nerve endings. My knee was going out, I could barely stand. My elbow was throbbing. The right side of my ribcage felt broken and my stomach and arms were bruised all to hell.

But I could care less about any of that.

Only the screaming of the crowd and the man on that stage was piercing my senses. Only the three men holding their guitars like badges of honor, thrashing and staying put, holding their ground against the torrents of fatigue and the heaviness of the burden put upon them by the sea of people, crying and screaming and jumping, just for them. Only the man in the background of it all, moving so much to make out his facial features was simply an impossible task for even God himself. Those five men making me feel safe and protected, making me feel as if I belong as I hold my best friend’s hand in mine, making me cry and scream and jump and sing until I’m almost dead, and being perfectly fine with all of that.

I stayed for two hours. I stayed for two hours after they had left, locked inside that venue, a twenty foot gate towering over me, taunting and laughing in my face. The security guards had gone home. My friend and I were completely alone, in a simple covered arena, surrounded by miles of parking lots, the three busses standing like islands.

The stage was worn and foreign beneath the soles of my feet. My heart was in the process of nailing itself to the ground, threatening to never leave that place. I felt like this was where I belonged. This was my dream, I was standing on my dream, the same dream my heroes had just thrashed and danced upon as if they would die tomorrow. I wanted to be here forever. The microphone dangling from its cord on its stand was taunting me. The sound was still on, the chance to scream into a real microphone, amplified for miles was staring me in the face, daring.

My friend had gone to the sidewalk winding through the venue, hoping to gain the courage to knock on one of those bus doors or to find someone. I was completely alone.
I loved it, and I had to take that chance.

The microphone slipped through my palms as I released it from its suicidal hang. My light breathing echoed throughout the dark expanse in front of me as I pressed it to my lips, savoring the rough and cool feel of it against my skin.

I wanted to sing like him. To my own music that played inside my head constantly. I wanted my voice to shatter the still, cold atmosphere that had brought itself down heavily upon my small town.

“Just ask the question, come untie the knot. Say you won't care, say you won't care. Retrace the steps as if we forgot. Say you won't care, say you won't care. Try to avoid it but there's not a doubt. And there's one thing I can do nothing about…”

The sound of my voice echoing throughout, alone, felt disgraceful. My eyes squeezed shut, tears threatening to fall through the barriers of my eyelashes. I brought my knees to my chest as I sat at the edge of the stage, staring at the empty, glaring seats below. The microphone lay beside me, laughing its dark laugh.

Light footfalls echoed through the open space but didn’t manage to reach my own ears. My senses were closed as tight as my eyes. The tears had found a way to fall regardless, as they always do.

“That was you, wasn’t it?” I looked up hesitantly to meet two eyes gazing worriedly down at me. They were unknown, the voice was unfamiliar, yet it sent a shockwave through me that jumpstarted my heart as I shook my head.
“But it was. There’s no one else here…” I choked on a sob before standing, looking up at the person who had somehow taken a concern in my voice, in my position alone on this stage at almost eleven o’ clock at night. Their hair shimmered slightly in the pale light from the moon and yellow of the dimmed stage lights. My eyes were red and scared and alone. Theirs were soft and bright and concerned.

I turned away instinctively when they didn’t move their gaze from my form. It wasn’t normal for this to be happening. It wasn’t normal for me to do something so stupid.

A bump was blared out into the silence.

“Here, take it. Sing again.” My heart had nailed itself to that spot. My feet were super glued. My eyes were taped. My lungs were sewn. I could not move, but yet I wanted to so badly.

I shook my head in defiance. Their warm hand opened my own before the cold metal microphone took its place. It was still laughing at me.

I stared at the device, flinching and shying away at its taunting and sneering. The way it put insults so eloquently was mystifying.

Their hand found my own once again as they gave it a gentle pat, warm and soft and reassuring; my heart had swelled a little from the small, almost meaningless gesture. It gave me hope. This small gesture made by the man standing in front of me, one of the five men I admired, the one whose face I couldn’t see, gave me hope, and, faith.

“Don’t give it up. Don’t let it go. It’s a horrible thing to waste, a voice. Don’t waste it.”

A smile somehow found its place on my lips, as I nodded, and said thank you.
That thank you stood for so many things; it would take years just to sing them all.

That cold night, with the fogged and engulfing air, I was given hope by one of my heroes directly. He meant it, that night, when he had given me back that microphone, and said ‘don’t give it up.’

He gave me hope. He gave me the realization that my dream could come true, that it somehow stood a chance in the test of time. My eyes still remember crying, and my hands still remember the cold of the microphone and the warmth of his own hands as they passed hope through my veins.

My arms still remember the bruises and aching, and my ribs still remember the feeling of breaking under the pressure. My lungs still remember the screaming until they were raw, and my knees still remember the pain of jumping just to stay alive when every bone and muscle and tendon were screaming for a rest.

Most of all, though, my heart remembers the swelling that comes from having hope and faith and realizations passed into it.

The microphone is cold in my hand, but it no longer shouts at me. It no longer snicker and taunts, it no longer throws insults into cold, still air.

No, this microphone had a change of heart. It now welcomes me with open arms, kissing my cheeks and pushing me gently into the heat of the stage lights and the screams of the crowd below my feet.

I never gave it up, I never let it go, and I never wasted it.
And it is because he gave me hope.