Scene: Night. Rain lashes down onto the ancient castle walls. There's a flash of lightning outside. A large yew fire burns in the fireplace. A figure is sat at a round wooden table, holding a quill and parchment. The burly bartender cleans gla**es with an eye on the door. It creaks open, and another figure in a burgundy cloak steps in. The bartender stops cleaning and fixes him a drink. The new arrival removes his soaking cloak, revealing his identity --- EMPATH. He pulls up a seat opposite the hooded figure and nods in acknowledgement as the bartender hands him his usual drink --- Angry Orchard: Orchard's Edge: Knotty Pear. The figure lowers his hood, revealing an unkempt head of hair and his unthinkably handsome face --- VESUVIUS.
VESUVIUS: What made you want to create a Genius account?
EMPATH: Unsurprisingly, it was because of d**h Grips. I'm obsessed with them, and I believe they had just come out with the first video for “On GP.” It struck me as lyrically unique so I wanted to check the lyrics out, but then I clicked on the annotations and realized what Genius actually was. I lurked for a long time but then finally started contributing, and I don't regret it for a second!
VESUVIUS: (writing) Think about the time before you became a Genius user. What was the single most important formative event that made you the person you are today?
EMPATH: This is a really tough question to answer, because my instinct is to say there's no one event—it's cumulative. I feel like who I am is a combination of everything that's ever happened to me, from the most impactful events to the most minuscule, and I'd be a different person if not for all of them.
That being said, if I had to choose, I'd probably pick my trip to Bonnaroo 2015. Two friends and I piled in a Uhaul rental van and spent upwards of 2 weeks driving ~3000 miles from MA to TN and back. In each state we pa**ed through, we stopped and did at least one activity—museums, parks, national forests. We slept in back of the van in 24-hour Uhaul parking lots. Bonnaroo itself was fantastic, of course, but it was the experience of cross-country traveling that really did it for me. Without getting too flowery, traveling like that gave me a special feeling of freedom and belonging that I continue to recall fondly.
VESUVIUS continues writing, his quill scratching at the dirty parchment
VESUVIUS: That sounds amazing. Would you rather spend ten minutes on the moon, or travel around Europe for a year on a budget of $3500 a month?
EMPATH: Space is fascinating to me. I have always had an uncultured love of the cosmos, especially as a kid. But as I've grown, I've become more and more focused on humanity, and all that intergalactic fascination faded.
Short answer: Unless we colonize the moon first, definitely Europe! Je veux visiter Paris.
BANG!
The door is blown off its hinges! Both EMPATH and VESUVIUS duck beneath the table and cover their heads. The room is filled with a brilliant light. We hear the sound of gunfire. Bullets ricochet off the stone wall. Then an energy weapon starts blasting. The firefight only continues for a few seconds. Our heroes cower out from under the table, their ears ringing and their vision blurred. The bartender lies broken on the ground, an large energy weapon in each arm. There's no sign of the invaders. Our heroes take a weapon each and leave.
Scene: a long corridor, with metal walls and ceilings and a mesh floor. Our heroes advance cautiously. A scream can be heard in the distance. The corridor forks. Down the left fork, a thousand tiny bloody footprints. There are much larger footprints down the right fork, but it looks like there's just one set.
VESUVIUS: Would you rather fight one horse-sized duck or a hundred duck-sized horses?
EMPATH: One horse-sized duck, for sure. I like a challenge. Plus, I feel like ducks are generally pretty dumb and I could definitely outsmart it.
VESUVIUS has already taken the left fork. EMPATH takes the right fork. His footsteps echo down the empty tunnel. He emerges into a small room. Trashed electronics lie on the floor; wires have been torn from the walls, and shoot sparks over the broken monitors and smashed-up circuitboards. EMPATH peers into the blind corner of the room, and jumps.
A large, blue-grey creature stands in the corner, its back to EMPATH. He considers shooting it where it stands, but decided against it. He edges closer. The creature is at least a metre taller than him, and its skin isn't scaly, it almost looks like jelly. Slowly, it turns around. Its face is indescribable. It looks upon EMPATH with cool curiosity. He carefully places his weapon on the ground, and raises his hands. There is another scream in the distance --- it's far too manly to belong to VESUVIUS. The creature and EMPATH slowly mimic each other's movements. Despite wildly differing anatomy, they show a remarkable affinity for it. The creature cautiously reaches out a limb, and EMPATH mirrors. The tips of their fingers touch.
VESUVIUS bursts into the room and launches a flying side kick. He hits the creature in the centre of its torso. It ruptures and deflates. VESUVIUS is visibly disgusted, and spends a good twenty seconds trying to flick the viscera off his shoe, all to no avail. EMPATH covers his eyes.
VESUVIUS: OK. Would you fight one horse-sized horse to the d**h if a) it was restrained and b) success within twenty minutes would free all political prisoners worldwide? You are allowed to wear steel-capped boots.
EMPATH: No way! Too many variables. Who knows which political prisoners deserve to be released and which don't? I'm the wrong political representative, believe me! Plus, I would never be able to live with myself after k**ing a defenseless horse.
The creature's body combusts. Smoke fills the room, and our heroes cannot see each other. EMPATH feels nauseated.
VESUVIUS: Makes sense, and goes along with your username. You...
EMPATH hears a loud thud. He loses his balance, but manages to break his fall. He crawls blindly in the direction of the thud, but loses consciousness.
EMPATH wakes with a start, feeling a sharp pain in his chest.
VESUVIUS: You are watching a film with a group of friends. Your best friend is sleeping on the floor. Suddenly, you realise that if you don't immediately kick them as hard as possible in the ribcage, they will die. If you explain that you did it to save their life, they will still die. What excuse do you give for kicking them?
EMPATH: off top: Didn't eat enough bananas and had a leg spasm; you had a fly on you; I was practising my karate; sorry, I only meant to fake-hit you; I was having a dream; shhh, I can explain everything after we go to the hospital; let's be real: you deserved it.
VESUVIUS nods, and helps EMPATH to his feet. They start trudging along a new corridor, made from rainbow-tinted gla**. VESUVIUS pulls a small scrap of parchment from his back pocket.
VESUVIUS: I am legally bound to ask some questions about music.
You meet your soul mate. They're absolutely perfect for you, you get along like a house on fire, you're compatible in every way.
There's just one catch: if you stay together, every year someone will break their collarbone with a wrench.
You can offer to trade places… but instead of having your collarbone broken annually, all music will sound – just to you – like it is being performed by Alice In Chains. Club bangers, radio jingles, Radiohead live, singing in the shower, it will all sound like it is being covered by Alice In Chains.
What do you do?
EMPATH: As long as it's Facelift-era or Dirt-era Alice In Chains, I'm willing to make the sacrifice. R.I.P. Layne.
They reach the end of the corridor. The wall slides open like an automatic door. The next room has a dark black carpet and ceiling, but the walls are tiled with famous album covers --- Selling England By The Pound, Marquee Moon, The Money Store, Blackstar. Upon inspection, these are original vinyl sleeves, complete with LPs. The room's only other feature is a grammarphone, which sits on a pedestal in the centre of the room. The doors slide closed behind our heroes, and the needle drops. A VOICE is projected from the speaker, on a loop.
VOICE: Good evening. Please replace this record with the greatest album of all time within thirty seconds, or you will be crucified.
VESUVIUS: (to EMPATH) What is your favourite Beatles album?
EMPATH: I'm probably gonna get crucified for saying this, but…I'm not super familiar with The Beatles' full discog. I know a bunch of tunes, but I don't think I've ever given a Beatles album a full listen—a criminal offense, I know. I'll say Abbey Road because it has “Here Comes the Sun” and “Come Together” on it, which is possibly one of the greatest songs of all time.
VESUVIUS: Sordid revelations! For what it's worth, I think the best song on Abbey Road is the closing medley.
EMPATH: I know. I am ashamed. Sometime I'll have to binge it all.
They scour the wall for Abbey Road, but before they can find it, the needle rises, and "Revolution #9" starts playing. They freeze. Then the floor drops away beneath them, and they plummet. They fall through the air for about forty seconds, before hitting a salty sea below. They surface, spit out, and tread water.
VESUVIUS: East Coast or West Coast?
EMPATH: Well, I've lived on the East Coast of the U.S. for my entire life…MA is about as East Coast as it gets. I've been to every state in New England, too, and I've vacationed in York Beach, ME so many times it's like my second home—I'd be a criminal if I didn't represent.
But I do have love for the West Coast, too. I've always wanted to visit, especially LA or San Fran. Something tells me I'd fit right in on the Venice Beach strip.
VESUVIUS: I was thinking more of their hip hop than the physical locations, but that's cool too. I've wanted to go to New England for a long time, apparently you have beautiful autumns.
EMPATH: Oh! Well, in that case, definitely west coast. Gotta give it up to my boy Kendrick. On Cape Cod, summer and fall are immaculate. Winter, not so much. Spring doesn't exist.
A ladder descends into the water. They swim over, and EMPATH leads the way up it, fighting a cramp. When they get to the top, they find a small wooden door set into a stone keep. EMPATH tries it, and it swings open. Inside, they find their capes hanging on a hatstand. They put them on, and sit, waiting to warm up.
VESUVIUS: What's the last album you listened to?
EMPATH: Full album? Ty Segall's 2010 project, Melted. I'm not a huge fan of his other stuff, but Ty & company pull off some seriously catchy lo-fi garage rock on this one that I've been addicted to lately. I have a thing for lo-fi.
VESUVIUS: What sort of books do you like reading? What are your favourites?
EMPATH: I grew up on fantasy novels, so I appreciate great imagination. But I've been into realistic fiction since college. I enjoy fiction that warps or exaggerates aspects of reality to suit its narrative. Science fiction is also great…I love plays…Poetry is a huge pa**ion of mine—basically I like it all!
A few favorite a**orted works: Mailer's An American Dream Beckett's Endgame Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea (cliche, I know, but I don't care; it's a good book) Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 Huxley's Brave New World Recently I've been trying to start Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, but man…It's a doozy.
VESUVIUS is clearly worsening. He shivers tremendously and sweat drips off him. His eyes occasionally roll back in his head.
VESUVIUS: OK I'm really sorry, I keep writing out questions and then not hitting send and opening a new tab and getting distracted. Do you have problems with “tab sprawl”? What's your record number of open tabs? And which sites do you use most frequently, other than Genius?
EMPATH: (confused) Haha, it's all good! Do you have problems with “tab sprawl”? Oh yeah, absolutely. I'm the type of person who works very sporadically on many things at once, and that gets exacerbated on Genius. Have something up to work on later, edit a different song, get a message from a user wanting help and go to their link, get tagged in a forum post, a couple pinned tabs to Google docs and Genius reference pages—it all starts piling up. What's your record number of open tabs? I don't think I've ever actually counted them, but I'm sure it's gotten up to the mid 20s at my most hectic. And which sites do you use most frequently, other than Genius? Google Docs is my soulmate. YouTube, but that just seems like an inherent part of everyone's internet experience at this point. I obsessively check r/d**hgrips and occasionally browse the front page of reddit. Facebook a few times a day. Pinterest every once in a while, where I hoard the best GIFs known to man. Twitter once in a blue moon. Soundcloud & Last.fm are great.
VESUVIUS is spluttering and looking in completely the wrong direction. EMPATH is fine though, so it doesn't matter.
VESUVIUS: You were recently made the first new Genius mod for about six months. Any hot tips for who the next one could be?
EMPATH: The clear choice is DoyleOwl. His writing is on point, his presence can be felt all over the site, his coaching practices are next level, and he's a genuine dude who is always willing to help people. It's just a matter of time before he makes mod.
VESUVIUS: ReHoot. If you were a fruit, what kind of fruit would you be?
EMPATH: Nectarine, for sure. It's clearly the best fruit. No one can contest that. Sweet and sour…soft and crisp…It is perfectly balanced, and that's what I aspire to be. #MakeNectarinesGreatAgain
VESUVIUS is clearly in a bad way. He is coughing up blood and hyperventilating.
VESUVIUS: Who are your favourite musicians from outside the US and UK?
EMPATH: This turned out to be a much more difficult question to answer than I anticipated. Here's what I came up with off top: iamamiwhoami is a fantastic experimental synth pop outfit from Sweden; the latest album from Australian band The Drones is flames; Eyeliner is a New Zealand producer who makes happy, boppy, 80s-flavor dance jams; Opiuo's another great New Zealand producer who puts out big, bubbly ba** jams; French house artist Darius makes some catchy tunes.
VESUVIUS: If you could ask me any question, how would I answer that question?
EMPATH: With style and grace, I'm sure. No, the question would be, “What is, unequivocally, the best fruit in existence?” You would say, “The nectarine, obviously.”
More probably, I would ask, “Can you recommend me some [insert genre] bands from [insert era]?” and your response would be 3 paragraphs of encyclopedic knowledge.
VESUVIUS: You are very kind. The trick is to speak in vague terms and use the internet, it makes you seem more knowledgeable than you are.
And with that, VESUVIUS breathes his last, which means we can focus more on EMPATH from here on in.
EMPATH dumps VESUVIUS's body in the sea so the smell wouldn't bother him. It is swallowed by a huge creature, like an Angler Fish the size of a Fin Whale.
Our hero decided to explore the building on his own. The keep has a lot of long corridors, lined with tall, thin windows. There is a constant twilight. Cobwebs cover most of the ceiling, and water drips into puddles. Occasionally, a colony of bats will fly down a corridor, sending dust down from the rafters. Out throw the windows, the sea rolls violently. Black seagulls the size of eagles shriek as they fly through the stormy sky.
After a few days of aimless walking, EMPATH stumbles upon a pantry. He gathers up a few armfuls of vegetables and continues through to a kitchen, which has a working gas stove. There is a balcony outside, with steep stone steps down to the sea. EMPATH finds a pail of rainwater on the balcony. He brings it in and boils the vegetables.
EMPATH continues to walk the corridors, his pockets full of boiled cabbage and beetroot to sustain him. He has no way of tracking the pa**ing of time. Sometimes he thinks he hears a voice on the other side of a door, but opens it to find nothing. The corners of his eyes begin to flicker; after a few rapid spins around find nothing, he realises his vision is going.
He doesn't know how much time has pa**ed when he eventually collapses on a landing. He sits upright, and breathes deeply, but doesn't have the energy to go on. He reaches into his pockets and finds them empty. He closes his eyes and begins to drift away, until he hears someone sit next to him.
VESUVIUS: Why do you love d**h Grips so much?
EMPATH: Honestly, it's probably better that you didn't ask this question, so people didn't have to read an essay. But it's basically because of how electrifying they are, and because Stefan is one of the most important poets of this generation!
VESUVIUS: What's your best seafood recommendation?
EMPATH: Momma's fish chowder. Sorry, exclusive content.
VESUVIUS: What's the best casual drink?
EMPATH: Angry Orchard: Orchard's Edge: Knotty Pear
VESUVIUS: Does your beard have a beard?
EMPATH: Yes it does. I'm glad you asked. Okay, I think that's all you missed. Thanks so much, I had a blast!
FIN.