“All. Came. Me.” Trevor flicked his tongue at the cigarette perched on the corner of his lip. He nodded. “I like that. All Came to Me. All Came with me. Me and my–”
“Okay, that’s enough,” Daniel said, holding a hand out.
Trevor blew a puff of smoke at him. Not that he hadn’t expected either Daniel or Eric to cut him off before he could go into detail.
But he hadn’t expected the Big Idiot to snicker, either. For whatever that was worth.
“The word is alchemy,” Eric said. “It means to use magic to make something insignificant great.”
“And how does that apply to ShapeShifter?” Trevor asked, drawing himself up. “There is nothing insignificant about us.”
“Not as a whole, no. But individually, before we formed the band, we were.”
Trevor snorted and turned his back on Eric. Mitchell growled softly at him, but ask Trevor if he cared. He didn’t. Couldn’t. Wouldn’t. This was stupid.
Daniel took over. “It’s the music that’s the magic.”
Trevor wasn’t going to argue that point. To be successful, any band had to have a little bit of magic. Like those old tales of bands who sold their souls to the Devil. Not that he would have; he hadn’t needed to. Besides, he’d grown up in Hell and if the real place was worse, thankyouverymuch but no. He could do without it.
“Alchemy,” Daniel said, his perfect curls bobbing with the rest of the head they were attached to. “It fits.”
Trevor slid his eyes to the side of their sockets. “Insignificant?” he sneered. “You’re willing to let millions of people know you think you used to be insignificant?”
“What we mean here,” Mitchell said, leaning forward and putting a hand on Trevor’s shoulder blade, “is the band is greater than the sum of its parts.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” Trevor snapped, although he knew. The Big Idiot was trying to keep him from claiming Eric was telling him he was nothing more than a fleck on the Earth, a flea that someone would wave one of those gross white dog collars at to scare off.
In other words: the truth.
Trevor flicked his cigarette to the ground and smeared the toe of his boot across it. He made an arc of the unsmoked tobacco on the driveway.
Mitchell sighed. “Let’s stick with the Freaks of Evolution idea. Dans, go find some kids, hand ‘em guitars, and let them call themselves Alchemy.”
“It’s a good band name,” Daniel agreed. “Maybe better than a record title.”
“Maybe.” Eric sounded, to Trevor, uncertain. Trevor waited for another warning growl from Mitchell, but none came.
Something insignificant made great, Trevor thought, reaching for a new cigarette. He looked at Mitchell. Now there was something that had been insignificant and, thanks to Trevor himself, made great. Maybe Mitchell ought to change his name.
‘Cause there was no fucking way in Hell Trevor was going to.
**
I feel like I rediscovered my writing mojo with this Sunday Scribblings. The bad news? This is the last outtake that’ll go into Demo Tapes: Year 4. At this point, I doubt there will be a Year 5; there are so many other characters I want to bring you. Still, when I started this whole thing, I never envisioned a Demo Tapes 1, let alone the two that are in print — and the two yet to come.
Who knows what the future holds? Maybe there’s some alchemy in it for all of us. Something insignificant made great.
And be sure to check in at the Weekend Writer’s Retreat, too. I’m still getting to know the folk involved there; come join me.