The Talent Show
05 Apr 2024 - Transcribed by Paul TurnerTim the dark elf Drow was nearing the end of his teens. Third puberty had yet to set in, so he held out hope that his current lanky form would not be his last. His hair, though long and fair against his dark skin, was permanently greasy. This greasiness led to pimples and scarring across his face. When they were large enough, the other kids would call him “Twenty-Eyes.” That is, when they were not calling him “Fuckface,” or “Drow-bow-wow.” He was not entirely sure if that last one was an insult or not, but it felt demeaning either way. Tim sighed.
He was depressed. His family had been cast out of the Underlands of Crimson Rock the year before for being deemed too nice during the Drow Council’s Evil Audit of Evilry. His father had committed the heinous act of suggesting the city implement a recycling program instead of just throwing everything into the Under-Underlands via the giant pit on the outskirts of town.
They barely made it out with their lives. Soon after, they moved to a homely human trade town called Blandleton. The sky was always sunny and the air had this chilling fresh quality to it that made Tim queasy. As such, he spent most of his time in his room reading scroll-zines and listening to the sludge metal band, Bone Snails. A knock interrupted his time alone.
“What?” He called.
The door opened and his father walked in with a tentative smile. He had recently cut his hair short and started wearing glasses. Tim had noticed he also exclusively wore long sleeve tunics these days to cover his tattoos from his younger days.
“Now son, we talked about this. You told your mom and me you would straighten up your room and try to integrate a bit more here.”
“Uh, I’m totally doing that right now,” Tim said nonchalantly while unfurling another scroll-zine.
As he did, two mice rolled out from under his bed. They were locked in mortal combat after one had slept with the other’s mouse-wife.
“She was my everything!” The brown mouse yelled while trying to plunge his tiny mouse dagger into his childhood friend, the auburn mouse.
“Oh yeah? I guess that’s why she was your punching bag too?” Said the auburn mouse as he deflected the dagger, knocking it away from both of them.
“You used my confidence to take advantage of her!” Yelled the brown mouse. Tiny tears filled his eyes as he struck the auburn mouse in the jaw, knocking him out cold. The brown mouse spit on his former friend, and limped back under the bed.
Tim and his father, who had only heard the scuffle of tiny mouse squeaks shared a knowing look.
“So I’ll get to it tomorrow,” said Tim.
“Now,” Tim’s dad said with a commanding voice. As he did, he snapped his fingers. Tim’s scroll-zine snapped shut and calcified to stone.
“What the hell, Dad!”
“Listen, your mom and I discussed it. We found out the town’s community center is having a talent show in just three days. It would go a long way towards you making some friends here.”
“I’m not signing up for that. I don’t even have any talents.”
“Nonsense. You used to be such a great little singer when you were in the Drow Choir. You sang the most mournful dirges. Besides, we already signed you up.”
Panic filled Tim’s bladder with fear pee instantly.
“You didn’t…”
“See, you’re excited already.”
“I uh… I have to go,” Tim said while sidling past his father.
Tim immediately ran towards the community center. First though, he stopped off at the town well and emptied his bladder into it. He smirked, knowing it was the town’s drinking water and that no one had even seen him do it. Unbeknownst to him, the town Piss Hermit had seen everything. He hurried desperately to pull up a fresh bucket after Tim left. He then hungrily drank from it as the piss water spilled all over himself and the ground.
At the community center, Tim was crestfallen. The talent show schedule was already printed and posted. There would be no way for him to have his name removed now. He’d be the pariah of Blandleton, even lower in status than the Piss Hermit. It was in that moment, at his lowest, that Tim heard a voice.
“Masturbate,” it whispered.
No wait, that was just Tim’s teenage hormones. This voice was different, deeper and calmer like a salve being poured into his thoughts.
“Return to the caves,” it said. “Release me.”
Tim was unsettled, feeling goose pimples raise all over his skin. The thought of running away intrigued him, but could he do it?
Just then, a passing teen from his school, Henry Whitehammer, called out, “Hey look everyone, Twenty Eyes’s pimples are spreading! Soon, we’ll have to call him Thousand Eyes!”
“I’ll do it,” Tim muttered to himself before skulking off to the edge of town.
As he left, Henry laughed so hard that his appendix ruptured. He would pass away three hours later in agonizing pain, leaving his parents childless. The healer who tried to save him would forever note his last words: “Worth it.”
Tim did not think to grab any supplies from home before heading out into the wilderness surrounding Blandleton. In the back of his mind part of him knew it was foolish, but he wanted to prove himself as a natural-born Drow. At the tree-line, he looked back to the town. It looked peaceful and serene. Ahead of him, he could see where the tree-line blocked out the light only a few feet into the forest floor. He knew he was making the right decision.
Once Tim was further inside the forest and beyond the treeline, he could no longer tell if it was day or night. The trees, ancient and somber, acted as sentinels. Their outstretched arms held the light of both the sun and stars away from all below. Tim held his hand to their rough surface, trying to commune with nature like some city dwelling kid who goes backpacking for the first time and decides that hiking and camping is their entire personality from that point forward. The type who often shows disgust at how many people they encounter on a regular day while being oblivious to the obvious benefits they receive from a well-maintained infrastructure. Most of them would end up buying a few old maps or learn a little about geology or biology before ultimately putting it away like any other hobby they started and gave up on in due time.
Instead of feeling at one with the trees though, Tim felt anxious. The voice, still and calm, continued to reach out to him. It beckoned him. As he moved through the forest floor, he came to a realization. It was getting louder. Some time later, hours or days Tim could not say, he found a cave opening. He peered inside, feeling drawn to the darkness.
Once inside, his eyes could not adjust completely to the pitch black. He pushed on further, feeling nauseated from a combination of vertigo and an empty stomach. The voice had ceased speaking, having switched to a low droning hum. Then, after what felt like an eternity, Tim saw a speck of light ahead of him. He approached it slowly, his ears throbbing from the vibrations of the cave walls.
His eyes slowly took in the shape of the light and he saw the source of the sound and the voice. In the middle of the cave room, sitting on a pedestal adorned with blood soaked, tattered clothes was the sickest looking double-headed axe guitar Tim had ever seen. It had warlocking tuners, red glowing D’Ablo strings, blood trickling from the obsidian pickups, and a single unmarked toggle button just begging to be toggled.
“So you have found me, little one,” said the voice.
“Ew. Don’t call me that,” Tim said with disgust in his voice.
“Very well. Now is the time of your ascension. Now is the time etched into the annals of history. Behold!”
The light spewing from the guitar spread and clung to the walls of the cave. Along its interiors, Tim saw pictographs of his life etched into the stone. The first picture on his left showed what appeared to be his mother defecating Tim into his father’s awaiting hands. Next to it was the first time Tim discovered himself. Next to that was Tim standing in the cave with the guitar on the pedestal. He could not help but notice that the guitar was in much finer detail than anything else in the pictographs.
“That’s my life?” Exclaimed Tim, annoyed and deflated.
“That was your life. Something else begins now. It is the appointed hour!”
Tim felt an overwhelming urge to hold the axe in his hands. It was as though somewhere deep down, he knew that merely touching it would bring order to his life. It was the promise of absolution. He lifted the guitar from its pedestal.
Tim screamed.
It was agony. His fingers snapped and reset, the skin sloughed off before reforming into calloused digits. His frame changed as his shoulders became broader, his hair became coiffed, and a sock-wrapped zucchini slipped into his pants. His mind became a vessel for two as the spirit of the guitar broke into him, fusing and becoming something entirely new.
Back in Blandleton, the talent show was well into its program. The townsfolk cheered as Merkin, the local cow farmer, finished his milk dance show which would rival that of the Elfaggio’s water fountains. The community center manager walked onto the small stage.
“Wow, that was something else, wasn’t it folks? Next we have another local talent, please give a warm welcome for Tim the Drow-bow-wow!”
A couple of audience members clapped out of habit before stopping abruptly. Smoke billowed across the stage and storm clouds moved in faster than your dad’s look of disgust when you told him you loved him. Lightning cracked across the sky, and as it thundered Tim appeared in the middle of the stage, wielding the axe guitar. Hardly anyone recognized the Drow in front of them. Where Tim was a lanky boy before, now stood a man with sinewy muscle in a torn sleeveless black tunic. His leather pants shined down to the dragon boots which breathed the smoke that poured into the front row of the crowd, choking them with a toxic miasma.
He shut his eyes and began to play. The sounds heard by the audience were sweeter than the ripest fruit. The lilting lead work took the audience on a journey that made every member cry as it was more beautiful than anything they had ever experienced before. Several tried to cheer, but were too awestruck by the wondrous playing. Tim’s fingers became a blur, making it impossible to tell where he ended and the guitar began. Lightning and thunder acted as his respective lightshow and rhythm section. Even the Piss Hermit, who had been quietly sipping on well, you guessed it, dropped his golden cup in awe.
Just as Tim began to reach the crescendo of this musical masterpiece, the lightning and thunder were met with gale force winds, which held his hair aloft in the coolest way possible. Tim plucked the final note before plunging down the whammy bar, divebombing the tune over the audience like a hammer over a rude dwarf’s head. The note continued to dive as Tim’s right hand wandered over to the single unmarked toggle on the axe guitar. He pressed it gracefully, and its purpose became known.
This was the guitar’s kill switch. The audience burst into rapturous applause just as the lighting began its rapturous work. Within seconds, every person in the audience was struck down by high voltage lightning (although to be clear, it was the current that killed them). The only remnants of them which remained was the clothes they wore. Historians often debated whether this was actually due to the lightning or from the awesomeness of the solo.
As the sounds and screams died to the wind, Tim opened his eyes. They glowed now, with the same eerie hue that the guitar itself had back in the cave. He smirked.
Blandleton would remain a ghost town in appearances, but some say that when the wind is right you can still hear the most wondrous music as a storm approaches. At least, that’s what some parents tell their kids to keep them inside.
THE END