It is riotous. The sound, the bodies, the air. Rose holds tight to Raul’s hand. The crowd is daunting and the brightness of the sun blinding. There is music playing. An opening set. Though it is the third and final day of the festival the energy is explosive. Big Brother and the Holding Company. The heat is making waves through the crowds. Buffalo Springfield. The crowd is swaying and close together. The Who. Destruction on stage. She is in Raul’s arms. They’ve moved as far to the side as they can, the press surreal.

She feels rain drops upon her upturned face and she blinks. The silence envelopes her. There are black branches above her head and next to her she can hear a river. She feels fear and a gripping in her stomach not unlike a terrible hunger pang. The tightness remains. They have passed. Whomever or whatever was passing like ghosts in the wood is gone now. She is cold and damp, rain cascading down dead trees. Her feet are stiff with cold. There is no music. The golden sun dancing above is gone. Hunger propels her forward and she races on exhausted legs to her home. The candle light shines from the window and her mother waits by the door her eyes full of worry.

She feels a certain sense of triumph. She has evaded them once again. Stolen through the trees like a spirit.

She enters the small house and there at the scrub table is a man. His uniform is gray and he holds his hat in his hands. His eyes are small and watery and they glint in the dim. Her stomach, small and gurgling, stops. Her mother is speaking rapidly about her visit to the market and getting caught in the unexpected rainfall.

The fear is tangible and hangs in the air like smoke.

Rose breathes it in and coughs. There is laughter and singing. Music and Raul gripping her hand his mouth close to her ear. “Just breathe normal!” He is spluttering and Rose realizes he is holding in laughter. Her eyes take it in. There is no house, no cold room. No black trees. No rain. Seeing that she is not smiling Raul cups her face in his and asks her if she is ok.

She is ok. Isn’t she? She realizes later that perhaps the sudden feeling of otherworldliness and of being someplace else entirely may have been conjured because of the immense amount of drugs permeating the arena. She had very little experience with drugs having deduced they would hinder her music and sketches so the effects of the free fall of hallucinogens entering every pore may have produced in her something quite vivid.

The strains of guitar are reverberating off the walls and the sky has turned a dusky blue grey. There is a sudden rush and the glassy eyes are alight with flames. He has set his guitar on fire.  The flames licked higher and lit up his face.  Then he is smashing it into the stage. The crumpled body cracking and splintering. The audience is chanting “Jimi!” and there are screams as he flings the smoldering guitar into the sky.

Raul holds her around the waist and they, like everyone around them, are transfixed. Rose’s heart pounds in unison to the pulse of the crowd. It’s like nothing she has ever seen. She has not forgotten the odd moment earlier and has filed it away to think on later. Right now she is alive, her skin is tingling and her eyes are opened.

Next Chapter: Lyllian, Sunday June 4th 2017, Seattle