Trigger warning: a lot of fucking curse words.

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The 3rd of December, 2015, My Sixteenth Life

The wind picked up, raising goosebumps across my bare arms.

"Aren't you afraid you'll like, get sick?" my roommate, Peyton, asked in her pink and black oversized puffer jacket.

"The cold won't make me sick," I said as we walked down the sidewalk away from our dorm. It was the Friday night before finals week and the campus was buzzing with its last chance to let loose before the cramming began in earnest. It had been a long time since I'd had a last chance to do anything, the concept of finality having left me lifetimes ago. I stepped on a patch of snow and felt it soak through my Converse. "I could get hypothermia. But I'm a long way from that."

"Because you know what hypothermia feels like?"

"I do and would not recommend it."

"Oh, right. Because this isn't your first life? Because you're stuck in a time loop, living your life over and over again?"

I ignored her skepticism as we crossed the street. I didn't care that she knew. I didn't care that she didn't believe me. I didn't care about anything. Yes, I'd had hypothermia. I'd also died - felt the heat leave my body, my cells flutter to a stop. Heat, cold. Pleasure, pain. Life, death. All of it had deliquesced into the gray mush of my existence.

"Don't get me wrong," she said. "I love a good time loop story. It's getting a little played out, though. Like, every other month, hey look, another time loop show. LOL, it's like I'm in a time loop."

"We're going to stop talking about time loops now," I said flatly.

"Oh. Sure. Sorry," she said as we passed a group of boys heading west toward Champaign and its frat houses and campus bars in search of a similar group of girls with loosening inhibitions. Peyton and I continued east toward Urbana, past university buildings and the snow covered Quad, until finally reaching neighborhoods of unaffiliated student housing.

"How much farther?" I asked.

"Not much," she answered. "Sierra said it's on the corner of Orchard and Washington, supposedly. Giant white house. Crazy loud music. Can't miss it."

"Sierra?"

"The girl from my Psych 110. Hella chill. She's the drummer of the band that's playing. Everyone's talking about them like they're some kinda force of nature. They used to be called Toluca Lake Adjacent, but supposedly they changed it after they kicked out their lead guitar."

"Why'd they kick her out?"

"Him."

"I thought you said this was an all girl band."

"Well, it is now that they kicked him out. Now they're called The Bikeless Fishes."

An all girl band called The Bikeless Fishes? Cute.

Peyton continued, "Supposedly, the guitarist had a habit of hooking up with the underage townies that would come to their shows."

"Classy."

"I know. Like, hella ew. TTYN! So supposedly they replaced him with this girl who's like, a concert pianist or something and now she plays keyboard for them. But like, now there's no guitar which is like, crazy because they're punk, supposedly. It's just the drums, keyboard, and bass. But that's their secret sauce."

"Secret sauce?"

"The bass player - she's the force of nature, supposedly. Her name's Ursula, but people say that's not her real name. But like, no one knows for sure."

"Color me intrigued," I deadpanned.

Peyton huffed. "You know Serafina, if you didn't want to come, you like, didn't have to."

"I didn't want to. You begged me to come so you wouldn't have to go alone."

"Yeah, well... Still."

We turned a corner and, as foretold, a giant white house emitting crazy loud music came into view at the end of the block. As we approached, the soundwaves focused enough for me to make out the drums and bass. The former were timid and sloppy, but I had to admit, the latter caught my ear. I felt a power and confidence akin to Entwistle or Claypool pulsing from the ground and through the air, but within the dancing melody, I swore I heard a mathematical structure on par with Bach.

I followed the sound up the walkway to the massive and fairly dilapidated three story, beaten down by decades of house parties and minimal upkeep. We climbed the cracked and crumbling stairs to a wraparound porch. On one side of the front door, a boy and girl sat on a weather beaten couch. She was in the middle of a diatribe condemning capitalism and he was in the middle of feigning interest. On the other side, a group of girls huddled on a porch swing, smoking cigarettes. One of them waved and called out drunkenly, "Hi-eeeee!" Peyton waved back.

The front door opened and a girl stormed past us followed by a boy. "What? Seriously, what?" he cried after her as they faded into the night.

We walked in and the air shifted from cold and clear to humid and smoke stained. Peyton grimaced, but as far as I was concerned, it was more gray mush. The music was louder, but still muffled through the floor. Down a narrow hallway, we weaved around people standing against the wall or sitting on the floor, shouting to one another over the music. We passed an opening to a living room where a pair of girls danced on the second-hand furniture. Another opening revealed a dining room where a girl stood atop the table, pulling smoke into a six foot bong resting on the floor. Ahead of us, the basement door opened and music spilled out unfiltered, the keyboard joining the drum and bass to complete the sound.

Peyton skipped to the door, stopping to wave me ahead excitedly. My pace was unchanged.

As we descended the basement stairs, the song smashed to an end, replaced in a second by raucous cheering. Halfway down, the stairway opened to reveal the basement in full. It was lit indifferently by naked bulbs in the exposed ceiling. The wood paneling along the walls was a relic from another time - the result of a landlord too cheap to remodel and tenants on leases too short to care. As for the rest of the style and design, I couldn't say as the room was shoulder to shoulder with mostly female undergrads and townies cheering and begging for more.

At the opposite end, atop some kind of raised platform and flanked by a pair of speakers on tripods were the Bikeless Fishes. On the left, wearing overalls, a white t-shirt, and a giant smile, the keyboardist beamed. Upstage center, the drummer - Sierra, I presumed - was barely visible over her drumkit. A microphone stand loomed in front.

"Serafina!" Peyton called, waving me to her. She'd found something to stand on against the wall. I obliged, stepping upon an overturned milk crate.

As my view improved I found the bass player standing behind the drumkit and finishing a can of beer. Then she approached the mic...

Over black boots and jeans, she wore a pair of sleeveless undershirts, white over black. On the front of the white, she'd sliced an anarchy symbol that disappeared depending on the angle. Half of her head was shaved clean while the hair that remained, bleached white with dark purple tips, flopped across to her heavily pierced ear on the other. Contradicting the razor wire aesthetic were her milk saucer eyes that, despite the heavy eyeliner, couldn't help but project innocence. Like the love child of Joan Jett and Marcia Brady, she was something to behold. But still... more mush.

"All right, bitches," she snarled into the mic. "You want more?" The crowd cheered in response, to which, she replied, "Fuck you." The crowd cheered louder with variations of We love you, Ursula! mixed in. "Goddamnit, fine. One more. This is Over It."

Again, the crowd cheered. Ursula turned away from the mic and I spied a tattoo of a purple octopus on her left shoulder. After a moment, she began to play.

The bass line was a beguiling loop of a melodic minor scale. After two measures, the drummer began a rim click and the keyboardist, a series of simple chords to complement the bass. It became clear that, for this song at least, they'd solved the missing guitar by inverting the pitch hierarchy, putting the lower frequencies in the lead.

Finally, Ursula turned back to the crowd. Her fingers struck and caressed the strings of her bass with primal force and masterful control as the melody evolved. Then she stepped to the mic and sang, low and scratchy:

Hey girl - why the frown?

Hey girl - play the part

Smile big - don't complain

Helpless - from the start

Take it like a Pro cuz

Boys will be Boys and

Cannot help it So just

Drink up their Poison

At the end of the verse, the drums crashed in with feeling, if not quite rhythm, and the keyboard mirrored the bass for the chorus, repeated four times:

I'm SO...

fucking over it...

over fucking all of it!

The drums and keyboard returned to their muted support for the second verse:

Tough luck - such a shame

Dead duck - planet Earth

Our loss is their gain

Boomers growing net worth

Fuckers took away the future

Get their news from tinfoil hats...

Bitch and moan about our culture

But then we're the spoiled brats...

All three instruments dropped abruptly. After a moment, Ursula started to repeat the chorus beginning at a whisper and growing steadily.

I'm SO...

fucking over it...

over fucking all of it-

Then she backed away from the mic, still repeating, her voice growing to a yell. The crowd responded instinctively, chanting along and drowning her out. I was all set to roll my eyes when I realized that I'd begun chanting as well:

I'm SO...

fucking over it...

over fucking all of it-

The basement continued the chant as the drummer cracked a four count and the band exploded into the chorus with Ursula returning to the mic like a severed power line, writhing and dangerous. The crowd, myself included, erupted in a frenzy, jumping and smashing our sweaty bodies against one another, chanting the chorus for the rest of the song... the night... our lives... or for however long Ursula wanted us to.

Somewhere between a moment and forever, the song stung to a close and the crowd screamed in exhausted exhilaration. I gulped desperate breaths, utterly confused as to what had just happened. The mush had been doused with gasoline and lit to a crackling, electrified inferno. I pinched my eyes shut and took a slow breath. I had to calm down. It's just a stupid song... She's just a fucking girl...

"Didn't I tell you?!" Peyton screamed, grabbing my arm and snapping me out of my mush-centric crisis. "Fucking force of nature, right?" She closed her eyes and sang, "I'm SO fucking over it... over fucking all of it!"

"I remember. I heard. I was there," I said nonchalantly.

"Oh like, whatever! I saw you. Don't act like you weren't into it."

I had been into it. Why was I hiding that from her? Was I embarrassed? If it was all mush, why would I possibly care? Regardless, Peyton had called it. "Okay, I admit it. You were right. Fucking force of nature."

Author's note:

I've had that chorus in my head for over a year. Glad it can be in yours now ;)

Thank you for reading!!