In my college days, due to epilepsy, my 10 speed bike was my only mode of transportation when I had to go it alone.
Usually my best friend out of a group of us gave me a joust home at evening's end, but I stayed up a bit too late at his house and he wasn't feeling well this October night. I would be pedalling it.
As Halloween was approaching, the three of us were engaged in the topic of "frightening songs".
We weren't into the bands Suicide or Throbbing Gristle at this point, so tapping into the intro to ELO's Fire on High or Bloodrock's DOA, maybe King Crimson's Court of the Crimson King was about as far as it went.
You know, the commonalities.
Well, the evening drew to a close, my friend Sean, a Prince fanatic, handed me a clear store bought cassette. He knew when I was alone my headphones were glued to my head. Shit, everyone knew this.
"Bro, listen to the second track on your way home. It might change your mind a bit about what we were talking about." Thinking nothing of it, I clicked the tape into my Walkman, said my goodbyes, and was on my way.
The night was brisk, and I wanted to feel the bite of the breeze and watch the lightning from an approaching storm dance on the sky, so I took a bit of an alternate route home. What I was hearing over my headphones wasn't all that scary, so I guessed that my friend must have misjudged.
I was wrong.
The tape needed to roll forward a few minutes to what Sean had intended me to hear.
Prince's Others Here With Us began to play.
I readjusted my route home almost immediately as with every moment forward into the song, I swear things were moving in the shadows of my periphery, the lightning took on grinning shapes, and things were dancing up and down my spine.
I should have been smart enough to stop the tape, right?
No, because I was stupid.
And it was October….
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