I’m at Liam’s place, externally zonked out on his polyester couch, but inside, where no one can see, I am a declawed kitty cat, futilely scrambling up the walls of a k-hole. He hands me a solo cup filled with some goop that looks like a bag’s worth of melted blue raspberry Jolly Ranchers with some floaty Sea-Monkey-looking white stuff in it. Drink this, he says, and I trust Liam with my life ever since he sacrificed both of his hands for me in The War, but I still ask what it is because not asking questions got you killed in The War.
It’s called Blue Delusion, he says and he just pauses or actually stops and silence just hangs in the air for give or take 13 seconds and I say cool, man. But what is it? Liam says don’t worry about it. Just think of it like a really tasty rope for your brain. I ask lifeline or noose? and Liam giggles that classic Liam giggle of his so I drink the whole thing in a single swig.
I don’t remember anything between that and the Enchanted Forest. When I come to, there’s a blurry girl squatting over me, shoving technicolor rainbow flowers in my mouth. Mmmmmmpf, I sputter as I spit out the flowers and the girl comes into focus. She has green eyes and shoulder-length light-brown hair that begins to curl up at the ends and a big kissable forehead. All of her features are round and soft: no sharp angles to her. The two exceptions are her ears, shaped like fleshy daggers.
Are you my manic pixie dream girl? I blubber and she laughs before saying I’m an elf. I say that makes sense. What’s with the flowers? Are they medicinal or something? Were you trying to help me? She says no, I thought you were a vase. I say that makes sense. I sit up and next to her, lying in the dewy grass, is a lute.
You play that thing? I ask and she goes Mhm! and excitedly scoops up the lute, launching into a full 90 minute set of original songs. It’s just two perfect strangers, in the Enchanted Forest, and I have never felt so inside myself. When she finishes, she asks what do you think? I tell her it was kind of like if Joanna Newsom wrote She & Him songs. She asks me is that a compliment? and I say I got a lot out of it. She asks do you play? and I say not lute, but I used to play guitar. She hands me the lute, and after a few minutes of fumbling around on the neck, I’ve figured out most of the major chords, surprising myself.
Do you know what the saddest song in the world is? I ask the elf, and she shakes her head no. “Take On Me” by a-ha, I tell her. Specifically the MTV Unplugged version. She says we don’t get MTV in the Enchanted Forest and I say nobody really does anymore, but if you listen close, there are sometimes echoes. I play an appropriately melancholy cover of “Take On Me” and then make my way through the rest of Hunting High and Low.
Did you used to write your own songs? she asks and I say yeah, but I don’t remember any of them because they weren’t worth remembering. I chuckle. She frowns and says that’s really sad and I don’t really understand why she thinks that. We talk about music and swap secrets for hours until I pass out.
When I wake up, I’m back on Liam’s polyester couch. I groggily stumble off and make my way to the kitchen, where Liam is cooking up a couple scrambles. What was that? I ask him and he grins his classic Liam grin.
Melted blue raspberry Jolly Ranchers and some Sea-Monkeys, he says. Got you.
I’m about to call bull, but before I can, I notice Liam has both of his hands. We were never in The War. The War wasn’t even real. It was all in my head.
I try making Blue Delusion myself, buying up bags of blue raspberry Jolly Ranchers and Sea-Monkeys kits by the dozens. But it never works. A more cynical me would chalk it up to the placebo effect. The Enchanted Forest wasn’t real and the elf wasn’t real. It’s right in the name: Blue Delusion. I know what it is now and I know there’s nothing special in it, unless Liam was lying to me. Unless this reality is lying to me, which feels more and more likely with each passing day.
I think the first step is to make more friends, ones I trust even more than Liam. Maybe I’ll go to a show and hit it off with someone, and one day, they’ll hand me a cup of something called Purple Persuasion and I’ll drink it and be shot through space, right back to that Enchanted Forest, right back to that beautiful elf.
In which case, I should probably dust off the guitar that’s been languishing in my closet: a cheap blue Squier covered in stickers for bands I don’t even like anymore. It’ll take some Goo Gone, but I think we can have a fresh new beginning. I’ll ask an artist buddy to sketch her face from my memory and she’ll be the first new sticker on my new guitar, Blue Delusion. Maybe, someday, she’ll write a song about me. Even if she doesn’t, I’m going to write a song about her. I think if anything is ever going to start, it has to start there. The next time I see her, I’ll have something of my own to share, partly because I don’t want her to be sad, but mostly because I would like to be happy.