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But in that same instant, it's no longer 1992, but 1986.
September 27th, to be exact.
James wakes, staring at the ceiling. No, wait a minute here. What is the rug doing on the frigging ceiling? What the hell is going on here?
No sooner does he realize that he's staring at the floor than he hears a hoarse voice calling out his name. There's also one hell of a cold draft in the room, suddenly. He looks at where the window is - but not only had the floor and ceiling changed places, so had everything else. And . . . something about the window wasn't right. It's bad, he feels.
The only view the window offered was the blacktop of a highway.
James feels terror welling up in the pit of his stomach. "What the hell happened?" he asks himself. He lifts himself off the ceiling/floor/wall/whatever the hell it is, and opens an emergency hatch. When it opens, he climbs into the chilly air outside.
Kirk, walking around in his underwear and shuddering, sees James emerge from the bus and rushes up to him. "Dude, you alright?"
"I geuss so. What the fuck happened?"
"The uhm . . . bus tipped over and he uhm . . . he's dead, man."
He's never seen his bandmate so shaken, so distraught. It scares James out of his wits. He asks, "Who's dead? Who?"
"It's uhm . . . it's Cliff."
Mike Singleton, the pyro man, pops into the dressing room to see James. "The Fade pyro, James. I'm gonna move it tonight, it'll be on the wings. So don't go out there."
James, conversing with Kirk and Jason, doesn't respond right away. "Okay Mike, whatever."
Mike wonders briefly if James understood or not. He seemed kind of anxious - an emotion the band and the entire road crew feels now that they're trying to out-do Guns N Roses. Oh well, he thinks. I'm sure he heard. I've got more tests to run, anyhow, so whatever. He leaves the dressing room and heads out to the stage.
James straps on his double neck guitar. He begins playing "Fade To Black", one of the songs he figures will always be a concert favorite. He'd just as soon play it forever, tonight. They cannot kill the battery, he quotes to himself.
Now, where's the pyro? He said it was . . . by the monitors? Well fuck, it's not like I can stop the song and go ask him. This is show buisness, Metallistyle. We just cross our fingers and kick ass.
He puts as much distance between himself and the stage monitors as is possible. He never sees his old friend Cliff Burton standing on the wings, in fact he walks right through him. He doesn't hear Cliff yell, "Watch out, James!"
But then he suddenly remembers that the pyro isn't by the monitors . . . and there's only so many places to put it. He gets a bad feeling, and he backs up, away from the wings and back toward Lars' kit, assuming that he can get back to the relative safety of the drum riser before things start to blow up.
He assumes wrongly.
Tony Smith walks into the waiting room. The band is there - a tired Jason, a worried Kirk, and a fidgety Lars. He coughs, meaning to get their attention.
"How is it?" asks Lars.
"Well . . . he's got some second degree burns. I guess his arm took the brunt of it. The doctors have got him on some morphine to help kill the pain. They say he'll be up and about tomorrow morning." He also thinks about informing them that there were riots following Guns set, but instead decides it doesn't matter much. James was alright, a little beaten up, but nothing a little time wouldn't heal. As the song said, nothing else mattered.
James is pleased to not be in such pain. While he's thankful for the numbing effects of the morphine, he wonders if it was the proper dosage, as he's having hallucinations. It's a pretty good image that appears before him, one of Cliff. He looks the same as he did that last night in '86, remarkably accurate. It almost looks real, he thinks.
Feeling pretty mellow, he decides to have fun with the apparition. "Heyyy, Cliffff. Whatzzzz up . . . mmman?"
Cliff smiles. "Not much, James. Glad to see you're alright."
Wow, thinks James. These are pretty good drugs . . . even his voice is the same. "Heavy mmmetal . . . mmman. Fffffuck."
"Heavy metal, indeed," says Cliff. "I'm just amazed that you guys are basically at the same point as when I left. But what the hell went wrong when you made Justice?"
James wonders why a hallucination would care about the production of Justice. "Itzzzz . . . ffffuking shit, mmman. Shhhh . . . shoulda beennn therrrrr . . . ffffuking Larzzz and hizzzz . . . drummm trakzzzz."
Cliff laughs. "Been there, done that. Hey, I gotta be going. I just wanted to make sure that everything was cool down here before I went back."
Back to where? wonderes James. "Dude . . . wwwhere you goin'?"
"Someplace where my wildest dreams are at my fingertips."
The world and the visions in it are begining to swing out of focus, and now he knows he's dreaming. But he tries to keep the dream alive, and asks, "Wwwwatzzz that?"
"What do you think? Gonna go see a Misfits show!" He smiles wider now. "I'm actually gonna be in the band!"
"But . . . the Mmmisfitzzzzz arrrrre . . . dead, mmmannn."
Cliff is exuberant. "I know! I know! Ain't it cool, man? Hey," he says, coming up to James, "I do have to be going, now. Otherwise he's gonna have to start playing checkers and he hates to do that."
Checkers? Misfit shows? This is one hella-dream. But anyway . . . "Heyyy, put it herrrre, mmmann." He offers Cliff his hand. To his surprise, Cliff comes up to him and shakes it. What awesome drugs, James thinks. Maybe a little too awesome . . . I can feel his hand, as if it's actually there. "Youuu arrre the best, Cliffff."
Tears are streaming down Cliff's face. "Take it easy. Say hi to Lars and Kirk and Jason, too."
Cliff disappears in a blink of an eye . . . but then, so does the rest of the world, and James is lost to slumber, having yet another crazy dream. This one is Cliff playing "Seek And Destroy" on the GNR/Metallica tour. Crazy, but quite comfortable. He stays there for awhile. It turns out to be one hell of a show.
THE END. Hope you enjoyed that. If you didn't, oh well, I didn't write it. If you can, fix the mistakes, and pass it along to every MetallicA fan you know. Hopefully we'll be able to get it to official Metallica page some day, or maybe even them...