Dreams of Sex and Stage Diving Read Online Free PDF Page A

heads together so that their long blond dreadlocks became entwined. Elfish was fortunately unaware of this plan. Had she learned of it she might well have been driven to violence. Being small, and not brave, Elfish always avoided fighting, but she was quite capable of hurling heavy household objects out the window at any teenage couple she suspected of planning a happy future.

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    [ STAGE DIVING WITH ELFISH ]
    Elfish’s main companion in stage diving had been Amnesia, though they were no longer friends. As a stage diver Amnesia had even less fear than Elfish and would unhesitatingly throw herself from any stage into any audience. Whether the crowd was closely packed—the safer option—or thinly spread made no difference to Amnesia. As soon as the guitars were loud enough and the bass thundering enough, Amnesia, already at the front of the audience, would take her head out of the speaker cabinet she was wont to rest it in, claw her way on stage and fling herself gleefully and destructively on to the audience.
    Now stage divers were mainly, though not exclusively, male, and while it was still exciting to see some burly eighteen-year-old youth hurl himself into space and land on the heads of the people below before disappearing into the mêlée with his legs in the air, it was reasonably commonplace. Elfish and Amnesia being female, and small, stood out, and became well known for their suicidal antics. While Elfish with her hair over her eyes and her metal-patched leather jacket was
distinctive, Amnesia was even more so. She had long streaming hair bleached to a dazzling white and was always clad in black so that, flying through the air with a beer can still clutched in her hand and a triumphant curl on her lips, she seemed rather like a Valkyrie warrior plunging down from Valhalla. Or, possibly, a Valkyrie warrior being thrown out of Valhalla for repeated bad behaviour.
    If ever Elfish felt herself flagging or became disheartened by especially mean and violent security men standing in front of the stage, preventing her from making the ascent, she would be encouraged by Amnesia. Amnesia would be sure to find some way of getting there, even if it meant climbing on the shoulders of some tall young man and leaping bodily from there to clutch at a speaker stack. This was indeed a suicidal endeavour. The stack would sway crazily and show every sign of toppling over as Amnesia clawed her way to the top. Once there, however, she would be in an excellent position, visible to all, and would spend an extra second or so waving her beer can at the audience before taking off with an ecstatic yell. The extra height the speaker stack gave her allowed her a few extra moments in the air, which felt good, and guaranteed a particularly satisfying crash as the audience, perhaps feeling that this was a little too much even for them, raised their hands frantically above their heads to protect themselves from Amnesia’s repeated kamikaze attacks.
    Elfish would then follow suit. The pair would continue the process until either the gig was over or enraged security men bundled them out of the venue, lecturing them sternly all the while about the grave risks they were placing their lives in, not to mention the potential damage they might do to others. By this time, however, Elfish and Amnesia would be drunk and drugged past caring and would count
the night a success. They would make their way home through night-time London, virulently abusing any men who spoke to them and ignoring the homeless who begged for money.
    Tales of their exploits became legendary among the ranks of thrash music devotees, and many a gig was later described in reference to them; people would say perhaps that the band was not all that good, but the two manic stage divers were really and truly excellent.

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    MO HAD LONG brown hair, one thin strand of which was dyed yellow and held separate by black beads. It fell thick, matted and unclean around his broad