QUARTZ EYES, per ohlin

jessheim

No one believed Øystein when he said there was going to be a show — again. No one believed them when they went out to rehearse, nor when the venue owner called to confirm the show. No one believed them when they made the flyers and distributed them. No one believed them when they traveled to Jessheim.

Now it's February 3, 1990, the whole band is in the dressing room at Folkets Hus, a kind of community center, along with the band that will also perform that night, Death Mission, they still can't believe it.

Crazy ideas brewed in Øystein and Pelle's minds for the rest of January until the third day of February, all of them absurd, macabre, and bloody. The main one: Pelle would cut himself on stage, Jørn and Alex protested against until the last minute, but there wasn't much to do, Pelle seemed to be really determined to do it. Alex had thought of something ritualistic to do on stage, but she was so concerned about her friend's health that he dropped the idea.

"You don't have to do this", Alex said as Pelle replicated the makeup he'd done on New Year's a year ago on her face.

"But I want to", Dahl held the Sarcófago shirt with Baphomet on it that Pelle was wearing, tried to say a few more things, but to no avail. Alex gave Jørn blunt knives for Pelle, hoping he would only cut himself superficially.

Metalion was so happy to see his friends finally play live that he spent practically all night taking pictures of them. Alex tried to see some pictures on the camera film but couldn't do it at all.

Pelle, better, Dead stinks. Before they left Langhus, Pelle spent a good few minutes digging something in the woods near their house and came back with dirt-soiled clothes, they were heavy and damp, the smell of grass was pleasant only when you weren't near someone wearing buried clothes.

His goal was to look like a corpse and that's what he got, the smell of someone who had just come out of his grave was strong and nauseating, Alex didn't want to look inside that paper bag that Dead inspired, he said there was a dead bird that he found, all of which made her want to vomit more.

Pelle seemed to change drastically when he dressed as Dead, that was very visible. He acted scarier and made sudden movements with the intention of scaring, it was no secret that Pelle loved to scare people, but this version of him was more to make people shit their pants than to scare them.

Alex also looked very different, when the makeup was put on and she could finish getting ready she started to act a lot weirder than before, staring at people and saying nothing more than necessary, if possible, just gesturing. The makeup made her look look depressed, look like a ghost of someone so old she saw several of her lineage die while she couldn't do anything, it was almost like she was crying without tears, she looked like someone who was flirting with death only to distract her and give her loved ones more time.

Alex wore black jeans with tears in the knees, a white dress stained with fake blood with torn edges, black leather jacket and leather gloves with the fingers cut off to be able to touch. The outfit was awful, but that's what she wanted, the dress looked like it had been ripped off by a kid or a bunch of cats fighting.

As someone who walked hand in hand with death, Ghost understood Dead. Anger, sudden actions and sadness. Mainly the sadness. Dead screamed on stage, cut himself, threw those pig's heads into the crowd, all of this trapped inside the universe itself, inside his own head, his own nightmare. Ghost could see him crying behind it all.

The band climbed the stairs when they were called, to the misfortune of many, the place was not so well prepared to receive a band. They spent a good few minutes just doing the sound test and trying to solve some technical problems, Øystein and Alex kept playing with some riffs while they couldn't solve it.