Thanks to my brother for writing this awesome post!
The Nationals “Exile Vilify” ends and all that can be heard is the dull hum of electricity coming from the speakers. In this brief moment, the brain has stopped processing everything, sounds blend into the background and, what was once visual stimuli, merges into a collage of meaningless colors. This moment reaches its threshold with the brain, and like a closed soda bottle with a Mentos dropped inside, it slowly seeps from whatever exit it can find. But the reaction within is just too large for it to slowly drain away, the only way this will reach equilibrium is to destroy the confines which are attempting to contain it. Everything that is wrong in life at the moment, and every sad memory, will surface in instantaneous flashes, as the body is dragged on an emotional rollercoaster ride. You have no choice but to sit with the lap bar down and your hands and feet inside the cart at all times. You ask yourself what convinced you that this would be a good idea. As you climb the first hill the static running through the speakers becomes the sound of an engine mechanically pulling chains up a hill. The cart ascends and you look over the side, this ride was a lot taller than you expected. A metal bar releases its catch on the cart, the engine pulling the chains stops struggling, and without a real reason you put your hands up.
What happens next is that the car accelerates downwards and you scream you’re head off. A mixture of emotions overtake the body. Fear, sadness, happiness, and confusion. You’re thrown into bank turns, up hills and down hills. The wooden supports shake and rattle as if they could collapse at any given moment. Disoriented, unable to remember which way you started or where you are ending, the body is nothing but a passenger on this ride. You don’t control what happens next. It is only when your brain is able to realize this does the ride, this moment of internal chaos, end. Coke stops pouring out the top, the cart pulls back into the station, and the body returns to reality.
The end result is whiplash of the harshest kind and bruises lacing the side of the body from being viciously thrown into the side of the cart. But you’re safe now, no longer a passenger of fate. What’s left of you may be different than how it started, though in a good way. Those emotions that where holding you back, those weights on your shoulders, are now purged from the body. And for the first time in a long time, you feel free.
Life On Vinyl 