STORIES
The End Of Hanson
Taylor Hanson sat at his vanity backstage applying the last of his makeup.
He laughed quietly to himself as he realized that even after two years, none
of Hanson's fans still hadn't realized that his and his brother's rosy
cheeks and red lips weren't natural. He had been performing for so long now
that he barely noticed the roar of the crowd outside. Isaac approached and
said that it was almost time to go on. Taylor quickly applied his lipstick
and toward the stage. The mayor of Backwaterville introduced them and exited
on the other side of the stage. Wondering in the back of their minds why
they had sunk so low as to play a town as small as this one, they rushed out
to greet the crowd. Then Taylor realized why he hadn't noticed the roar of
the audience. The audience wasn't large enough to roar. Something was wrong,
and as they went through the show pretending to play their instruments and
suffering through innumberable voice crackings, they continued to wonder
what was wrong with this picture. In the past, they had occasionally played
small towns out of generosity, but they had always managed to draw a large
crowd from surrounding towns and neighborhoods. This was the first time they
had failed to do so. Taylor looked at Zac and could see that he had tears in
his eyes. He wasn't the only one aware of their failure. After the show,
they returned to the Bates Motel to their rooms and discussed the night's
disappointment. Zac was extremely distraught, sobbing into his hands. "Tay,"
he sobbed," Why didn't they come, Tay? They've always comebefore!" "I know,
Zac, but this time was different. I guess we just picked the wrong town,"
Tay answered. Isaac looked up from his bag of oats and said, "I told you we
shouldn't have come here! Now you know what's going to happen. Dad's gonna
beat us again 'cause we couldn't get a good audience up."It's not my fault!
I'm only the stupid drummer! Why does he have to hit me? I didn't mean to!"
Taylor did his best to console the blubbering mass of blubber, but he
couldn't do much to allay the fear of their father's fists. As time wore on,
the brothers found that disappointing concert attendances such as the one in
Backwater were growing more and more frequent. Frustrated and angered by his
son's failure to perform to his satisfaction, Walker (their dad) fell to
constant drinking and was therefore easily angered. The boys began to feel a
cloud of dread hanging over them in anticipation for every concert. They
were terrified by the thought of looking out on a small audience turnout.
There were times when their performance was delayed as they tried to get Zac
to stop crying after he had seen the small crowd. Through this manner of
conditioning, they developed a phobia of performing, recording, playing,
singing, writing, and even listening to music. They began to find excuses to
escape their former occupation and hobby in a vain attempt to escape their
father's drunken wrath. Their disobience to his demands to put out made
Walker even angrier than their recent failures to perform as they once had.
Then one night after an embarrassingly disappointing concert in their own
home town of Tulsa, Zac fell down the stairs and had to be temporarily
hospitalized.One of the doctors had once taken her daughter to a Hanson
concert and witnessed Zac's inherent clumsiness and so did not question the
story. Another doctor was actually pleased to hear of such anincident. This
doctor had also been nagged into taking his daughter to a Hanson concert and
had hated the experience so much that he would have gladly beaten any of the
three brothers if given the opportunity. Nevertheless, Zac was treated and
soon released. Realizing that popularity would only continue to worsen as
their career continued to rot, the three of them began discussing what to do
about it. They finally decided that they must run away. The only problem was
in supporting themselves after they left their parents' financial umbrella.
But, while watching TV one day, inspiration came to them in the form of a
circus-themed commercial. It was decided that they would run away and join
the circus. They had already suffered through the media circus, and so they
anticipated that such a job wouldn't be difficult for them. With tears in
their eyes at the thought of leaving behind their home and family, they
snuck out of the house one night and made their way to a nearby circus camp.
When they arrived, they were crushed to be rejected from the owners, who
said they had no talent for such a job. Sadly, they began walking back home.
As they did so, they passed by a sideshow carnival. Seeing an opportunity,
they found the manager of the sideshow and enlisted their natural gifts.
Soon after, they were building a new career in the exciting sideshow
business. Isaac was pleased to finally draw crowds as the group's resident
dancing horse. Taylor enjoyed his share of attention by growing facial hair
and operating as the "Bearded Lady." Not to be left out, Zac also garnered
the attention that he so desperately craved under the stage name "the Blob."
So, Hanson once again went on tour, this time performing in a different kind
of sideshow from the one they used to headline. They were no longer rich and
had lost a great deal of their fame, but they maintained a degree of
happiness in the comfort of their new surrogate family and the living they
made with this family.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF OBSESSION
Candy and Melissa had spent all their lives together from the day of their
birth. They really didn't have a choice: they were twins. Their parents,
Greg and Shea, had been happily surprised when the obstetrician (sp?) told
them they were to be parents twice in one pregnancy. They brought their
girls up in the best family environment they knew to provide. Both of them
had steady, well-paying jobs and could afford to provide the girls with a
comfortable babyhood. They attended church regularly and disciplined the
kids when it was needed to provide a strong moral backbone for them. By the
time the girls were 6, it was obvious Greg and Shea were doing something
right. Candy and Melissa both did well in their first year of school and had
made several friends. They were about as well-behaved as any girl that age
might be, although Melissa tended to be more respectful of adults than
Candy. At this point, one could easily see their personalities becoming more
distinct all the time. Candy was the more outgoing of the two, while Melissa
could be quite content by herself. Despite their differences, though, they
were growing and maturing well for their age and were happy. The next year,
however, Candy began to gain weight. Being the more energetic of the two,
she ate more. And more. And more. And more. Her weight problem began to
affect her self-esteem as the other children started to show their
disapproval of such gluttony. There were days when Candy would return home
from school in tears, Melissa doing her best to console her sister. She was
more sensitive than Melissa because she liked people more and was more
trusting. She always felt hurt and disappointed when somebody turned out to
be less than she expected of them. Melissa, who was more wary of those
around her, wasn't hurt so easily by such disappointments. She simply
shrugged off such occurrences and concerned herself with happy thoughts.
When someone had hurt her, Candy would often be irritable and mean. As the
politics of their schoolmates developed over the years, it became generally
known that Candy was the unfriendly one of the two, while Melissa was the
dependable girl whom everyone could talk to and make friends with. Over
time, Candy had grown accustomed to her social position in school classes
and the everyday stings she suffered grew less severe to her, but she was
never as happy as Melissa commonly was. Indeed, when Shea reassured the
girls' grandmother that Candy was "doing alright," she was speaking
relatively. She knew Candy was only happy as much as she could be in her
current state and wasn't depressed in the sense that depression for her
meant constant sobbing and wishes that she were dead. The girls were now 12
and the politics of young people in school were becoming more pronounced
than ever. Everyone around the obese girl, including Melissa, began to fear
that things would get even worse for Candy. These fears were surprisingly
put to rest when Candy discovered a new band of three young boys performing
under their last name of Hanson. The band sang cheerful tunes about things
that mattered to young, adolescent girls. Greg and Shea realized this was
how they sold their records, but they didn't really care. What mattered to
them was that their "little butterball" was again smiling as she once did.
Still a "people person," Candy was ecstatic to finally find three
individuals who made other people happy. They had such a perfect image:
wholesome, sunny, friendly. The fact that they were brothers meant even more
to her because she took it as a sign that they felt a strong loyalty to
those they cared about, and they would obviously care for their fans. There
were several girls in her classes at school who had also quickly become
Hanson fans. She was beginning to attain some measure of popularity among
these girls because word was spreading among them that she knew every word
of many of the songs by heart. They had found a common ground, and the
former outcast was now admitted into a few of the "cliques." Those who
weren't so enthusiastic about the band were usually quite verbal about how
they felt, but they rarely bothered Candy. There were still those who were
afraid of her nasty attitude. The ones who did tease her about it didn't
really bother her. She had learned long ago not to listen to them. She even
began to lose weight slightly. It looked as if the girl's life was finally
beginning to take on some semblance of normality. The group of Hanson fans,
with occasional members leaving or joining, stayed together as the twins'
class entered high school. At first, Melissa had been just as glad as the
rest of the family at Candy's uplifting interest in this band, but she grew
increasingly uneasy over time. Her sister had become completely obsessed
with this band, covering her walls with pictures and posters and buying
dozens of magazines featuring Hanson. Her parents saw nothing wrong with it,
figuring it was only a phase. But Melissa could see things about her twin
that others, even her parents, could not, and she didn't like the feeling
thoughts of her sister's obsession gave her. They fought over their
disagreement on the band occasionally, since Melissa never much appreciated
Hanson. Candy argued that they made her happy and taunted her sister by
saying, "you don't want me to be happy!" By their sophomore year in high
school, however, things began to go badly for Candy. Some of her former
Hanson friends no longer talked to her. They had forsaken the band, deciding
it was "kids stuff." Such abandonment began to pervade her utopia slightly,
but she remained largely unaffected. She was no longer overweight and was
what one might call averagely attractive, but boys stayed away from her
because of her perceivedimmaturity. The greatest shock, however, came when
the music stopped playing. There was officially no longer a band called
"Hanson," and there would be no more music released from the three boys.
"Hanson-mania" was completely over. Candy was devastated when the news hit
home, but she refused to stop listening to them. She ran to her room and
popped "Middle of Nowhere" into her CD player and pressed "Play." But she
immediately hit "Eject" and chucked the disc into the garbage. Hearing
Taylor's now lost voice was too painful for her. Despite her wishes to the
contrary, she found it impossible to listen to her favorite band. Her Hanson
friends, the majority of those she was close to, had all abandoned her by
this point, and she began to gain weight again. Her happiness had been
suddenly wrenched from her, as a rug from underneath her feet. The fall back
into reality was devastating. After her intense happiness, she couldn't bear
the sadness permeating her heart and mind. When she came home from school in
the afternoon, she would get a snack from the pantry and retreat to her
room, where she locked the door. Her parents and sister tried to bring her
out of her depression but failed to do so. They had no precedence over her
idols. Greg could yell and shout Candy out of her room, but such a display
of anger only upset her more. Eventually, they left her alone, hoping she
would get over it soon. Melissa, however, refused to give up. She always
invited Candy to accompany her to one party or another, but she always
refused. Her reasons were all similar to, "I know Derrick will make fun of
me about Hanson!" Increasingly on her own, Candy became increasingly lonely
and didn't know how to express those feelings. One night, the family was
awakened by a loud noise. Melissa jumped out of bed and ran to her sister's
bedroom in the direction of the commotion. Opening the door, she screamed at
the sight that greeted her. Candy's lifeless hand still clenched tightly to
the smoking gun that had shattered the stillness of the night. In shock,
Melissa refused to accept reality and ran to her sister's bed where the
corpse lay. She put her hands on the holes gushing blood in a vain effort to
stop the bleeding and somehow save the other girl. Her parents had finally
stumbled out of bed and into the room where they both fell apart. Greg raced
to the phone to call an ambulance, while Shea tried to pull Melissa away
from the body. The people came and took Candy away in a black bag. That was
it, just a plain, black bag. It seemed terrible to them to treat their loved
one as just another dead girl. It wasn't right. Nothing was right. THE END
This story never happened. It's pure fiction. However, it could very
possibly become reality. There is nothing in this story that is impossible.
You fans may say that Hanson will last forever, but you have no assurance of
that, just as we have no assurance that they're nothing more than a flash in
the pan. Melissa's reaction to finding Candy's body is quite realistic, by
the way. People who are in shock often temporarily lose touch with reality
and try to magically restore a loved one with the sheer power of their
immediate shock and grief. The most famous example that immediately comes to
my mind is that of Jackie Kennedy when JFK was shot. In the old video
footage (I forget exactly what they call it), she can be seen reaching back
to the rear of the car for part of the President's brain as his head slumps
over his chest. When they got to the hospital, Jackie realized she was still
holding that part of her husband's brain. Is my story shocking and sad? Yes,
that's how I intended it. As the story points out, reality itself is
shocking and often sad. None of us know what lies around the corner for us.
My message is not for all Hanson fans to give up their band. My message is
to be very careful of obsession and the dangers that accompany it.
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