Forward Always
Adagio Dazzle closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, rolling her shoulders and tipping her head from side to side as she did her best to adapt to the heavy maroon jacket she wore and equally weighty metal star-shaped hair clips on top of her head. The jacket hung open and loosely on her shoulders, exposing a white tube top, her midriff, and purple seatbelt buckle belt holding up magenta pants that hugged her ample thighs tightly. The large star clips clung to Adagio’s head, slightly askew from the very top of her head and held her a mass of her curly orange hair in a ponytail.
Adagio opened her eyes, exhaled, then took in the scene in front of her. Sad, solemn eyes mixed with angry, accusing ones met her own. The reproachful eyes, no doubt, furiously railing against the perceived injustice of the situation. However, the truth of the matter was that life was seldom fair. It hadn’t taken Adagio much time in her long life to figure that out.
It rains on the just and the unjust, thought Adagio. A line she had read in so very many languages from one of this world’s oldest books. It was a line that she had seen proven true time and time again.
Well… there’s no point letting things linger any more than we have.
“Dearly beloved,” Adagio began in a solemn tone, “we are gathered here today in remembrance of Aria Blaze and Sonata Dusk.”
There was a sniffle from someone in front of Adagio.
“Though they rarely showed any signs of compassion for their fellow beings on this planet, and even less frequently showed signs of intelligence, somehow they managed to make, in the roughest sense, what some might call ‘friends’.”
A sob was choked out followed by an irritated growl.
“Both Sonata and Aria have survived for what some might say was a longtime. Perhaps even an excruciatingly long time. However, we must all remember that everything must come to an end. Let their lives forever stand as a monument to the idea that no matter how long you live you can still somehow manage to accomplish practically nothing! Also, may it serve as a warning for the dangers of looking for ‘Bigfoot’ especially when you confuse the monster truck for the cryptid and are stupid enough to run out into the middle of rally yelling ‘I found him! He’s real!’ while your friend, who somehow hasn’t learned when it’s better to cut her losses runs after you to save your dumb-ass.”
The sob turned into a hysterical cry as it was accompanied by a pained groan.
“Although Aria and Sonata are long gone, their memories, sadly, have left deep impressions, or scars rather, that no amount of therapy can ever hope to erase… They also left this jacket and big metal star hair-dealies that admittedly look a lot better on me than I thought, so at least it’s not all bad.”
The crying continued as the groaning abated slightly.
“What’s important is that we all find the strength and courage to carry on, despite the fact that all our lives are now quite a bit emptier… No longer filled with the constant irritating banter from such riveting topics such as ‘How many marshmallows can Sonata fit into her mouth before she cuts off her airway and passes out’ or ‘Why the epic bout of Deadpool Vs. Bugs Bunny can only ever end in a stalemate’.”
The growling had now returned in chorus with the pathetic crying.
“But let’s not stay stuck in the past mired by the mud of sorrow. Sonata and Aria wouldn’t want us to linger in sadness and wounded feelings. They’d want us to pick up and move on with our lives. ‘Always Forward… Forward Always’ as I’ve oft said. It’s time for us to continue on with our memories, and more importantly, their accessories.” Adagio took one more fervent look out in front of her then bowed her head. “Thank you.”
“Whouaaaaahouaaaaahouaaaaa!” A woman with light blue skin and electric blue hair with two dark blue stripes through it sobbed, her tears already having quite moistened her pink blouse. “Oh, there was still so much I wanted to do! I never got around to emptying all the cereal at the store on the ground, pouring milk all over it, then eating everything I could with a really big spoon!”
The light purple skinned woman with dark purple hair with teal stripes through it took a moment to glance at her furrowed brow with amethyst eyes. Half of her hair was in a ponytail while the other half hung straight off the left side of her hair. She refocused her eyes and aimed the grandmother of all grumpy looks at Adagio. “I have several complaints.”
“The dead don’t complain, Aria,” Adagio hissed back. She shook her head somberly. “They just rest in mercifully quiet silence.”
Aria rolled her eyes. “First off… ‘Always Forward, Forward Always?’ That’s not an oft thing you say! You just stole that from Brute Cage.”
Adagio folded her arms across her bare chest. “I’m much older than that show. They could have stolen it from me.”
“Second and also third, that monster truck thing happened decades ago!”
“Doesn’t make it any less moronic,” quipped Adagio.
Aria continued, “And if Bigfoot did crush Sonata and me, I wouldn’t want anyone to move on! Rather, I’d want them to hunt down the driver, truck maker, pit crew… really anyone who was remotely connected to the truck, and make sure they suffered for what happened to us.”
Through her sobs, Sonata choked out, “I second that!” before blowing her nose loudly on a bright green string of tinsel.
“Okay, but it’d be both your own stupidity that got you killed.”
“Lastly,” Aria growled through clenched teeth, “if this is how you’re going to act anytime we do any work around here. Sonata and I can go back to letting everything get dirty enough until you break down and go on a cleaning spree.”
Adagio shrugged. “I’m just amazed you two actually got off your asses to do any sort of tidying up. Even if it is just cleaning up your own mess!” She gave Aria and Sonata a scrutinizing look. “Though, as ridiculous as the last minute has been, I’m still not convinced you two haven’t been murdered and replaced by slightly more helpful pod-people.”
“Well, you did say if we put up the Christmas decorations we had to take them down,” Aira reminded. “You also spent that last few days passively aggressively declaring ‘Oh look! Threehundredsixtywhatever days until Christmas and we already have our decorations up!’” Aria intoned in a mock version of Adagio’s sarcasm.
Seemingly having regained control of her emotions, Sonata weighed in. “Hey, I wanted to keep them up!”
“No!” Adagio and Aria replied simultaneously.
Sonata put on a slight pout.”But why not?”
Adagio clenched her eyes hard. “Because 1986 was just too surreal for me, Sonata. I spent all year trying to remember what MONTH it actually was and occasionally going out in a parka and snow boots while the sun tried to bake me like a potato.”
“Yam,” Sonata said.
“... Excuse me?” Adagio replied.
“With your orange skin, you look more like a yam.”
“I will use your own jacket to strangle you and make your death a reality if pushed far enough,” threatened Adagio.
Aria chimed in, “Also there was the ant problem that year with all the popcorn strings being left out.”
Sonata protested, “I kept saying I was going to become their new queen and we’d take over the world with our unstoppable ant horde!”
Adagio narrowed her eyes. “Then they got into your Halloween candy and you nearly burned down the entire house.”
Sonata leveled her index finger at Adagio. “Hey, I told the ants that my candy was off limits. I WILL NOT TOLERATE REBELLION!”
Adagio sighed heavily and raised her fingertips up to her forehead. Shaking her head, she looked back up at Aria and Sonata with uncharacteristic seriousness. “Look… I'm sorry I made a production out of you two cleaning up. I just couldn’t believe you two actually took some initiative to clean up without me having to resort to screaming my head off at you two or breaking down and doing it myself.”
Aria and Sonata exchanged kind of confused glances at one another, then turned back to Adagio.
Adagio dropped her magenta eyes towards the floor. “Maybe you two are finally showing signs of growing up… Maybe we’re all starting to mature a bit now that our gems aren’t keeping us in a perpetual state of young adulthood. Maybe we’re all… well—” Adagio looked up. “—moving forward.”
Sonata smiled slightly.“ ‘Always Forward, Forward Always’, huh?”
Adagio shook her head. “No… Not always… But… Now, maybe…” she said in a wistful tone.
Aria was staring at the floor, her brow wrinkled slightly in an expression that seemed to be of deep contemplation. She clenched her eyes and shook her head. Looking up she let out a grumptastic harrumph. “Whatever…” Aria held out her hand. “Just give Sonata back her jacket and me back my hair clips and we’ll get back to work, alright?”
Adagio folded her arms across her bare midriff. “No. I look fabulous and I’m going out like this.” From the jacket, she produced a pair of pink-tinted, wildly triangular sunglasses and put them on. "Deal with it."
The End
