by Kellyanne Lynch
(JOEY'S BIRTHDAY!!!) 28 January 2002,
11:33 PM - 29 January 2002, 1:09 AM
Disclaimer: This never happened. I am
not really this much of a basket case. I do not know *N SYNC, nor do I think I
do. Just in case I scare anybody, remember, this is fiction, and I am not
delusional.
Author's Note: Just something funny I wanted to share.
There's a song card in the current issue of M for "Gone", which also says the
following: [When M asked Justin what "Gone" was about, he shrugged and said,
"She's gone, she's just gone."] LOL! Ya GOTTA love JT!
Summary: *N SYNC
are my friends. They are the only ones who understand me.
Rating:
PG
* Please email dearjoan@mikeypower.com with questions, comments,
theories, complaints, or words of
wisdom
--------------------------------------------------------
I
like *N SYNC.
It took me a long time to admit that to anybody. Even to
myself. But, really, I like *N SYNC.
It used to be that I couldn't stand
them.
***
"You may hate me but it ain't no lie
Baby,
bye-bye-bye!"
"UH!" I exclaimed, lunging through the middle of the car
from the back seat. Then I turned to the driver, my friend Erica. "How could you
LET that stupidity even play in your car for a second?"
Erica shrugged.
"It's not, it's not too bad," she whispered.
Gagging immediately
resounded from the seat beside her. "Pull over, quick! Cause I'm gonna hurl!"
our friend Michael spit out the words, then preceded to hack away, hands
clutching his throat.
Erica smacked him several times with the back of
her hand. "Mike! Stop it! That's really disgusting!"
"So are boy bands!"
he managed to choke out the words.
***
Then that Dirty Pop song
came on the radio. And I mean, yeah, that was decent. But it was still easy to
ignore. I still changed the dial any time it played. As I shake my head now, I
realise where I went wrong. I should have never watched that making the video
special on MTV. I watch nearly everything on that station though, so why NOT
that? It came on right after a Behind The Music on the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
I was laying there in bed. Chomping on some popcorn, something you're
not supposed to do when you have braces, but I did anyway. I had a mouthful as I
watched Anthony Kiedis and Flea on TV, saying I Love You to one another as the
episode ended. I was chewing that mouthful as the credits started to
roll.
"Up next on MTV," the voice-over announced, "It's making the video
with *N SYNC..."
Now I was the one choking on *N SYNC. Popcorn splattered
out of my face, and I smacked my fist into my chest to clear my airways. Quick!
I had to find the stinkin' clicker! Where the heck was it? Frantically I looked
around me, but it was nowhere in sight. AHHH! So I scrambled out of my bed,
toward the set.
My hand was inches away from the channel-up button. But
then I found myself watching the screen, as a short, dark haired guy chased that
curly-haired Justin Timberlake across a studio back lot. I was cracking
up.
Found it hard to change the channel; those guys were amusing me too
much. So I sat back on my bed, making sure to lock the door first. NOBODY could
know that I was watching *N SYNC!
After watching that show, I'd let
"Pop" play on my radio. But only when I was alone. Not long after that, "Gone"
became a single. I hated that song. Mainly because I loved it so much, and it
was by a boy band. It began running through my head, and I craved that song.
And, the more I wanted to hear "Gone", the more I NEEDED to hear "Pop"!
And that's not all. I started cutting out pictures of *N SYNC, any
pictures I could find, from my mother's magazines, from TV Guide, from teen
magazines at my orthodontist's office. While looking for pictures online, I came
across something called fanfiction. I hate fanfiction. Again, because I love it
so much. I started staying up late at night just to read the adventures of *N
SYNC, while forfeiting precious hours of sleep. I read those fics downstairs on
the computer, late at night, when I could be alone. And all those pictures I had
of that boy band? I had them all cut out and tucked inside a manila envelope,
hidden in my sock drawer.
One day after school, I deliberately missed the
bus, so I could walk home. So I could buy the Celebrity album at Walmart. A few
days later, I missed the bus to buy No Strings Attached. The day after that, the
self-titled album. I hid Celebrity in my Puddle of Mudd jewel case. My No
Strings Attached CD was filed under Limp Bizkit, the self-titled under Kid Rock.
I started recording anything *N SYNC that came on TV, checked out
tvguide.com for all the times. During afternoons, I began telling my friends I
was loaded up on homework but would instead lock myself up in my room to watch
those *N SYNC videos. I'd watch the ones I had recorded off the TV, as well as
some others that I had bought from Walmart after conveniently missing the bus a
few other days.
It wasn't long when I started having dreams about *N
SYNC. About seeing them in concert. But, of course, I never would. Who would go
with me?
*N SYNC was my habit. My addiction. And NOBODY was going to find
out about it!
Or so I thought. Because soon those night dreams turned
into daydreams. Ones that I could NOT, for the life of me, get out of my head. I
was thinking about them when I got up in the morning, having just had an *N SYNC
dream. I was thinking about them as I got ready for school, as I rode on the
bus, during classes, during EVERYTHING I did. Even when I was hanging around
with my friends. My daydreams became so much a part of my life that they were
drowning out everything else, including my common sense. Because, one day,
instead of discretely pulling No Strings Attached from the Limp Bizkit Chocolate
Starfish case, I was far too obvious.
"What the hell is that?!" Michael
hissed. He pulled the CD out of my hands. Helplessly, I turned to him, to where
he was seated beside me on the bus, cradling the album carefully, so that no one
else could see it. "Why do you have *N SYNC?" he whispered.
My mouth just
hung open.
"You listen to boy bands?"
"Just one," I murmured,
reaching for the CD. I slid it out of his fingers and slipped it back into the
Limp Bizkit case.
Michael shook his head. Maybe, if that's all it was,
everything would have been okay. But things just got worse. The more I thought
about *N SYNC, the more I felt like talking about them, about everything I knew
about the band. Any time the conversation permitted, I would slip in some *N
SYNC fact or another. It just came out! After a few of those in the lunchroom
one day, my friend Melissa furrowed her eyebrows at me.
"What's it with
you and *N SYNC?" she asked me, and Michael laughed.
I sighed. It was
about time I tell them. After all, they were my friends. They should be
supportive. So I took in a deep breath and said, "Guys?" Looking at each one of
them individually, I announced, "I... like... *N SYNC."
They gasped. With
some of those expressions, I swear, they wouldn't have been more shocked if I
were to have said I were gay. Melissa pushed down the bench, away from me and
closer to Michael and Erica. Becca and Nat, my two friends sitting across from
me, leaned back, like I'd just hacked a spitball at them. Needless to say, I
stopped hanging around with them after that. All they did was mock *N SYNC and
boy bands in general, and I hated them for that. An attack against *N SYNC
became a personal attack against me. My "friends" weren't worth my time anyway.
Now I had more even more time to spend in my room, with *N SYNC.
It was
that day when the collage came into existence. I realised that I had plenty of
magazine clippings tucked inside my sock drawer, and it was about time I did
something with them. So I got a hold of some poster board and started gluing
pictures to it. I was really careful how I pieced together each clipping. There
couldn't be any gaps ANYWHERE in the collage, or else it would look dumpy. So I
cut out the word "*N SYNC" wherever I could find it, and used those tiny strips
to cover any white spots. There couldn't be ANY empty places. The whole thing
had to be *N SYNC. I finished that collage within days, and started on another.
At first, I would hide them in the closet, but then I started hanging them on a
blank wall in my room. Collages rapidly wallpapered that wall, and I made it a
goal in my mind that, some day soon, I would cover the ENTIRE room with pictures
of *N SYNC. I broke down and started buying teenybopper magazines to reach my
goal.
And I would have reached it. Had not my parents foiled my plans. I
came home from school one day to find them in my room. My father looked pissed.
His whole face was red and, in the tradition of being Irish, so were his ears.
My mother had her arms folded across her chest. She hung her head and shook it.
When my father saw me, he pointed to the walls. "What is
this?"
My mother sniffled. I swear, they acted like they'd found drugs in
my room.
"*N SYNC," I declared. I realised then that my voice did not
waver, unlike it had when I spoke with my friends just a couple weeks ago about
the boy band.
"Are you using tacks to put these up?" he demanded.
"Because I don't want holes all over the wall."
"No. Just
tape."
He snorted, and glared at a picture of Chris. "This is damned
stupid."
"It's not healthy to obsess over something like this," my mother
added. She looked up and cocked her head to the side. "Don't you think this is a
little much?"
"No," I shook my head. "I like it."
They said
nothing more about the wall after that. But I know they still didn't like it.
They didn't go into my room after that day.
With *N SYNC surrounding me,
I started having more elaborate daydreams. Not just that I got to see them in
concert. Or got to meet them. But that they were my friends. I started talking
to them about stuff on my mind, anything. And they'd smile and look intently
back at me. You wouldn't understand.
At first, I would just talk to the
posters and pinups and collages all over that wall. But then I started having
conversations with them in my head. Especially when I was at school. School had
become a lonely place. My friends rarely ever talked to me. And, when they did,
it was to criticise me. To tell me that they thought I'd become a conformist.
What they didn't understand was that I had never vowed to be an ANTI-conformist,
like they all were. I wasn't totally against everything that was main-stream.
Maybe I was at some point, but not anymore. I thought I was a nonconformist now.
But maybe I WAS conforming. I didn't care. I liked what I liked, and it really
didn't matter to me what they thought. THEY didn't matter to me anymore.
But *N SYNC did. They never criticised me. They never hurt me. They
always listened, and they'd hang around whenever and wherever.
There's
this one picture in particular. It's a four-page pinup of the five of them, each
one in his own bubble. Joey's in the top, left-hand corner, holding out his
hand. Like he's reaching out to me. I run my fingers along his palm sometimes as
I talk to him. Right now, his and the other *N SYNCers are the only human
contact I have.
That wall is now almost complete. Most of it is
ceiling-to-floor *N SYNC. And I've started on the other three walls too, but not
as much as that first one. As I sit here at my desk and type, I look around. And
I have to smile. *N SYNC is everywhere. Their beautiful faces surround
me.
But, as I look, I notice something. There's this glaringly bare spot
right there in the middle, under a pinup of the guys, and over some smaller
clippings. So empty and void that it feels like it's sucking the life out of the
room. Don't I have a magazine around here somewhere that I haven't
dissected?
Ah, yes! The new J-14 magazine. And it looks like that shot of
the guys on the cover will be just the right size for that space. I cut it out,
make loops of tape, and stick them on the back. Then grab my ladder; there's no
way that I'll ever reach that spot without assistance. So I set it up against
the wall. And ascend it. That spot's still out of reach. I stand on my tip-toes
and can just barely reach. There's a tack in my wall, I notice as I'm about to
tape the picture into place. I should get that out first. But, when I dig my
thumb into the side, it springs out of the wall and falls out of my hand. I'll
probably end up stepping on it, as soon as I put down my heels.
I don't.
But I do as I step back. The sharp pain searing through the centre of my foot
causes me to jerk it upward. It kicks against the wall. The ladder wobbles, and
loses its bearings. It falls. I fall with it.
Uhh! My back slams into the
floor. Clenching my eyes shut several seconds, I feel pain surging through my
entire body. And I cry out. My eyelids flutter open, and I focus upon that
four-page pinup of the guys that I love so much. I look to Joey who's in his
bubble, staring intently back at me and reaching out his hand.
"Joey!" I
call to him, but he stays the same. Just watching me. I try to reach for him,
but I realise that I can't move. "Joey!" I cry out again. "Chris! Lance! JC!
Justin!" I look to each. Each in his own bubble, each gazing back. Unchanging.
They look at me like they always do.
As I'm laying there, I close my
eyes and feel myself drift away. Far away from my frame. And, when I look again,
Joey is standing over me. Looking on intently. Hand reaching out. I accept it,
and he pulls me to my feet. We are floating now, floating upward, to a place in
the air where Lance and JC are stooped outside a tour bus. Justin and Chris are
waving from within. And I step aboard, Lance and JC at my heels. I don't know
where we're going. But I'm ready to leave.
They are my friends! They have
always been my friends! And, now, we're ready for endless adventures
together.
I like *N SYNC.
***
"Collage"
by Kellyanne
Lynch
12/21/01, 4:19 AM
Faces on the wall
In each
picture
Smiling
An arm around another
Faces on the wall
So
familiar
Yet distant
Sometimes I hear them speak to me
But only when in
depths
Of insanity
Those faces
They are my friends
They listen
as I sit here
As I jabber on
About the weather
About music
As I
voice all that I am
They never mock
To them
I am never a failure
And
never a fraud
To them
I am worthwhile
To them
I am a
fantasy
Such beautiful faces
Sometimes I want to bring them out
For
them to take a turn about the room
To dance
To sing
To do their
thing
But as I think
I'm glad they're trapped inside
A two dimensional
world
That
To me
They are just faces on cardboard
For smiles
fade
And sorrows play
Across the big screen that is life
Joy fails
while the morbid prevails
I cannot take another thing that is
real
--------------------------------------------------------
A/N:
You know the wall-to-wall *N SYNC room discussed in the fic? Yeah, it actually
exists. I have a room in my apartment where one wall is floor-to-ceiling *N SYNC
for 80% of it, and I'm working on the rest. Another wall is mostly *N SYNC, a
third has some, and a forth has just a poster of Joey. Joey! Sorry, I had to.
Just to remind y'all, this story really was fiction. For the most
part.