Lizzy at the Drome

© Daniel Verastiqui

The Fascist Panties were playing the Drome the last time I saw Marie von Franz in the fiery flesh.

There would come a time some twenty years later when we reconnected briefly during the buildup to the unpleasantness, but that rekindling had been more like a gentle gust of wind than a hurricane. The video feed had been choppy, the audio barely intelligeble, but I had seen something in her eyes, something like longing or regret, as we peered at each other through the MESH, through the broken nodes and shattered windows of what remained of the network. In those glib glimpses, I saw her just as she had looked that night at the Drome--bright eyes, sharp chin, a line of jeweled piercings tracing up her left cheek. It was enough to take me back to the night when everything changed, when I met the woman who would throw everything off course and leave me where I am now--alone at the end of the world, caged with nothing but a dying palette ...