Tree Sap of Ledgend

PREFACE: So this is a spiritual sequel to this story http://vklaus.soup.io/post/8692541/In-The-Garden-Of-Eden-or-How . This time the prompt was to write a story about "Tree sap of Legend" And much like the garden of eden story, I did.

The story of Mitchell Right started in 1984 when the band The Waffle Iron Gang was first formed, but the legend behind his success goes much further back. The Bible tells us of The Tree of Knowledge. The Christian teachings say it was the source of sin and vice, but any musician worth his salt knows the truth. It was the source of what we know today as Rock and Roll.

From the time Adam hewed the first acoustic guitar from one of its branches to serenade eve, to stories of nymphs, elves, and satyrs, the tree has been sought by many musicians whether they knew it or not.

Some start their journey looking for something else entirely, Mitchell Right, for example, was searching for the rainbow colored toad he saw after dropping the pre-show acid. Sadly, as the buzz was starting to fade and he became less and less convinced such a creature existed. Not only that, he started to think he completely and utterly lost.

Had Mitchell realized he had only been wandering in the forest for about 20 minutes instead of the 3 month’s his chemically enhanced brain lead him to believe, perhaps he would of just turned around walked back the way he came, played at the club, and simply went home. Instead a Rock and Roll God was born.

Panicked, confused, and still more than a little stoned, Mitchell fell back on what he had learned while smoking weed and watching hours and hours of wild life survival shows on cable. He grabbed a fist full of spotted moss shoved it in his mouth, sat under the tree, started sobbing while rocking back and forth, clutching his guitar.

Now, The Tree has a capricious nature. It seems to appear at random all over the globe. That night it appeared next to Mitchell Right about a half a mile from the club, The Cloacal Egress in Muscoda, Canada.

Nobody knows for certain if it was the combination of the, most likely poisonous, moss mixing with the residual acid lingering in his veins that made him think the sap oozing from The Tree beside him looked an awful lot like unrefined heroin, but as Mitchell sat terrified and looking for a way to calm down, he went for it. Filled his trusty syringe full of the sap from The Tree and injected it into his arm.

While the sap is not nearly as potent as the fruit from the tree, the difference was made up by it being injected right into the blood stream. Mitchell felt its power wash over him immediately. Suddenly the world popped into vibrant color and as if in a haze he gripped his guitar by the neck and walked out of the forest and played one of the best shows of his life.

The next morning he woke up in a hotel bed next to with two naked women and one male transvestite, named Cherrywillow, who, Mitchell thought, desperately needed to touch up his make up.

As Mitchell reflected upon that idea the world around him got a lot darker and a lot colder. Mitchell thought he was passing back out but then he noticed Cherrywillow open his eyes and saw they were bright red and glowing.
Cherrywillow sat up and spoke with a strange cadence that was both quite musical and entirely dark at the same time.

“That was quite the show last night, sweet stuff. I was impressed, and I’ve seen some crazy bullshit in my time.”

It didn’t take much time for Mitchell to realize what had happened.

“Shit.” he said, “I OD’d didn’t I? I OD’d and now the devil is here to take me to hell and… and… and all that… Stuff! Right?”

It probably wasn’t the most eloquent thing he had ever said, but Mitchell Right didn’t get paid to “talk good“.

Cherrywillow let out a gleeful laugh, and stood up after gathering up the blankets and draping it over himself like it was a dress and walked over to the hotel mirror. (If that seems strange to you, Its probably worth noting that the devil will be the first to tell you, that while he may be THE DEVIL, the unholy blight of all that is good and right, he isn’t with out his sense of dignity.)

“No,” said Cherrywillow, “You didn’t OD. This body I’m wearing now, did, but not you. You still have a long way to go, yet.”

“Then maybe Im still just tripping from whatever that shit was last night.”, Mitchell said as he rubbed his temples.

“I suppose that could be. In a sense at least. That ‘shit’ was sap from The Tree of Life. The wellspring of rock and roll. Gods own guilty pleasure. I‘m here to offer you more.”
“Seriously?” Mitchell said, suddenly interested, “The stuff was pretty damn good. How much more. I mean, I kicked ass last night but my boys could barely keep up.”
“I’m afraid I cant give you any for your band mates. Sadly, they went the same way as Ol’ Cherrywillow, here,” Cherrywillow paused for a moment and frowned at his reflection, then sighed, “Red lipstick really doesn’t suit him does it?”

“Not really.” Mitchell responded absent mindedly. He was trying to wrap his head around the news that his whole band had died over the course of the night. He had known all of them since they were kids.

“I wonder if these girls have a better color” Cherrywillow mumbled as he began to rifle through the still passed out girls belongings.

‘All of them. Dead.’ Mitchell thought. ‘I will never see Gutter, Snake, Bits, or Chauncey again.’ As Mitchell was about to start to cry, Cherrywillow shouted “Eureka! Emerald Green!” It startled Mitchell enough to pull him out before he descended completely into sadness.

“Devil, what in the fuck’re you doing?”

Cherrywillow, admiring the color of the new lipstick, was making kissy faces at his reflection. He paused mid kiss and his glowing red eyes blinked at Mitchell in the refection of the mirror, “Oh! That’s right we were making a deal, sorry, I get distracted by cosmetics easily. Anyway, so the sap, I can give all you can stand and all I need for you to do is promise me your soul after this is all over”

“But my band members…”

“Don’t worry about them, I’ll make sure they are taken care of, I’ll send up some replacements after I get back.”

“… Just my soul, huh?”

“That’s all.”

“Will I be tortured when I die.”

Cherrywillow, shrugged.

“I dunno. Punishment is kinda random. Keeps the relative moralists from bitching.”

Mitchell thought for a while. He always wanted to be a rock star. To be remembered forever and to go out with a bang. His friends were dead, and that was sad. But what a better way to remember them than to rock out harder than any had if ages. Hell probably wasn’t that bad of a place anyway.

“Ok.” Mitchell said, “I’ll do it. You just keep me knee deep in the sap, ok?”

“Sure thing! That syringe will never be empty. As soon as you inject it will be full again. Contracts on the dresser.” Cherrywillow said he turned his attention back to the mirror and started applying some foundation.

Mitchell walked over to the dresser and took a deep breath as he stared down at the dotted line.

“Um… I don’t have a pen.”

Cherrywillow tossed Mitchell the tube of red lipstick Cherrywillow had used the night before, and Mitchell Right signed his name and sealed his fate.

For the next five years the world experienced a musical renaissance as Mitchell Right and his bad of Rock & Roll demons from hell went, from town to town, blowing doors down, with the power of their music fueled by tree sap from the Tree of Knowledge.

Word of his mind bending music and his insane rock and roll lifestyle reached from the most populated metropolis of America, to the most remote locations in coldest Siberia. Mitchell Right and The Waffle Iron Gang became more than super stars. They were bigger than the Beatles, wilder than Hendrix, and longer lasting than Mick Jagger. But that which is gold can not stay and, one day, Mitchell Right had to pay the piper.

It was the eve of his first performance on his 29th tour of Japan. That night the show was going to be broadcast all across the globe. It was the biggest audience ever recorded in human history. An huge open air event with the silhouette of Mount Fuji looming in the background.

As he was sitting off stage in his dressing room, he stared solemnly at the syringe full of sap. He closed his eyes listening to the crowd humming outside, waiting for him. But then from the darkness he heard a familiar voice and one he had been waiting for a while now.

“Good evening sweet stuff.”

As Mitchell opened his eyes he saw a young Japanese man who was wearing a costume of the ancient samurai, standing in his doorway. It took a second for Mitchell to recognize him, but there was no mistaking the glowing red eyes.

“I assume you are here to collect on our deal.”

“You’d assume correctly, Mitchell-chan.”, The Samurai said cheerfully.

Mitchell clutched the still full syringe in his hand. The devil had held up his end of the bargain and now it was time to hold up his. Mitchell knew this day would come but he didn’t want to accept it. Mitchell had lived a good life, but he didn’t want to stop living it. It was too soon. He wasn’t ready yet.

“No.” Mitchell said.

“No?”

“No! You heard me! Im not going yet. Im not done yet!”

The Samurai’s eyes glowed brighter and the voice grew darker than it had before.
“You would defy me, after all I’ve given you?”

“Given me what?! This drug?! I don’t need it! And… And you can shove it and your stupid deal up your own stupid ass!”

Mitchell threw the syringe at the samurai, grabbed his guitar, pushed past The Samurai, and ran onto the stage for what would be the single greatest musical event in ever seen by mankind.

As he walked on to the stage, Mitchell noticed his band members were gone. The stage was dark save for a single spotlight tracking him and another on the opposite side where he saw Japanese Samurai. His face was now covered with a iron demon mask but his eyes still glowed deep red.

They stood apart, a guitar in each of their hands. Mitchell’s freshly painted white and the samurais jet black with rusted strings. Mitchell knew what was about to happen. It was a story almost as old as the story of The Tree. Only this time, he wouldn’t win a fiddle made of gold, he would win his soul.

The Samurai Devil was the first to start. The ground beneath their feet shivered and arcs of electricity trailed off each plucked rusted string, sending the crowd into a frenzy. Some described the sound as half a pound of meth with a ounce of cocaine as a chaser. The sheer power of it sent a shockwave of sonic energy that still echos in the loins of those who were in the audience as far as 30 years after the show had ended.

After hearing that Mitchell Right was beginning to shake. His nerve was wavering. He felt so small in the face of The Devils rock prowess. The stage suddenly felt to big. He could feel the eyes of the audience waiting to see what he would do to counter.

He shut his eyes a dug deep. He would not loose his soul to the devil. He would not let the devil beat him. He would give the world something to remember. He would do something that would make his old friends who died so long ago something to cheer about in hell.

So he dug deep. Deeper than he thought he could. Gathered all his experiences, his passion for music, his desire for success, all the power the tree sap had lent him in the past, and pulled it all together. He grabbed his pick, looked into the spot light, then across at his devil samurai counter part, and played his guitar.

The ground did more than shiver. It began to shake and shake violently. Stage lights began to fall from the metal scaffolding as Mitchell began his rebuke. Every cord plucked was like a wash of warm energy as it poured through the audience and into every living room showing through the TV or radio.

As the song continued it got more and more powerful. A strange light began to swirl around Mitchell. A strong wind began blow as clouds gathered above and a violent thunder storm suddenly broke loose over the audience. The sound of the thunder and the hard patter of the rain and hail provided the best bass and drum line respectively; the whirl and whistle of the wind the perfect vocalist.
Mitchell went out with a bang as he finally reached the crescendo of his song as Mt. Fuji erupted. Flame and lava rocketed into the storm clouds above and black obsidian began to rain down onto the stage. Some people screamed and some people cried, but most cheered.

When the rain stopped enough for people to see the stage clearly again, they audience could see that Mitchell laying dead on the stage floor. The coroners would eventually determine the cause of death was that of every great rocker in history, an over dose.

The Samurai Devil, however, was no where to be seen. He sulked away back to hell, rather salty he didn’t get what was rightfully his. Mitchell had put his entire soul into that song and let it loose. His soul did not belong to the devil any more, it belonged to the entire world. It belonged to history. Existing forever in the hearts and souls that final performance had touched.

That is the story of Mitchell Right.