Dan sat in the alley, leaning against a wall, behind the wheelie bin he awoke in. The area was clear now, so he took a moment to soak in his surroundings. It was a fairly typical city alley, dank grey stone walls, a permanently wet ground, covered with that unexplainable greasy film. There were unidentified lumps of slime slowly making their way down the walls, getting ever closer to Dan and his head. The air had a kind of thickness to it, that left a bitter choking sensation in the back of your throat, triggering your gag reflex if you breath in too deeply. It wasn’t much, but to Dan, for now, it was home. A phrase that Dan had recently come to embrace is ‘Home is where your rug rests’. Lacking a rug, Dan preferred to think of it as ‘Home is where your cardboard box is’. That, however was on the nights where he could find a cardboard box that he could convert into his home. A lot of the time he simply thought ‘Home is where you happen to be when you need to lie down and sleep’. Not quite as catchy as the original phrase, but certainly more in tune with his current physical state.

It was much like every other alley he has spent most of the last week living in. In fact, wait a second, Dan had just come to have a revelation. He had actually spent an entire week homeless, all because of Karaoke. If he could go back now and undo his decisions he would. He never thought it would have come to this, but now he was lost. He has a gremlin inside of him that needed to be satisfied. The only way to do that was to find people to sing to, people that would let him sing to them.

If only he hadn’t said that phrase. The phrase that started it all off.

I'll try it if you do.

It sounded like a cliché, as he said it back to himself, but it all began with that line. Over a year ago now, back when he lived in Cornwall. A time when he was happy. He had a steady job working as a beach lifeguard, a good circle of friends, and spent many an evening frequenting his local karaoke night. Karaoke was something his friends would often use, and frequently they tried to peer pressure him into it, but at first he never really felt the urge to try it himself. Dan had seen the state that it seemed to get people into and for years was very happy to be an observer.

I'll try it if you do.

That fateful night however, something changed and to Dan, it was an honest accident. A colleague, Bob, came up to him that night, another man who had never stooped so low as to try it, and asked, only jokingly "You'll try some karaoke tonight won't you Dan?".
What would have happened if he just said "No". One word, simple and to the point. But he had to be clever didn't he.

He had to say it;

"I'll try it if you do."

It was one of those slips, based on an assumption, the mother of all fuck-ups. Dan knew this now. What a fuck up this one had been. He thought he was safe in the knowledge that Bob knew better than to try Karaoke. Like Dan, Bob was aware of it's side affects and dangers, and he knew that he was sensible enough not to try something as full on as this. Bob just wasn’t capable of doing it. As far as Dan was concerned, saying this was as safe as saying no;

I'll try it if you do.

That statement, those six simple words, were the start of Dan’s downward spiral. To this day, He truly believed than Bob didn’t ever intended to try it that night either. Quite simply, Bob was stitched up. It was a classic ‘talked himself’ into it situation, he stitched someone else up. he pushed a song onto another friend, and then in guilt, volunteered to share it with him. He felt sorry for him. In that single act of chivalry, Dan found himself looking down the barrel of a metaphoric gun. Being a man of his word, and even though he meant it as a joke, those cursed words came right back and slapped him right in the face right then. Slapped him in the face with a wet kipper, before flushing his head down the toilet and hanging him out to dry off a third floor window. Or perhaps that was another night entirely. Either way, he had just committed himself to trying his first song.

I’ll try it if you do.

It took Dan a while to build up the courage to do the deed. Spending around an hour flicking through the song book, he never knew that there was so much choice. Surely people just take a hit song and sing. How can you choose which hit to take, when there are hundreds of different types of hit songs? Well, eventually he picked one he felt to be fairly safe. He knew that this song had come from a good source, was of good quality, and hadn’t been cut by anyone else. He had picked ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’. There was nothing left to do now, but order his musical hit and wait.

Another hour passed. People got up, sang their hit, and sat down again. Some seemed to really enjoy it, some just stated to look ill, but the people kept coming. Even then, he noticed the addiction in peoples eyes, the craving for the buzz.

It wasn't long before Dan’s name was called. It was now his turn to take a hit. His turn to stand up, take that hit, and sing it as best as he could. As he walked to the front and took hold of the microphone, a strange thing happened. The lights began to dim, and a band began to play the tune. A smoke machine began to spew strawberry scented smoke across the stage, lit up by the few blue lights circling about him. It was eclectic. Then as he began to sing, a spot light shined upon him. Slowly more and more lights started as he built up into the first chorus. Dan could even hear people whispering already;

"Is that the second coming of John Lennon?";

"he’s amazing …";

"it’s beautiful".

Dan continued into the second verse ...

Women’s hearts began to melt, as he witnessed every female gaze upon his body longingly. He had never tried to sing before, and so never realized quite how good he was.

Perhaps I could get a record deal out of this ….he thought hopefully

Dan awoke with a start as Bob gave him a nudge,

"Mr. Singleton, wakey, wakey, it’s your turn now" he said with a smile

Shit.

He stood up and walked to the corner of the pub. Karaoke Kev handed him a microphone, and he stood facing a grim looking crowd. The pub lights glared in his face, and suddenly he realised that he was the centre of attention. The music began to play, and within moments Dan found himself singing. Without knowing what to expect., he simply gave it all he had. In his heart, Dan knew he couldn’t sing, the only key he recognised being the car key in his pocket. But he gave it his best shot. He started slowly, cautiously, nervously, building up towards the end of the first verse. Yet, it was at the chorus that his singing took a sudden change. He began to sing with all his might, at the top of his voice. By this point he had figured if you can’t sing, then put some effort into it. It had a profound effect on the crowd. People began to laugh, not at him, but with him. He carried on to the end, singing the best that he could, trying not to laugh at himself as he did it. As he finished and walked away, the crowd gave him a standing ovation. All ten people in the pub stood up. Even a random punk came running over to him from the corner and grabbed his hand. He shook it vigorously;

"Mate that was spot on…Can I get you a drink?" he said

Dan’s heart was pounding, He felt great, the buzz of that first hit was like nothing he had ever experienced. The rush of adrenaline, the applause, the free beer, it was all fairly overwhelming. Dan had become hooked, and right then, he was loving it ….

It all seemed so perfect back then, back in the early days, there were no after effects from taking Karaoke, yet Dan knew better now. But he had gone past the point of no return. Sitting in the alley, homeless, penniless, and hooked, all he could bring himself to do was pull a flattened cardboard box over himself and try to go over where it all went wrong in his head again.

Chapter 3

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