It was 8:00 a.m. on a Tuesday, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Amrit Hari Madhav (Class I) and Anran Liu (Class I) took their turns prefecting and dishing out the top 5 places to cry on campus as EAC, EXCEL trip, and Allergy Club announcements rolled by. People chuckled, giggled, and whatever it is the audience does when they hear something funny. But the time for fun was over when one name boomed out of their microphones as “up next.”
Andrew Humphrey (Class I), in all his glory and might, went up, sang “Say You Won’t Let Go” by James Arthur, and captured the hearts of the school yet again — to the dismay of every boyfriend in Lawrence. People assumed that would be the highlight of that assembly: What could be better than a performance by none other than Andrew Humphrey? Then, he went up again. That’s right. Andrew Humphrey hosted the first-ever doubleheader in Nobles’ history. What could he possibly have in store this time? How could he possibly top his previous performance? What is this man thinking? The audience was sweating, their legs were fluttering, and their hearts were skipping far too many beats, but the raw adrenaline in their veins kept them alive.
The man walked up to the mic and said exactly what everyone in that auditorium wanted to hear. “For my next song, ‘Mr. Brightside,” Humphrey said. Before he could even utter the first syllable, the auditorium exploded in sound. Like the famed eruption of Krakatoa, every living creature within a 3,000-mile radius could hear the cheers from Lawrence Auditorium. Dogs barked, birds flew away, car alarms blared like no tomorrow — because it wasn’t looking like there was a tomorrow. Crackle by pop, the earth had begun to open up; it couldn’t handle the heat that is Andrew Humphrey. A fissure had formed in the earth’s mantle, releasing a red-hot glow directly below the stage. The steam firing from the bosom of the earth hit Andrew Humphrey head-on, but it did not faze him. He had begun to levitate.
The students in that auditorium (the ones who weren’t unconscious yet) couldn’t believe their eyes. They fumbled in their pockets for their phones, desperate to catch proof of the miracle occurring on stage. But before they could wrap their thumbs around their little devices, a glowing head full of brown, flowy hair emerged from the very depths of the Earth’s core. Eddie Van Halen had returned from the grave to perform with Humphrey. Fully prepared for the occasion, he flawlessly switched from crooning “Mr. Brightside” to “Hot For Teacher” (the title means exactly what you think it does). The combined power of the duo’s melodious perfection reached far beyond the 3,000-mile range the sound wave once had. There wasn’t a square inch of the Milky Way undisturbed by the music, and for the first time in the history of the galaxy, every man, woman, animal, martian, Kryptonian, mutant, and Tralfamadorian felt no hatred towards one another. Everyone and everything was at peace.
From the back of the auditorium, someone peeped, “Man, let me tell ya, I love Pink Floyd!” From seat N107, Christina Hall (Class I) had once again forgotten the name of the performer. The universe stood still. Ton 618, the supermassive black hole that keeps our Milky Way spinning, winced a little bit. There had never been a moment in history so quiet. The hole in the earth sealed, the lights turned back on, and everything was back to the way it was before. So, what did our hero do? The only reasonable thing he could. He metamorphosed.
Andrew Humphrey, faced with an insoluble conundrum, became a cocoon. All that remained of him on stage was a big bundle of silk. The silence grew louder, and people waited in anticipation. And just as the Google Calendar notification for the first period starting in 10 minutes went off, he blossomed. He burst out of his cocoon with incandescent wings spanning the entirety of the stage. He stepped out, picked up the microphone once more, and made the already perfect assembly even greater. He sang Tiki Tiki (Slowed – Reverb). Beat by beat, note by note, neurons detached and reassembled for the sole purpose of remembering this moment. Every student in that auditorium would go on to never shut up about this very day. This was the day they became adults.
