Please don’t forget that this never ever ever happened—this is merely a pleasantly odd export of my tiny little mind. Thanks! ;)

 

You Can’t Do That

 

There’s the music, and there’s the long corridor, and there’s me.

The hallway is long and ugly. Black-and-white, no windows, no doors; it just goes on, seemingly, until it joins the other hallway like the top of an uppercase T. The music—well, it’s the whole reason I got into this cockamamie business, the music—it’s great. It’s all I want, to find where that music is coming from. And me, I’m just trying to find the music—

**plink**

What was that? That didn’t come from in here. But that’s not what I’m worried about, ‘cos I hear Beatlemaniacs. Crowds of them.

Bloody—! They’re after me, aren’t they?

I can’t stand these fans. Individually, I suppose I could like them, but they go mad when they’re in a crowd, and I hate it, like the whole Beatlemania thing. It’s crazy, the same way they’re all crazy, running, trampling, crushing each other just to get at me. And they’re coming from every direction. They’ve nearly drowned out the music—!

Wait. Don’t panic. I’ll be fine if I can just find where the music is. So where’s the—

**plink**

Wossat? No. Where’s the music at? I need to know that, ‘cos I’ll get torn to shreds if I don’t. Fans to the left of me—fans to the right of me—fans in back of me—the wall right in front of me.

Hey. I think I figured this out.

I put my hand on the wall and walk straight through it.

I’ve never seen anyplace so beautiful. It’s a field, warm and sunny and full of (**plink**) long grass and blue skies (**plink plink**) and about a million different kinds of flowers, all of it in the brightest colors you can imagine. (**plink plink-PLINK plink plink**) This is where the—hang on a minute, it’s fading I’m waking up waitaminnit hey no—

George’s mind rocketed precipitously into the realms of consciousness a considerable while before the rest of his body took itself off standby mode. Only sustained effort of will lifted an almost belligerently inert arm in the general direction of the bedside lamp. Thus he shuffled to the door, with a fading dream-memory in his mind and a string of unique and inventive imprecations on the tip of his tongue, ready to unleash a thousand verbal torments on whomever it was who was throwing that stuff against his window.

At the first half-sleepy glance, the view outside George’s room appeared unimpeded by illegitimate sons with a canine parent on their distaff side hurling rocks, or indeed any other manner of pebble-pitching devilkin, but a loud and astonished gasp led him quickly to the nearby stairway. There, lying at the top of the stairs, not quite hidden by the near railing, was a young lady—George reckoned her to be only slightly younger than he—whose expression wasn’t nearly as astonished and contrite as he figured it ought to be. In front of her was a small pile of pebbles.

“Sorry, wrong stairwell,” she stage-whispered at him. “I’ll go and try the next one over.”

“Good. You do that,” George stage-whispered back. “But first, can you tell me just who you are and what it is you think you’re doing heaving gravel at my windowpane in the middle of the night?”

“I’m Althea Llewellyn, and I’m sorry to wake you, Mr. Harrison, but these stairs all look the same in the dark. Since you aren’t who I’m looking for, can I go?”

“I’m not who you’re looking for?”

“You’re not who I’m looking for.”

This was so unusual George felt he had to ask again. “I’m not who you’re looking for?”

“Nice as it has been to meet a Beatle, Mr. Harrison, you’re not who I’m looking for. But enough of thi—”

“There’s a first,” blurted George. He was still rather amazed, and possibly a bit disappointed, that he hadn’t been the young Miss Llewellyn’s first priority.

“Get used to it.” Neither Althea nor George was whispering anymore, and her voice had taken on a distinctly irritated edge. “But enough of this cheery banter. Difficult as this is for you to believe, I’m not after you. I already have a boyfriend, and if I don’t meet him by the time his parents ship him off to his uncle’s at six a.m., I’ll probably never see him again and it’s almost a quarter past three already.” Now she sounded not only irritated but frantic. “So unless you’d like to help me find his bedroom so I can at least say good-bye, leave me alone so I can look for him myself.”

At these words George was quite prepared to leave the matter as it stood and go back to his room and the nice warm granite slab that the management had the effrontery to call a bed. But he couldn’t. For all the supremely good sense that walking quietly away seemed to make, he found himself curiously reluctant to leave a Lover Sundered in the lurch.

But her problems are none of your business, reasoned Brian Harrison, professional Anagrammatically-Named Anthropomorphic Personification of Reason, Logic, and Common Sense.

Hardly, retorted Sol U. Harte-Harrison, professional Anagrammatically-Named Anthropomorphic Personification of Emotion, Passion, Sentiment and Intuition from the other side of George’s mind. She’s a Lover Sundered. Lovers Sundered always need help. We owe it to her to help. There but for the grace of God goes George, you know.

George sighed. Another Inner Struggle. Why was it that Inner Struggles always occurred at the most inconvenient times? Like now, when he could be sleeping. Caring about things could be a right nuisance at times.

George owes himself a good night’s sleep more than he owes this strange, lovesick little girl assistance with her lover’s tryst, replied Brian. George’s first duty is to George, and it would do you well to remember it.

Excuse me! Sol U. gaped at his logical doppelganger. I hardly see the world in those terms. I daresay if George was lying half-starved in a ditch he wouldn’t want to run across people who thought like you do.

I hardly see that happening in George’s future. Do you know just how much money he makes? He’s a Beatle. He owes no one anything.

You—! I—you’re—! Sol U. was well out of speaking territory and was now venturing into the realm of dumbfounded sputtering.

Don’t get maudlin on me, Sol U. I can’t stand seeing such shameless carrying on.

You’re—Sol U. was beginning to settle down slightly, a sure sign he was about to indulge in a monumental outburst. You’re—completely heartless!

Yes. Yes, I am. Which is exactly why we’re here.

Why, you callous, unfeeling ba—

Oh, just go ahead and help the young bird, willya George,

exclaimed a third voice before his inner dialogue could lapse into serious profanity.

               And just who the heck is this? thought George. Another point of view is exactly what I don’t need right now.

Toofelft Harrison at your service.

Toofelft—?

Do the anagram thing, rearrange the letters.

George did. The results, oddly enough, didn’t astonish him overmuch.

Explains a lot about how this place is run, dunnit? I mean, those two are all right if you’re asked about the H-bomb or interracial marriage, but if either of them have made a single useful contribution to your day-to-day existence since puberty, I’ll eat my sock.

Anyway, he continued, you may as well help her. You know you’re too soft in the heart not to lose sleep over it if you don’t. Would you rather lose sleep helping someone or feeling guilty about not helping someone? Besides that, good deeds have a way of coming back to people—no man is an island and all that sort of thing. Go ahead and help the poor kid.

“Sure I’ll help you,” said George to Althea as he patted her on the shoulder as reassuringly as he could muster at three a.m. “I’m not heartless, y’know.”

 

 

               ***Authoress’s note: If you’d like to use this story for anything or take it someplace, please ask me first. It’s just one little email, not too much trouble, and the odds are in your favor for a yes if you ask me nicely. I just want people to recognize the story as mine, okay? ;-)