The DREAM WORLD Series
DAYDREAM REALITY

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----- Chapter 5 ------
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"If you think I want the life you choose to live... I don't think I want the love you've got to give.... if you think my goals could be so trivial and small... then I don't think you know me at all." LB was singing as Jeff played along on one of the standard six strings.

Mike wouldn't use his Gretsch for such an informal rehearsal session. Kez mused from his perch on the couch. Looks like Jeff's the same way. This was one of those similarities that made it almost impossible to tell the actor in front of him from the real deal. It would have been easier if these guys had some kind of small inconsistancies, but even on the minute details they were right on. Whatever had caused these guys to change like this had been extremely precise.

Since Aaron had gone out to catch a movie with Eric, and George was off with yet another chick, it was just Kez, LB and Jeff at the pad for the afternoon. Upon being discharged from the hospital, Kez refused to go straight home. Insisting he was fine, he wanted to hang out a little longer and learn as much as he could about these guys. The whole body-snatchers thing was far more interesting than anything on television today anyway. He tried to imagine how he'd handle it if he suddenly woke up in the morning and was someone else. To find a face other than your own staring back at you was about as far out as you could get. How these guys had managed to handle everything was beyond him, but he admired them for their courage to try and keep going. He wanted to help them out in whatever way he could.

The best way he could think to help them out would be to find out what had brought them here in the first place. If he could trace the source, then he could quite possibly find a way of reversing their transformation.

"But I don't think you know me at all.... I don't think you know me at all....." Jeff plucked out the last few chords as LB's voice faded out.

"Man! Now that was groovy." Jeff smiled at LB.

"Really?" LB asked awkwardly.

"Yeah, man! Totally." Kez called over from the couch. Looked like LB was just like Peter in the shy category too.

Having been urged on, LB grabbed up the banjo and began plucking out a few chords to "You Told Me". Jeff perked up and once again joined in, leaving Kez to his thoughts. Man, they can't go two minutes without breaking into another song. Shaking his head, Kez let his body go limp and sag back into the soft pillows propping him up.

"You told me you'd always stay, you told me!.... You told me you'd never stray, you told me!" Jeff was singing along as George walked through the front door, rubbing his cheek.

Cutting off in mid strum, LB jumped off the bandstand and over to George's side. "Are you alright?" He asked with concern.

"Yeah... I'm fine." George looked almost embarrased at his friends' sudden concern. "It's nothin'."

"What happened?" Jeff pressed.

Exasperated, George threw his hands up in the air. "If yah must know, Veronica 'appened. She slapped me right across thah face!" He exploded.

The looks of concern on the other's faces suddenly turned to amusement.

"She slapped you?" Jeff asked incredulously.

"Can't imagine why." LB rolled his eyes, still grinning from ear to ear.

"Now don't staht!" The bruised Brit moaned. "I swear I wasn't doin' anythin', an' she just hauled off an' slapped me!"

"I'm sure." Kez decided it was worth jumping into this conversation. If nothing, it would prove a distraction from the heavy questions that had been spinning in his head.

"She said I was gettin' 'fresh' or somethin' like that." He muttered. As the others strained harder to keep from laughing out loud, George beat a hasty retreat into the kitchen, picking up the shattered pieces of his ego as he went.

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Slurping the last few precious drops of Pepsi, Aaron slam-dunked his empty cup into the nearest garbage can. A quality comedy always put him in a good mood. Seeing "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World" on the big screen as opposed to renting the video from a local Blockbuster didn't hurt either. One upside to being stranded in the 60's... catching movies, music, and even toy fads in their prime.

Eric popped out of the theater after Aaron. It had been the blonde's idea to hang out and catch a movie. Aaron had readilly agreed, more than willing to absorb himself in the comic stylings of Jonathan Winters for a few hours. Plus, it gave him the chance to completely forget about the current situation. Of course he'd had to put on the Micky act, but it had been a small price to pay in exchange.

"That was great!" Eric looked almost beside himself with joy. He had managed to get Micky back into a good mood and had gotten to see a movie he'd been meaning to catch for weeks now, all in one afternoon. Not a half bad day's work.

"You bet! I mean, wow.. Micky Rooney, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Buddy Hackett... and all in one movie!" Aaron bounced around.

"Wow, Mick. If I'd known you would have liked it that much I would have dragged you out to see it a lot sooner." Eric chuckled. "So I guess this means you're feeling better?"

"Better? Me? Feeling?" Aaron's mind was still miles away, but inspired by the two-plus hours of slapstick he had just taken in, he felt like kidding around a bit. "If this is some kind of pickup line---"

"What? NO!" Eric backpedaled so fast, one could imagine him breaking the sound barrier. "I was just saying that you've been acting kinda strange lately." He smiled. "I knew all you needed was to get a good comedy through your system and you'd be back to normal."

Back to normal... Aaron's stomach dropped out from under him. He had to use THOSE specific words. His face fell.

Eric was caught off guard. "Sorry if I said something wrong."

"N-no! It's alright. I've been out of it, but everything's fine again." He cracked a hollow smile, hoping Eric wouldn't sense it's lack of sincerity. "Promise."

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Several hours later, Kez was back home, hanging now with Eric, his oldest and closest friend. Their bond was so long lasing that they had practically been toddlers together. Their moms had been friends, they had been in the same boyscout troop... half the time they wondered if they weren't truely twins. Of course they couldn't really have been. Their personalities were as different as night and day. For all of Eric's knowledge in the areas of math and the sciences, he was rather naive by Kez's standards. The boy was unwilling to see the supernatural, constantly trying to explain things away with mathematical formulas or laws of nature. Kez, on the other hand was more into reading his astrology charts and debating controversial topics just for the buzz he got off of dissagreements. Almost as strong as an acid buzz.... almost.

Eric's soft snoring awoke Kez from his reverie. Good. Just hope he stays that way until morning. Kez hobbled over to a small desk in the far corner and pulled out a sheet of paper. The paper really didn't serve any purpose, except that he seemed to do his best thinking with a sheet of paper infront of him. It was an odd habit, but he had solved a lot of the more tricky theoretical problems posed to him with a blank sheet of paper and a pencil close at hand. Be it an errant doodle or a poem that lept to his mind, usually the solution would worm its way into his brain under these circumstances. If he was lucky, maybe he would think up a way of returning Aaron, LB, Jeff and George to their reality.

Clicking off the harsh glow of Eric's flourescent lamp, Kez turned and lit a few candles instead. Natural light lent more to natural thinking, he felt. It was eerilly reminiscent of the circumstances in which he had first seen Jeff as he should have really looked, and he hoped that would help the thought process. Unfortunately, the other biproduct of the soft candle glow was sleep more rapidly creeping up on him. The dark lent itself neatly to one's desire for rest as well. He fought the urge as long as he could, but soon he too was fast asleep, snoring in rhythm with his best friend.

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He wasn't conciously aware of having woken up, but suddenly Eric found himself staring down at a stack of paper infront of him. What was he supposed to do with it again?

Deliver it to their trailer. Something said in his head. He blindly obeyed, getting to his feet, tucking the sheaves of paper under his left arm and marching out the door. But who was 'they'? Why did he feel as if he knew exactly what he was doing, and yet had no clue why he was doing it? It was almost like his whole body, and his very brain were on automatic pilot, and someone else had set in the programming.

Whatever the case, it was getting scary. Extremely scary. All along his trek to wherever it was he was going, he would pause to nod to people or shout a hello. He recognized them... and he didn't. He even called them by name, even though he could have sworn he'd never seen them before in his life.

It hadn't taken long to reach his destination. He knocked on the door and was ushered inside by a rather frazzled looking woman who barely managed to mutter a hello before vanishing once again. A quick glance at his wrist told him why. It was still very early-- 5:30am. All the people within looked sluggish, as if they were still shaking off the effects of the previous night's sleep. Or lack thereof, as the case may have been.

"Hey you! Morning! Come on back here!" Someone called from a room down the hall a bit. Eric shrugged and followed the sound of the person's voice. He walked in to find himself face to face with four guys who looked familiar, but he couldn't quite place his finger on who they were.

Squinting slightly, hoping that would do some good, he took in everyone's appearance. There was one with brown hair who stood approximately 5'7. He would have looked a fair amount like Davy, he mused, if not for the whole height difference and the shortness of his hair.

A second was lounging against the wall, running a hand through his extremely short hair. It had a slight curl to it, and the shape of the man's face harkened back to Micky's own, but not a perfect match. Still, with a wig or something he could have easilly passed for Eric's friend.

Number three was a blonde. He wore his hair in a short, spiked fashion, not at all like anything he'd ever seen before in his lifetime. Most everyone he knew wore their hair long, roughly at shoulder length or so. Matter of fact, all of these guys had pretty short hair, and their clothes were pretty funny. He noted the second wore a pair of baggy jeans and a leather jacket. Weird. These people have NO sense of style.

The fourth was sitting in an overstuffed armchair. This guy had black hair that he had apparently let grow out a bit. Nothing else was particularly interesting about number four except for something he was tossing from hand to hand in fascination. Eric was shocked when he realized that this guy was, in fact, playing with Mike's green wool hat. Mike wouldn't have let that thing out of his sight... unless something had happened to Mike. Panic set in at that moment. Where were the Monkees at anyway? He hadn't seen them since he went to bed last night.

His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by number three-- the blonde-- who was holding out his hand expectantly.

"Huh?" Eric was, to put it mildly, bewildered.

"Gonna hand that over?" The blonde tapped his foot a little with a playful grin on his face. Whoever he was, he wasn't upset, more amused at Eric's disorientation.

The papers! This guy wanted the papers! Eric scrambled and handed them over in a slightly haphazard fashion. The blonde suddenly let out a big laugh. "You're either even more tired than the rest of us, or you're new around here."

"I.. I guess." Eric was uncertain how exactly he should respond to that question. "To the second... not the.. the first question."

The flustered, awkward moment only made number three laugh harder. "It's alright. You'll catch on quickly. First movie and all, you're bound to make a few mistakes." He slapped Eric on the back and rejoined the other three across the room.

Names came to him then. LB. He noted the blonde, then turned to the other three sitting on chairs a few feet away. Aaron, Jeff and George. He had the names now, that was a good first step, but who were they? And why were they so damn familiar? Gathering up his courage he asked, "Who---"

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"UP AND AT 'EM!" Kez bellowed from the shower.

Eric shot bolt upright. He was awake. What a weird dream! But who was to say what was a dream and what was reality anymore? Which was the fact and which was the fiction? Who were those people, and why did they know him? It had to have been a dream and nothing more. Yes, that had to be it. A dream. Just a dream. Despite this rationale, a million questions still fought for attention by his brain.

He remembered passing a mirror in his dream. The person staring back was wearing clothes similar in style to the four he had met. Who was that man in the mirror? Was that him?

Who am I?

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"My.. my.. the clock in the sky is pounding away... there's so much to say..." Aaron hammered out on the drums while singing along to the theme from the Monkees' one and only movie, 'Head'. This was secretly one of his favorite tunes. It had such a mellow sound and you could almost imagine yourself being carried along on the music like the waves at high tide. "Wanting to be... to hear and to see... crying to the sky..."

"But the Porpoise is laughing, goodbye, goodbye...." George added in the backup vocals smoothly.

"Goodbye.. goodbye... goodbye..."

As they started into the second verse, Eric stumbled inside, looking for all the world like a crazy man, hair askew, eyes wild. The whole thought of everything he ever knew being a lie had sent his mind spiraling around wildly.

"The ego sings ... of castles and kings and things that go ... with a life of style ..."

A lie. His entire being practically screamed for the truth.

"Wanting to feel ... to know what is real ... living is a lie ..."

Talk about good timing. He bit back the fear in the pit of his stomach and willed his mind into silence so that he could speak clearly. "Guys?"

The music came to a hault.

"Sorry. Didn't hear yah come in." George set down the tambourine with a clank.

"Morning!" Kez stuck his head into the room through the front door at that moment. Eric realized, ruefully, that he had been followed. This was going to make it harder to ask the questions he needed answers to. Kez would surely dismiss him as crackers, or accuse him of dipping into the secret stash of 'happy stuffs' ,(more commenly known as a random assortment of various hallucinogenic drugs) Kez kept under his bed for 'special' occasions.

"Groovy sound, Mick." Eric awkwardly approached the bandstand.

"Thanks." Micky grinned his best smile, but it felt hollow to Eric. While it was probably just as warm as it had always been, the image of guy number two still swarmed in his mind. He despirately wanted to know what everything meant. He placed a hand on Micky's shoulder in what he hoped appeared a friendly gesture, but for Eric it was more to make sure that Micky was really sitting there infront of him and it wasn't just another dream.

"Uhm, Eric? Could you let me talk to the guys for a moment?" Kez broke in rather suddenly. Eric's senses were on alert. Why did they want to get rid of him? Maybe Kez was in on this whole thing to. Nodding slowly, he walked outside, down the steps and to the sandy shore of the beach. While the others assumed he would just go for a walk, Eric waited until he was out of their sight and instead, doubled back. Whatever was going down up there, he wanted to find out.

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The VH1 movie "Daydream Believers: The Monkees Story" is copywrite Pebblehut Productions. I am in no way affiliated with the guys who played the Monkees (Aaron Lohr, LB Fisher, George Stanchev, and Jeff Geddis) in this movie. I just wrote this out of admiration for the guys and the incredible job done on the movie. If you don't agree with my interpretation of one of the actors or one of them happens to actually READ this... I'm simply guessing about what they're (you're) really like. No offense is intended! This fanfic is copywrite Random Fandom. If you would like to link Random Fandom on your own website, be my guest!