Experiment 6
Experiment 6

He’d never thought his life would revolve around one person. The whole idea of finding a soul mate was total bullshit in his eyes, and the dysfunctional family he’d come from had squashed love for him. Unbeknownst to him, Gladys and Bob Gladstone fought the first day they brought him home from the hospital, vowing they’d never steal another child again. Little Glen had shrieked the whole drive home, after emerging from Gladys’s sweatshirt. In the back of her mind, she’d almost contemplated rolling down the window and taking back the horrific crime they’d committed. All in the hopes of getting some welfare from the infant.
He’d slept on the floor for the first three years of his life, his developing lungs adjusting themselves to the perpetual fog of pot he lived in. Surprisingly, Glen reminisced with joy at those memories. It was the only time he was always high and happier than ever. But it crippled him severely. It took him three tries to get through kindergarten, and by the time he miraculously reached middle school, he refused to go to school. Not that Gladys and Bob cared. They were always off on another adventure, committing petty theft, getting high, and their favorite hobby, torturing Glen in the afternoons.
When Glen’s truancy was noticed by the state, off went Gladys and Bob. Their baby-stealing charade was up and funnily, they thrived in prison. But he never saw them again. And Glen became a pinball machine in foster care. But one music teacher in middle school saw Glen’s potential. He discovered rhythm and patterns, and it thrilled him to no extent. Taking the cookie jar stash from his latest foster parents’ kitchen, he bought a drum kit and hid it in a friend’s garage. That same friend found a singer, and the trio became this discombobulated band for the next three years.  Mr. Bradley had a contact in the music industry in Seattle, an old college roommate. The day they recorded their best demo, they were signed.
World tours and screaming fans ensued and it was the greatest high he ever had. He had bank accounts with amounts he couldn’t even dream up, and he played in cities he couldn’t even pronounce. But two years later, he was exhausted. The bank took a break for the next album. But he saw a girl sitting in a coffee shop one day on a free day in New York, and it changed him forever. He couldn’t explain it, he just knew. She was it.
He brazenly sat down at her table, startling her out of her reader’s haze. Her eyes were big and beautiful and she’d never heard of him, he learned. And he told her that was a good thing. But unfortunately, his whole life did revolve around Lily from that day on. Some days, he almost wished the band would just break up already. But their success was magnetic. Once one hit was over, the next popped in like magic. And she joined in, becoming the angelic voice behind their lyric-less triad.
They lived ten more years together, never had children, and sulked when the band was over. But he was happy. Glen now had the rest of the life for her. And he gave her everything, even his life.