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The Lads, who really were no longer lads, sat quietly. They were not meditating, that would come later, they were each in their own, private dream. They had been told it wasn’t acid, but it was.
“‘Ere, waz this?” they heard.
John opened his eyes first. There stood a slender fellow with a roundish face leaning over him. He had a ‘mop top’ like John had worn a few years back, but he was sort of… well, John was puzzled, he was human, but sort of flat and not well defined. John reached for his glasses only to realize he was wearing them.
“Funny lookin’ chaps,” said another one.
Paul was also staring at the figures.
“Hey, what do you think they are?” said the one with a large nose and a nasal voice.
George, always the quiet one, got up and walked over. The one who hadn’t spoken yet, sort of met him halfway, looking each other over.
“I think they look familiar,” he said. He turned to John.
“They don’t even look real,” his bespectacled companion said.
“We don’t look real?” the round faced man said with a laugh. “Look at yourselves!”
John, and then the others did so, but they looked fine, granted, compared to the flat colors and undefined figures, their gaudy shirts looked exotic.
“I agree with George,” Paul said slowly. “There is something familiar about them.”
The four flatter foursome laughed. “Don’t you know who we are?” asked the round-faced man who seemed to be the leader.
“I…” Richard started, “...I think you are The Beatles…”
His friends turned to him. Only John was surprised.
“What do you mean?” he demanded. “We are…”
“No,” Paul interrupted. “Rich is right, they are The Beatles.”
John glared at his friend.
“From that show,” George agreed.
“Show?” asked the other foursome. “What show?”
Dawning showed on John’s face. None of them cared for the program, but all of them had at least seen an episode of it.
“What are they doing here?” he asked.
But the other three had been looking around.
“John,” Paul said, remarkably gently. “Look around.”
Then the lead guitarist did so. Instead of the pretty garden they had been in, a rather flat landscape with only bare hints of buildings was around them.
“I think a better question might be…” George started.
“... how do we get home?” Rich finished.
“So,” the round-faced man had waited long enough. “Who are you blokes?”
“We are…” John started.
“...another band,” Paul interrupted.
“Oh?” the thinner man with a long face asked. “What instruments do you play?”
“I play bass,” Paul replied.
The man who had mostly been silent after the first little exchange kind of moved forward. He wore a rather strange, collarless blue suit coat with a tie, like the round faced man. “Cool,” he said.
“I play the drums,” Rich said.
“That’s what I play,” said the chap with the large nose and nasal voice.
His voice, more than the others, showed a more exaggerated accent. ‘Bad imitation of Richard’s voice,’ John thought.
“So, what do you play, mate?” the long faced man asked George.
“Mostly rhythm guitar, but I’m learning others like the sitar.”
John thought distancing themselves from these fake Beatles who thought they were real was clever on George’s part.
“I guess that makes you lead guitar,” the round-faced animation said.
“I guess you’re right,” John said, not sure how to prevent that from showing up.
“Maybe we’ve heard of you?” the round faced leader asked.
“Oh… no…” Paul started, frowning and shaking his head.
The other three followed Paul’s lead, shaking their heads.
“Maybe we’ve heard something you’ve played,” the Paul animation said.
“I don’t think so,” John answered.
“We have our instruments over here, maybe you could play something for us,” the thin faced animated George said.
Unsure, the foursome followed the other group to where there were some guitars and a drum set set up in the middle of nothing.
‘Not very good care of their stuff,’ John thought. Still he picked up the guitar.
At first it felt flimsy and unreal, but when he had strummed a few bars, the guitar began to become more real.
He looked over at the others, their guitars were also becoming real. The drum set was taking longer, but it was getting there.
The animated Paul was rather excited to find the real Paul was also left handed.
‘This is not real,’ John admonished himself. He was beginning to be afraid if they stayed here too long they’d get stuck.
“Your song,” John looked at George. “Guitar gently weeps…”
George looked a little put off, then sort of realized it wouldn’t be one these guys would know.
George started picking out the notes with Rich right behind him, on the drums. It was so new they sort of stumbled a bit at first but soon got it down when George started singing.
“I look at you all…” he started.
Paul looked over at John and gave him an approving look. By making it seem to have George the lead singer rather than either of them.
The Fab Flatsome seemed to enjoy listening to someone else sing a song they hadn’t written or heard of before.
At the end of the song John stopped and gave the guitar a kind of move that the others interpreted as they were done.
“That was really fab,” the flat Paul said.
“Thanks,” George said.
“Let’s introduce ourselves,” John said. “I’m Winston, this is James, Rich is over on the drums and this is George.” He put a hand on George’s shoulder. “He’s our lead singer.”
At first his bandmates looked at him confused, then realized what he had done.
“That’s me name too,” the animated George said.
“It’s a common name,” ‘Winston’ said. “George and the dragon and all that rot.”
None of the flat foursome seemed to realize the names really were their own.
“Do you know our songs?” the animated John asked the group.
A quick glance between the four and then Paul said: “Sure.”
From nowhere, through the miracle of animation, more guitars and another drum kit showed up. The thin, blue dressed four gathered their instruments. Standing next to them, John noted how much larger than normal humans their animated depictions had heads. Very odd, John thought. He also noticed the three guitar players stood with their legs tight together and their feet kind of sticking out to the side.
“I Saw Her Standing There?” his counterpart asked.
John looked at his bandmates.
Paul must have figured out what he was doing. “How about you start, and we’ll join you.”
The round-faced leader nodded. He quickly counted down and started. The Fab Four joined a few bars in with the Flat Four.
None of the real men sang but joined in the ‘oooos’ and the chorus.
As they started the second verse, they suddenly heard screaming. The flat group dropped their instruments, grabbed the real men, which felt really weird, almost like paper cuts, and their guitars also fell away.
“Run!” shouted the animated John.
And they ran, barely staying ahead of the weird mob. Somehow the song continued to play while they ran.
The animated group ran through a door, and they found themselves in a department store. They could hear the mob behind them. The group discovered the appliance section. The flat group ran around trying to find things to hide behind.
“Look,” Richard said.
He was standing in front of a TV set. John stopped, after all, the crazily drawn mob was looking for their animated counterparts and not them.
“Hey!” the crowd had stopped but still seemed to be moving. “Did you see which way they went?”
John pointed off toward the furniture section. And the strange crowd moved off. John gave his attention to his friend again.
Rich leaned over and stuck his hand through the screen.
“What?” John asked.
He did it too. There wasn’t glass there and also his hand looked... different?
Paul and George came over.
“Let's take a look,” George said.
John started to lean forward.
Paul put his hand on John’s shoulder. “Not you, John, we don’t want you to lose your specs if something happens.”
John gave him an annoyed look, but leaned back. Before anyone could stop him, Rich did it.
They saw his mouth move, but couldn’t hear what he said. He kind of looked back at them, then jumped through.
The threesome now looked at the TV and saw a tiny Richard waving a ‘come on’ at them.
“Well...” George said and dove in after him.
Now the two lead singers saw the pair signaling them.
“This is mad,” John said. Then went through himself, followed by Paul at his heels.
The four men were in the room they had been in before. But not standing, sitting as they had been before. They each opened their eyes and looked at each other.
“I had the craziest dream,” Rich said.
“So did I,” George agreed.
“We were together in that...” Paul started.
“It’s impossible,” John said. “It must have been some bad drugs.”
The four men looked at each other and nodded. They would never speak of it, but it did haunt their dreams sometimes.