Chapter 1
His name was Zack, but to the world he was simply —The Rock Legend.
Every morning he stood in front of the bathroom mirror, pulled his baseball cap low over his forehead to hide his bald spot, and declared loudly: “Today I rule the world again, baby!” His voice did whatever it wanted — sometimes cracking, sometimes completely off-key — but according to him, that was “pure artistic expression.”
Zack performed regularly at the local pub “The Rusty Barrel” in front of his loyal crowd of about twenty fans. The audience started laughing the moment he stepped onto the “stage” (two pushed-together tables). “Here comes the king of the progressive wave!” someone would shout. Zack would nod seriously and reply, “Exactly. And today I’m also responsible for global warming. Sorry about that.”
At home he wore a colorful flowery skirt — “This is my creative energy, you wouldn’t understand” — but only with the blinds down. Whenever sunlight poured into the small house he had built himself (don’t ask how he got the land), he would immediately put on his sunglasses. “Gotta keep the inspiration from escaping, zoom!” he would explain with full seriousness.
He sang at the top of his lungs:
“Grass grows so faaast… I won’t say which grass, those are the facts!”
The crowd howled with laughter. Zack took it as thunderous applause. The city was full of crazy nights, but he only saw good vibrations. His intelligence ran on batteries — sometimes they ran low, so the smile stayed wide while the words disappeared.
One evening after he finished his latest hit “Sunglasses in the Dark,” the bartender approached him and said, “Zack, we only had eight people tonight.”
Zack shrugged, adjusted his cap, and replied with absolute conviction:
“Doesn’t matter to me at all…Because I’m a famous rocker, baby!”
Then he put on his sunglasses in the middle of the night, grabbed his guitar, and headed home humming. His off-key voice echoed down the empty street:
“New energyyy… in rainbow colorsss…”
Somewhere behind him, a stranger laughed and muttered:“Legend. Absolute legend.”
The End.😂
