Hypotheticals

A Gorillaz story by Balloon Animal

"What did Kurt Cobain, Sid Vicious and Marilyn Monroe all have in common?"

2D paused for a moment before answering. Murdoc was well known for his trick questions. Whatever his answer, it was usually the wrong one. He worried his bottom lip, more preoccupied with the ball and chain that was cutting into his ankle than the current conversation.

"I dunno… drug addiction?"

This was the wrong answer.

"No, you blithering idiot, the other thing!" Murdoc thumped his fist down onto the grimy kitchen table and scattered debris onto the grimier floor. That was the problem with living on enormous mound of garbage. The garbage. "Think about it. It's the one thing that made them all undeniable legends. Immortals when their contemporaries simply faded into oblivion" He held a long yellowed fingernail into the air to punctuate his point.

2D took another moment to think. Nope, nothing. He gave up with a shrug.

"An untimely death!" Murdoc stated in victory. "A spectacular finale! The ultimate exit to a rip-roaring, gut wrenching rollercoaster of a life. Plucked straight from the prime of their lives. Beautiful."

2D nodded slowly, eyes darting to see if there was anything nearby that could use to pick a lock.

"Yeees," Murdoc scraped at his bristled chin, obviously pleased with this new revelation. He took a moment from his contemplation to take a swig from a dusty rum bottle, charmingly labeled with three large crosses. Murdoc had quickly discovered he could save valuable time by eliminating a glass from the drinking process.

"So, do you think you could, like, unlock me please? I don't think I can feel me foot anymore."

"You see my dim friend, I've been endlessly thinking about how I could possible maintain this wonderful notoriety I've got going on. No matter how great my achievements even the memory of myself will be washed away by the seas of time." He stared out at nothing in particular with a wistful expression. Long periods of isolation had a tendency to make a man poetically reflective. Well, that and the alcohol.

2D was beginning to catch on to what Murdoc was suggesting. "Are you saying you wanna top yourself?" He tried to keep the hope out of his voice.

"What? No!" Barked Murdoc, snapped out of his thoughts. "Well, not literally anyway. This is completely hypothetical."

There was a sudden lurch in the room. Tables and cabinets rattled while random objects became airborne. When the weather was choppy outside the Plastic Beach tended to sway back and forth like a pendulum. On the rare occasions like today when 2D was allowed out of his room, it usually was when the weather was on a turn for the worst. Perhaps because it was more difficult for him to escape, or maybe Murdoc just liked to watch him suffer. It was probably both. His face went green and Murdoc… well; Murdoc was green no matter what the weather.

"Whoa, that was a big one wannit?" Completely unaffected by the commotion, Murdoc caught the rum bottle which had just teetered over the edge of the table and helped himself to another swig.

2D's fingers were clenched to the table, knuckles white. He wasn't sure why Murdoc even brought him up here at all. When he wasn't incarcerated with a murderous whale watching over him, he was in chains upstairs with a mentally unstable (and possibly suicidal?) sociopath.

If he didn't know any better he would have thought that Murdoc enjoyed it all.

The sharp yellow teeth grinning back at him also may have been a clue.

The rattling had subsided and everything became eerily quiet. It was only flashes of lightning and distant rumbles of thunder that penetrated the silence while Murdoc gave him a very long and intense stare.

"If it were me, I'd probably O.D on pills." Tentatively suggested 2D.

Murdoc groaned. "That's the most sodding, pansy-arsed way to go. Why don't I just slash my wrists to an Evanescence album?"

"Just tryin' to help," said 2D slumping down in his seat, wondering why he was even humoring this man.

"No, it has to be spec-tac-you-larrrr," stressed Murdoc, fluttering his fingers around his head. "It has to be out of this world, you see, unimaginable. Headline news in every country."

"Why don't you just stick some fireworks up your bum." 2D had had enough of Murdoc's mania for today.

Strangely enough, Murdoc considered this. He pressed a finger to his chin thoughtfully. "Close, but probably too melodramatic. I need to keep some dignity intact."

"Well I fink this is sick," 2D crossed his arms in distaste. "Shouldn't be talking about this kind of stuff, I reckons."

"Sickness… It could possibly work. Me ailing in bed with some newly discovered infectious disease, incurable of course. Doctors baffled – the world in pandemonium at the prospect of an international epidemic with me being the origin of its source. Hhhmmm"

2D observed Murdoc's current state of hygiene. "Actually, that one's not so far-fetched."

Murdoc pressed on, now deep in this spiral of thought. "Noo, I really think it has to be dramatic. Violent. Stuff the kids will cry about and movies will reenact. Something that will make me bigger than… than…"

Murdoc's bloodshot eyes widened and 2D could swear he heard the gears grinding in his head. In one swift movement Murdoc reached across the table and grabbed a startled 2D by the collar.

From this perspective 2D could see every filthy detail of his friend. He tried to turn his face away as best as he could to avoid the repulsiveness of it. Murdoc was practically shaking with nervous energy.

"Bigger than John-bloody-Lennon!"

"John… John Lennon?"

"Yeees, why do you think he's still as famous as he ever was?"

"Uh, his music?" 2D was uncomfortable waiting for Murdoc to let him go. He didn't know how much longer he could hold his breath.

In a simple release of a fist, 2D was propelled backwards, his chair tumbling behind him in a spectacular crash to the ground. Murdoc blew an impressive raspberry while he comfortably sat back down and helped himself to another swallow of pirate-grade rum. "His music? Total bollocks. Nahhh, it was his assassination that made him who he is." Murdoc took a particular liking to the word and rolled it around his tongue, "assassination, ahhh, hmmm."

2D shakily seated himself back at the table, tugging the ball and chain closer and wondering what terrible thing he had done in his past life to deserve this. "But people shoot at you all the time Murdoc? Doesn't really make the news though."

"In this rare moment I will have to agree with you dullard. That's why my assassin-to-be would have to be completely unexpected. People would speculate about it for centuries." It was all very clear to Murdoc now. His eyes sparkled with a dream-like intensity.

2D was now so wrapped up in Murdoc's disturbed plot he couldn't contain his curiosity. "But, who…?"

There was a sudden strike of lightning, which illuminated the grin stretching across Murdoc's face. A burst of thunder quickly followed, rattling the windows and shaking the cabinets.

"Why, isn't it obvious dullard?" He lowered his face, sinister eyes peeking out beneath the thick curtain of his fringe, "it's you."

"Me?" 2D swallowed, for the first time wishing he were back in his room. He'd rather try his luck with a homicidal 100-ton whale than continue to follow Murdoc down this twisted path. "Why me?"

"Imagine the publicity! It would be the story of the decade! Front man murders bass legend! Phooar, think of the trials! People would line up for days to pay tribute to me. They'd name parks after me. No, mountains. No, Scientific theorems!"

It was during times like this that 2D desperately missed his two other currently mysteriously absent band members, at least when they were around Murdoc had to keep some control over his insanity. Here at Plastic Beach it was completely unrestrained. In fact, with a combination of rum and isolation, Murdoc had been gleefully cultivating it.

"Why would I wanna kill you?" Before the words were even out of his mouth 2D knew how stupid this question was.

"Clearly you were driven to madness living in the shadow of my genius."

2D nearly choked in indignation. If Murdoc was going to have him hypothetically assassinate him, he should at least make it hypothetically plausible. "More like I'd knock you off for being a right tosser."

"Hmm, I like my version better."

"So, how would I do it?" If he was going to fake-murder Murdoc, he felt he had every right to know how it would happen.

"A stabbing rage perhaps? Use my body parts for some tribal ritual?"

2D grimaced. That just wasn't his style.

"Awright, how about this then – we're on the final performance of our tour reaching the crescendo of our encore – and then blammo! I take you out with a double necked guitar. Sparks everywhere."

Murdoc gave 2D such an intense look, that for a minute 2D was sure he was going to hit him. Instead he took a swig of rum and then slammed it back down on the table. "Brilliant! Gaaw, I gotta write that one down." He patted his shirt pocket and shakily retrieved a crumpled notebook and hastily scrawled down the nights musings.

2D blinked. He had no idea where this was all going.

After Murdoc carefully folded his notes and patted them back down into his pocket, he lit himself a cigarette and leaned back in his chair, sighing and gazing up at the ceiling, with smoke wafting around him. "Of course it would all be completely staged. I'd get a body double in place and be on a plane to Tahiti before they even slapped the handcuffs of you." He let out a trademark laugh. "Image, all those thousands of people queuing up to my funeral."

"They'd only come to make sure you were dead." Mumbled 2D

"Oh lighten up you sodding wet blanket. It's only a hypothetical. Christ!" He grabbed one of the few glasses that hadn't found its way to the floor and poured a generous helping of rum. He pushed it towards 2D and wiggled his eyebrows.

2D shook his head. He had learned not to accept drinks from Murdoc from the last four times they had been spiked with rohypnol.

He was overcome with an intense wave of melancholy. Wondering why almost ten years ago, the fates decided to let him cross paths with this strange man. The moment was broken however, when the wind outside picked and jostled the island.

Things flew again, and this time Murdoc wasn't so steady in his seat. The rum flew from his hand and with a curse he was knocked to the other side of the room crashing dramatically into the bookshelf at the far end.

2D, on the other hand, hadn't even moved a foot. The ball and chain had efficiently weighted him to the spot preventing him from being catapulted like shrapnel. If there were such things as gods of fate, it seemed like they didn't completely have it in for 2D.

Hypothetically of course.