What Have You Been Doing These Last Few Months?

Ask her.

As a man committed to not having children, I always try to avoid long interactions with young people. I teach adults, and whenever groups of juniors are coming to the school, I sing creepy songs in the staffroom to dissuade my superiors from asking me to teach them. I have my reasons. Even if we can get past the tangled web that is the True Directioners versus Beliebers debate, we usually end up at loggerheads over whether Led Zeppelin or LMFAO is the better 'classic' band. Teens and tweens are stubborn, and sometimes I think they wilfully ignore my subtle arguments in favour of the geniuses that created Sexy and I Know It. Unimpressed by their insolence, I often find myself resorting to, 'Well, I'm an adult and you'll just have to trust me when I tell you that Zeppelin are the inferior band', or 'Well, I don't really trust the opinion of someone who has lived in only one millennium.'  Remember, those of us who are older than thirteen are among the few humans who have lived through two millennia (though it sometimes feels longer) and can gleefully gloat to the tweens of today, who just missed out. Of course, their pubescent voices utter the usual spiteful comebacks —  the Christian calendar is a relic of a time when humans knew little about the world; it's off Christ's birth by four years; it's not universal; it's a largely arbitrary division of time; it rides closely to the system naturally borne out by the solstices, yet fails to use them as natural markers; mathematically, millennial celebrations a year premature — but all of these are overshadowed by the awe-inducing fact that all four digits on the calendar changed literally overnight. And those little guys missed the whole thing. Hate that! To further their sense of loss, we bore witness to a mystique and sense of unknown not felt since more naive times, as the millennium brought with it some unanswered questions.

Perhaps the greatest mystery left in the wake of the year 2000 is the complete disappearance of M People. This popular band, which thrived throughout the 1990s, vanished completely at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve 1999, never to be seen again. Not a single tween will be able to tell you anything about them. The mind quickly concocts explanations to fit the mystery; perhaps pop music veered away from their sound or perhaps they had peaked and had they nothing notable to offer. The truth, however, is far more intriguing, shrouded deep in layers of mystery which can only be unveiled with the cryptic clues they left behind. The lyrics of their songs are deceptively simple. Only upon a closer look do we find clues of a secretive cult, the nature of which we are still jigsawing together. Renowned for my expertise in decrypting song lyrics, British authorities enlisted me as a consultant on the M People mystery. Only now, after the case has gone cold, can I disclose the fascinating details of my enquiry. Moving on Up seemed like the logical starting point, in terms of discography and transparency of clues. The title itself is an obvious allusion to some form of rapture. Lyrics such as 'a sip from the devil's cup' and 'nothing can stop me', however, warrant feelings of trepidation. One Night in Heaven continues the theme of rapture, and Don't Look Any Further continually refers to paradise; pleasant lyrics until the surreptitious, satanic incantation 'Day o umba day o mambu ji ay o'.

Still holding fast to their skepticism, the surly, moustachioed detectives, who I was dealing with, demanded more song exegesis. I pressed on with my evidence until the sinister truth began to emerge.  A Sight for Sore Eyes, I explained, waves the seemingly arbitrary words 'velvet glove' in our faces, all but telling us that their gentle lyrics pack an iron fist. Open Up Your Heart asks for a signal or a sign (but who from?), and  Renaissance tells us, with sinking dread, that somebody is coming home. By 1997, the veil was slipping. Just for You can barely contain the secrets bursting out of it. Why would anyone write the following lyrics, unless they were writing a love letter to the Prince of Darkness or begging Cthulhu to eat them first in the apocalyptic rapture?

I will scream aloud at the altar of God
I love you...

Just for you I'll sacrifice
everything in my life,
I will give all this to you,
dedicate myself to you...

As the Nineties drew to a close, we were told that only the strong survive, in [fallen] Angel Street, while Testify asks members of the cult to pledge their allegiance, showing Heather Small reigning in what seems to be Cocytus. Dreaming laments empty streets, seeds scattered among the stones, and a vision of what used to be. In the final year of the last millennium, the band's lyrics speak of passing through some dark shadow.

Soon we had established a strong framework of their beliefs — the Millennial People worshipped the great Cthulhu, who they asserted underlay all the malevolent figures in history and mythology. They pledged allegiance to him in the hope that when they sacrificed themselves, they would pass him in the netherworld unharmed. Incredulous Bobbies, who initially derided my work, sighed 'Cor blimey' at each revelation. We knew we were on the right track when an assassin tried to kill me with a poisonous dart, shot from a bamboo stick. My investigation led us to the Child of Prague statue, the vaults of the Vatican, the Tower of London, markings on the Great Wall of China, Area 51 in the Nevada Desert, the ruins of the Roman forum, the US treasury, Bethlehem, the Louvre, the Temple of Doom, Machu Piccu, the Egyptian pyramids, the Bermuda triangle, the original Hellfire club, the Voynich manuscript, the Shroud of Turin, Lord Lucan's estates, the Zodiac letters, Easter Island, Loch Ness, Stonehenge, and Tubbercurry, County Sligo. Despite drawing red lines all over the globe, conclusive evidence eluded us, and Scotland Yard suspended the case on the grounds that it wasn't 'a bloody world tour'. The compelling evidence found in their lyrics, coupled with the all-too-coincidental disappearance of the band in 2000 just wasn't enough to further the investigation for British authorities. If we had found the bodies of the band, who almost certainly died in a ritualistic, mass suicide, they would have most likely given us the answers we craved. Like any great mystery, however, the veil of secrecy was too thick to uncover completely, and we could only catch dim glimpses of what the truth may be. Concluding my final report for Scotland Yard, I only had this to say:

"Either the Millennial People have transcended this earthly realm and now reside among the darkest of imploding stars, or the decaying remains of their corpses now lie around a cryptically engraved alter in some secluded basement. We may never know."

Gratuitous, sexy Cthulhu