"She Loves You" and Other One-Shots Regarding the Beatles.

IF RINGO WAS NINETY

IN HONOR OF THE NINETY READS WE HAVE RECEIVED AS A PART OF BEATLE ONE-SHOTS, THIS "SAGA" OF THE BEATLES AT AGE NINETY HAS BEEN CONCEIVED AS A THANK YOU GIFT, SO TO SPEAK. I HOPE YOU ENJOY!

Being at the age of ninety had never stopped Ringo from touring, neither had the ages of seventy-six and through the eighties saga. He was cheerful as he could be, even in a wheelchair being gently pushed by his wife, Barbara, in the freshness of the park. The birds were chirping in his ears, the bees flying to and fro the newly sprouted flowers of every color visible to the naked eye. The concert from last night was lingering in his head. The fans had been pleased with him, he could tell be the way they clapped and clapped and even went to the extent of screaming the lyrics. It was an amazement in and of itself there were these young teenagers at his concert, enjoying his performance almost as much as he was. The memory made him smile. Barbara did not have to be looking at his face to see the smile in her mind; it was a smile she had memorized in her brain ever since he first showed her it. Today was no different, touring the world or not.

Still, Ringo was not as young as he had been; in the sixties, touring was an amazement at the age of twenty-two, and it still was at the age of ninety. But the feelings that came with touring were different, strange even, to his old mind. The screams of the crowd were as they had always been: piercing and loud, but he had grown used to that with his nearing seventy years of touring. It was not the screams themselves, but what was present within them. Cries of joy, cries of fear, cries of anguish. He could tell they were dying as he himself was. And that was what made him cry that day in the park, in front of all the tiny children playing on the playground equipment, and the parents of the children.

Barbara touched his shoulder and rubbed it gently, but he could hear the tears in her own voice as she said, "Richie, my God, Richard, I-" she shook her head and stopped speaking, but continued soon after. "We can all relate, we all can, dear."

He nodded, murmured his thanks. Maybe she was right - whoever 'we' were, they could relate to his being, to his dying being. Barb had certainly been right before. Why should she not now?

"Who's 'we'?"

"'We' is, well, it's your fans and your family, Richie."

"The fans are my family; my family are my fans."

Barbara smiled at that. "Indeed, indeed."

The next day was another concert. Ringo waited until nightfall to be risen up on the stage, seated in his wheelchair behind the drum set. He thanked the audience, but said nothing more as something fell onto his forehead.

What is goi - ?

Another drop then, when he looked up, a third one splashed onto his cheek. He wiped off the liquid - rain, maybe? - off his face and had no time to wonder what the liquid-stuff was because another peculiar thing happened.

His vision strengthened and dimmed then regained the normal vision, as normal as it could be under the circumstances. He smiled at the audience and shrugged. "Just some weather, that's all-"

Complete and utter darkness. He could hear the audience mumbling in confusion while others' screams were loud so it appeared they were right next to him on stage. The band members on stage were talking: "Was it a power outage?" "Make sure not to fall off - the edge of this stage isn't exactly glow-in-the-dark!"

Ringo sat in the wheelchair. It was not as if he could move anywhere, he had been recommended not to, as old age had weakened his legs. Walking was not an option, and if it had been, it would leave him in the same boat as his band mates, whom he had assumed were standing still on the stage and not walking around. He hoped they had not ventured to move around; the edge of the stage was waiting for them, and the audience sounded as if they had enough of the panic of chaos without a person falling into their midst.

Seconds led into minutes led into hours. He could hear the shuffle of feet, barely audible over the man speaking in his ear:

"Sorry, folks, just passing over, ovver."

At least, he thought it was a man speaking, perhaps, one elderly pilot with a high voice and a crew of passengers overseeing the concert. But airplanes and helicopters had flown over his concerts before, and the stage lights had stayed lit. This time, something was different, not necessarily wrong, just different and peculiar, especially.

The man in his ear spoke again. "This passing-by may by a bit, sorry to alarm you, folks. But it has been a wonderful time with you, wonderful, even just passing by like such. A wonderful time it has been, but we must go back, yes, we must...wonderful..."

Ringo stayed where he was in the darkness, breathing almost faster than usual, but it was no longer darkness. A blinding light of white flashed through his eyes. He could hear the surprised screams of people as the stage light overhead regained its light. His eyes seemed to be bulging from their sockets.

"Wow, wow!"
It was not because the stage lights had been turned back on, but because of what his eyes were seeing. He almost missed it; having been looking at the floor was a change from looking at the sky. The night sky seemed rather bright now, having been in complete darkness before, and he could see something brighter still than the moon and the stars combined. He was not the only one looking, as the murmurs were back. A slash of silver cut across the blanket of dark. Tiny stars floated through the slash and dissolved. The slash slanted then was swallowed by the night sky. The man's voice wished Ringo and the audience a good night, and was gone, no less an alien than he had been when the lights had first shut off, no more when the same lights came back on. The alien-man was dying, too, like the screams, and Ringo himself, but 'we' could all relate, whoever 'we' was, as Barbara had said. Ringo certainly did, and he knew deep in his gut somewhere, the starman could, too.