hello,

i’ve decided to release my 4th of july plans to the public. this is the first time i’m doing this, so i’m a bit nervous, but i don’t want to keep it a secret anymore, as i’ve done for all of the other years. the 4th of july has always been the most secretive day of the year for me, but this ends today. today, i am free. today, i am honest. a happy loud holiday to us all. it means a lot to me that you are reading this! love, audrey.

my 4th of july plans

july 4th, 2019.

the loud holiday is finally upon us and i couldn’t be happier. frankly, i’m looking forward to today being the single loudest day of the year, and i can’t wait to contribute to the loudness as much as one human possibly can.  

today is the day of the booming holiday, celebrating what we value most in this country: noise. my plan for the 4th of july is simple. in the morning, i will wake up, know that it is the 4th of july, and go back to bed. i will then begin grilling, but during dreaming. i will flip a steak on the grill with a long metal stick, and i will look around me as all of my friends dance. smash mouth will be playing a live show, from a stage, except one of the band members will be replaced by a broom. 

i’ll wake up, mad as shit—the perfect attitude to begin this loud day. it’s 9 am at this point, so i’ll open my windows to let in the screaming. everyone is screaming and running outside, as expected. people run back and forth, on their legs, but some of them are running on their arms. it’s morning, but there are already fireworks, as there have been for the past four days. i will feel anxious, because everyone has already been being loud for probably hours at this point, and i haven’t even begun yet! i will look down at them, let out a strong scream, and open and shut my windows many times, slamming them—my first loud act of the day. 

and then it will be time to grill. i’ll take the pack of 105% all-beef hot dogs out of my fridge and wrap them up in a map of the united states. when the cold hot dogs are all wrapped up like a baby in the map of my country, i will kick them at the wall, and they will bounce back and hit me right in the stomach. i will grunt a big american grunt, pick the lump of mapped hot dogs up and DUNK it into the basketball hoop attached to my wall (that i had just installed the previous evening, in preparation for the 4th). the dunk will be so powerful that the hoop will crash down, bringing down part of my wall with it, as well as several framed photos, which will fall on a lamp, causing that to crash into the floor as well. with the wall destroyed, i will be able to see through to my neighbor’s home. i will also be able to see that she has already begun her grilling by setting her whole kitchen on fire. 

“come on in!” she will screech at me, before literally throwing a chair through her closed window. 

“hang on,” i will say, quickly knocking over the rest of my furniture with my sturdy USA hands, everything loudly crashing to the floor in a wonderful way fit for a big loud holiday. 

after throwing my mapped hot dogs into her grill (aka her fiery whole kitchen), she will make a request to her amazon alexa device. 

“alexa, play smash mouth… at full volume.” 

“playing smash mouth, at full volume.” 

the song “walking on the sun” blasts from several speakers and we watch our meats, and her kitchen, burn. the fire will spread into my home, and then it will be time to leave for the BBQ. 

after setting fire to and completely destroying our apartments, my neighbor and i will make our way to her friend wade’s backyard BBQ party on the east side(which is a detail i have mentioned to seem cool but is otherwise useless) as music blasts from every house on our street. some people are just standing on the sidewalks staring at the sky open-mouthed, as music also blasts from their mouths, somehow. 

upon arriving at the backyard BBQ party, my neighbor and i will enter the yard and let out an introductory shriek, to which everyone at the party won’t be able to hear because they are all also shrieking. smash mouth is playing. at least 50 people, and i know none of them, will be there and each of them will be grilling on their own individual grill. one of the trees in the backyard is on fire, and someone has just finished drinking all of the water out of the pool. he takes his last gulp and lets out a large scream of his own. 

by 3 pm, everyone is drunk on meat juice and lighting off small fireworks off their own asses. someone has filled the pool with snakes, but nice ones who are holding little american flags with their tails (hand?is the tail a snake’s hands, as well? sorry, we can talk about this later) they burst into the sky, unseen in the light of day, but still heard, of course, as they are so loud that satan himself hears them from hell and goes, “nice.” i will have scraped the meat out of a hot dog so that it’s just the outside part, and i will use that as a straw for my beverage—a bowl i poured 5 different beers into. half the party is so drunk on meat beer that they each believe that THEY are the lead singer of smash mouth.“all-star” comes on, and everyone suddenly breaks out into a synchronized dance routine to it. 

after the dance routine, it will be 6 pm, when the Evening Fireworks will begin. Evening Fireworks are different than day fireworks because Evening Fireworks can, and definitely will, actually kill you. everyone, all at once will look up to the sky and raise a single hot dog in the air, flailing it around. each ‘work will sound like a ship crashing into your brain, and we will all cry and laugh simultaneously as we all then pile onto one (cooled-off) grill. with all of the BBQ guests stacked on top of each other at this point on one single grill, we will be piled so tall that we, ourselves, reach the sky, just in time for the real fireworks—the final fireworks. 

and now is the time—the loudest time of the loud holiday. the sky will light up with fireworks at literally every inch of where it exists. there will no longer be a sky—it will just be a bright, loud sound. without blinking, we stare at the ‘works, letting the light go into our eyes, back into our brains, and blind us. we stopped being able to hear anything about two hours ago.

dehydrated and almost dead, we will all try to call a Lyft home at the same time, and will each pay $150 to be driven two miles to our self-burnt-down apartments, which we will have to spend the rest of the evening rebuilding, as more neighborhood post-fireworks boom into the sky, so loud that it BRINGS BACK our hearing AND our sight. 

tired, drunk, and full of holiday meat, my neighbor and i play smash mouth and do some holiday night rebuilding. when we’re done, we go into our respective homes. we will not speak again until fourth of july next year, when we will do it all over again. 

i fall asleep listening to“then the morning comes,” knowing that the morning will indeed be arriving soon.