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Project Pretentious strikes again. A "story" about a party. |
There's a press of bodies around you and you can't see the door anymore
from all around you is thud and a beat and the floor seems to be shaking and if you had any thoughts you wouldn't be able to hear them at the moment near you someone is jumping up and down in what you think is supposed to be in time to the noise around you but you're not sure it's all just heat and haze your ears are ringing with the murmured shouts of blended voices it's all one someone not paying attention bounces into you and somehow the wall of flesh surrounding you manages not to hold your weight and you go tumbling into the solid foundation of the wall catch your breath stop look and listen your breath is hammering a cadence not in time with anything in your head and you can't seem to back away far enough and you can barely make out individual people in the crowd anymore, it's just whirling and spinning forms in the semidarkness someone looks at you and a grin flashes in the halflight and you can feel dazed half glazed eyes focusing on you isn't this great they say to you or at least that's what you think their lips are saying oh ha ha ha ha hahahahaha shift it's going to be great you think to yourself as you survey the room it's empty now for the most part a few people are sitting at tables having their own little conversations, sharing stories that'll wind up being much funnier when retold under the aid of beer and wine you stalk around like a caged animal, in a sense you are, the room will be your confines, your hell and your heaven for the next block of hours and you wouldn't have it any other way because the important thing is that'll it have people talking, a million stories will form out of this night they always do exaggerated and retold and restructured and recreated and some are completely made up out of nowhere but nobody will have any idea which are which in the end when in fact it really doesn't matter because if enough people believe that something is true that makes all the difference, right isn't that the way it goes isn't that the way things are supposed to be the expectations of the looming event are the only answers that resound in your head the doorbell rings and you slide over to answer to let one of the guests come in he greets you politely and steps in, you know that he's imagining what the next few hours are going to be like you can see it reflected in his eyes are surely as if he shouted it in your face grinning at him, you pour something in a glass and offer it to him it hovers between the two of you for a moment and he glances at it then rolls his eyes and sighs and you find yourself starting to laugh because it's just so damn shift the first drink slides down as smooth as grease and you only have to wait a second before the simmering bomb hits your stomach and the warmth of its explosion tingles through your entire body after a few you won't even feel that after a few you won't be feeling anything but then sometimes that's the entire idea some people don't get that and you don't get them, the whole point is to relax and let your inhibitions go it's all about going with the flow going with everything the party has a spirit and a current that you have no choice but to follow already it's forming, the eddies and tides the rhythm that'll propel you through the night like a gateway but they can't see that you can and it makes all the shift cast your eye around the quickly filling room they're all there, what you came here for, just the sight of them makes your heart quicken and something within you spark they gather in packs, they slip through the crowd gracefully, in the pockets and the spaces, seeming to go nowhere but following the patterns and pathways that continually open up, faster than even your eye can detect the room seems to be getting warmer but you really don't mind at the moment adds some ambience to the atmosphere and maybe if you're lucky the increasing heat will cause clothing to start removing itself for comfort that you can deal with a dark haired girl slides past you and rubs against you, the barest of touches but it sets off a million sensations in your body you follow her with your eyes as the crowd closes around her you're sure that you'll meet again but you really don't know and besides, you never really want to focus on just one tunnel vision never did anyone any good, did it now? either way it's going to be an eventful night you can feel it shift the pounding is what does it for you eventually, it's what does you in, drives you from the room it's the mass of people you want to tell yourself, it's the horde that surrounds you and moves in tandem but that's not it the music beats against the inside of your skull, an army of marching drums each keeping to the same time, the same sound a guitar solo screeches through your head sideways and you wince, stumbling through the indifferent partiers it's not the noise or the fumbling headache that sends you running, it's not the rumbling that you feel beneath your feet when you think you can't hear anything else the music presses around you as you make a halfhearted dive for the stairs, nearly running into a couple pressed against the wall, who are standing very very close to each other you barely give each other a passing glance the stairs are dark and you just go headfirst under your feet you can still feel the vibrations and the drowned out shouts of people who are starting to get drunk enough to not realize how loud they're shouting nothing you really give a damn about though nothing that you want to care about what you do care about was what scared the hell out of you, something that you had never realized before and the music thuds the symphony in your bones and you realize what you were so frightened of it's not just music you see, it was just noise, the volume pumped to the point where the instruments just blended into one another and this crushing wall of sound was falling down on you and nobody could make out what was playing and everyone was moving in time with it and you found yourself losing yourself in the crowd, not being who you were anymore, just some faceless movement in the crowd, nothing more than some ill shaped puzzle piece crammed into the wrong spot that's not you there's a sink nearby and you splash water on your face and as you think about it you realize that you're probably just blowing it all out of proportion you told yourself not to have that one drink, it always makes you exaggerate things ha, it's just silly, you think as the water drips down your face, strangely warm and slick might as well go back downstairs and enjoy yourself, immerse yourself in the antics and forget about everything for a little while just some mindless fun with some friends and then the beat shifts ever so slightly and you find yourself tapping your foot along with it and you stop and you look at it and you just stand there shift the world is swirling and your viewpoint is that of a million balloons released into the sky, carried by the wind in any direction, the facets of a jewel are your eyes you're walking on the ceiling you're standing on the moon the music is a far fetched cry in the distance, you're listening to music in your head, singing to a tune that nobody can hear no some can, you can see them, lounging around on a couch, someone has their arms around a girl already and they're going at it haha at least you think it's a girl if your vision wasn't blurred at the edges, if faces didn't fade in and out with alarming regularity if you could even give a damn that the food in your stomach is stirring unhappily, mixed with an enemy they don't seem to like too much your voice sounds foreign to your own ears, you're saying things that don't make any sense, even to you but who the hell cares in these days you move to the thudding you hear around you, jerking your body in directions that feel more fluid than they actually are you're made of rubber you're sharp as glass someone runs into you and you stumble a bit, laughing at the weirdest, funniest joke ever because it concerns you losing your balance and your face hitting the floor and the world turns again and you forget to move with it and ha ha that actually happens and the ground is rushing up and someone is cheering on a spectator and shift whew things are heating up the door seems to resist you opening it, almost like a suction no one wants you to leave but you do and the cooler air from the outside drapes you like a shroud and you breath deep as the heat and the sweat sloughs off you like old skin the door shuts behind you silently, a click you never hear, the music changes from a piercing wall of noise to a more ominous thudding and pounding the floor gyrates at your feet, the vibrations shaking you ever so slightly, if you stood there long enough they might just shake you to the stairwell and you'd fall down and die and everyone would say, ha look at that the music made him kill himself, it's the devil's songs indeed load of bull you descend the steps carefully, the amount of alcohol in you not enough to make you feel weird but enough to make you feel good and you're feeling good, lightheaded, on top of the world, the night is young and warm and as soon as you get outside you can enjoy a cigarette and get back into having fun your steps seem to echo even with the swirling vibrations singing around you, you can see the door to the outside down below, the bastion against the outside world that's what it's all about you realize, the parties, everything, it's a defense against the real world, it's going to get us eventually, it's coming and this is just flipping the bird at it and saying screw you we're not going down that easily we can still be ourselves, goddamn you but it'll come eventually, it always does that thought depresses you somewhat and you find that you're really missing the acrid burn of a cigarette searing into your lungs almost to the door your hand is on the doorknob, cool and rough against your hand when you hear the voices outside, but you can't see anyone but that's not surprising because the window only see straight out and you can't see below never see the things coming from below they must be sitting on the outside steps, and you don't want to interupt them and the proper thing to do would probably be to go back upstairs and wait until they come back and not listen to what they're talking about but hell if they wanted a private conversation they should have gone somewhere private not out there in public just go out and smoke and screw them, it's a goddamn free country but you stand there and listen because in the end you can't think of anything better to do there seems to be two voices, one a girl's and one a guy's and you can barely tell them apart because they're talking so low, as if they don't even want to hear each other "I loved you once, you know." "Did you? I always wondered that actually, like, I mean I thought so for a while but you never said for sure and I was afraid to ask." "Why? You always said that it was never about love, it was just about two people getting together, you know, there was nothing to it." "I . . . I guess I was wrong. I don't know, I always told myself that, that even if I did know, you know, if I knew for sure that it wouldn't make any difference but in time I think . . . if I had known otherwise a little part of me would have . . . died?" "Died?" "Like . . . just gone away, shriveled up or something. But I couldn't win, it was funny because like, if I had known that you, that you loved me then I would have felt weird because then I'd have to look at my own feelings, you know and I didn't want to do that, I just wanted to, to enjoy myself." "Love doesn't always screw things up." "Most of the time it does, you know that. Just in a good way it does sometimes." "And sometimes it's bad, it's that too." "But not all the time, not most of the time, I realized that after a while, like, if someone loves you and deep down you know it you start loving them just as a, as a mirror or something and even if you don't really love them at the start, you will eventually, you just do." "You never said that to me before." "By the time I realized it, it was too late. Would it . . . would it have made any difference anyway?" "No . . . no, I don't think it would have. In the end. You know how it was." "Yeah. I know. I know. And I'm sorry." "Yeah. Me too." and the voices sound thick, as if they're talking underwater and you wonder if maybe they're crying and you can't hear them anymore and just hearing them was stirring something deep inside you, something that you never wanted to admit and you grab the door and yank it open, nearly hitting your leg in the haste and you step out in one smooth fluid motion that screams sober sober sober and there's no one there you look left and right but it's just the night and the lights and the cars speeding silently by in their creeping fashion and you realize that they're gone put it out of your head, don't worry about it with barely trembling hands you take out a cigarette and put it in your mouth, not even pausing in the motion to light it smoke wafts into your eyes and you inhale deeply and you feel the ball of fire slam into the back of your throat and ricochet down your body into your stomach where it turns into a white hot flare of burning sensation and the smoke hits you and the sensation hits you and your eyes keep watering as you stare out into the night and they just won't stop watering and you can taste the cigarette and you can taste the salty wetness and you keep thinking about the boy and the girl and the two crying people and what it meant to you and you say that it means nothing and you keep feeling the wetness on your face and you tell yourself that it's just the cigarette it's just the cigarette it's just shift it's just the way the room spins around you as you spin with it, feeling the music slam into your body and jerk it along like someone getting pelted by machine gun fire you move without realizing how or why or even when, not writhing, not even sure what you look like to other people there's a strobe light going off somewhere, a counterpoint to a beat you can more sense than hear, someone is singing in the background but you can't figure out if it's someone near you or the stereo itself and you don't really care the press of people around you makes it hard to breathe it's intoxicating it's like a drug your world is undercut with jostling and spinning forms, all people like you, you're distantly aware of sweat running down your face it's hotter than you realize, each breath is a compressed puff of geyser steam into your lungs but you're not feeling it, you're not feeling anything other than the people and the movement and what it all means it means nothing and everything someone presses or rubs against you, body against body, you can feel skin against your arm and your head spins with the possibilities the air is drenched in hormones and sweat, you empty yourself out and it fills you back up again, inhibition has no place here, it's a foreign object, checked at the door with your jacket off to the side you can see someone attempting to find the beat, his face furrowed in concentration as he tries to move a body that definitely doesn't want to move that way it makes you want to laugh for some reason at the absurdity of it and you're feeling light headed and spaced, barely noticing when the music suddenly shifts into another song and everyone subtly compensates for the change without even realizing what they're doing and you're dancing with someone now, the ebb of the crowd has moved him in front of you and you're staring at him and he's staring back and the world is clanging in industrial rhythms the air smells like something humid and the strobe throws playful shadows on the wall, gyrating to silent tunes, flickering into existence for only a second and getting their two seconds of fame in before dimming into nothing and his hands are on you dancing together you are and you're consciously aware of the feelings in your own body and of your body and all the things inside of it you can feel the air and the world rushing into your ears he leans forward or maybe you do with life swirling around you it's hard to tell what comes first these days it's the gravity of a faded silhoutte it's the musical orbit of a revived memory all of it means nothing everything because then you shift it's the near silent dripping that wakes you up and your head is throbbing out of time with the distant music the sour taste of acid and alcohol and the odd potato chip mingle in your throat there's something cold and wet against the side of your face and something foul sticking to your lip and you feel like you have no energy everyone must have taken a punch at you, that's what it feels like and you remember vaguely, like a memory stretched out so thin that it's transparent you remember when the pounding in your head got too bad and when your stomach rebelled and said no more and you had to listen but even then you don't remember clearly just the sensation of turning yourself inside out and you absentmindedly run your tongue over the smear on your lip and you taste much of the same things that are residing in your throat and you start to gag and lift yourself up and your head tried to keep you down and someone starts to moan but of course it's you and your vision fuzzes up around the edges and the edges become the center and you hear water running somewhere and you look down into the toilet into what used to live in your stomach and you remember why you came up here then the acrid stench hits an already battered array of senses like catapults lobbing plague corpses into the beseiged city and your body folds and heaves and you hear more dripping the muscles jerk and slam into your sides, trying to eject your organs, or that's what it feels like and you can't stop it, it's nothing more than a train running from your stomach to your mouth and just as easy to stop but it does stop and you just lean there, your breath heaving, your vision worse than before and wonder what was worth this and you lean your cheek against the cool surface and listen to the somber dripping and wish you could close your eyes and make it all go away that's when they find you shift you're watching you're watching the dance all of them, gently moving forms, in the blinkflash of the strobes it's an underwater ballet, people moving in slowtime, their lives a brief flickering brightness that leaves images that too quickly fade away and you're standing on the side back against the wall one hand clasped around a cup of soda or something or other because you really don't remember and you keep watching and they keep moving you keep sipping at it like you feel you need to but don't really want to and your eyes look out over the rim and you note the things you see and the things you wish you didn't see you've seen drunkards staggering up the stairs you've seen acts of baseless passion that meant nothing to either party, couplings fated by chance that were as empty as you feel where the only reason is to satiate the cloud of hormones that used to be the air in the room and nobody cares and even worse, you've seen those same sorts of couplings where the emptiness is only one sided and it makes you angry and you find that even your anger is empty and nobody cares and you keep watching because for the life of you you can't figure out what else to do with yourself the music changes to a slower number, still so loud that for most people it's only intelligible as a blending from a faster song into a slower one but they all move with it nonetheless there are dozens of couples now, people pairing up for the forced intimacy of the moment, though for some perhaps it's not so forced you see them, and you see the couples and you see the brave ones without partners determined to make their mark by themselves instead they're far braver than you, you realize, as you stand on the side with your soda and your loneliness like a prized cloak around you you make yourself sick, frankly but you keep watching anyway, because in the end you feel there's nothing you can do to stop anything from happening and you watch one couple in particular you watch the girl, and you think of all the nights you tried to think of things to say to her, tried to get her attention, those fleeting moments of eye contact when you thought you saw something there and even now you're not sure and the endless debate and the endless interior monologues and in the end you did nothing anyway, the same damn thing you've been doing all your damn life nothing and even now you stand there and you watch and you see the person she's standing with and they're across the room and within arm's reach and you can see her eyes and what you see there tears at you the song is reaching it's climax and you realize that you've just finished your drink and the moment happens so suddenly and subtly that you barely notice it even though you're staring right at it but they've moved closer and you see their faces touch and it lasts for more than a second, than five seconds, than ten seconds and you feel warm suddenly and flushed and the cup and the music and everything else feels very far away and you stand there and you watch without really seeing and inside a little part of you dies shift the darkness settles around you like a blanket, if you closed your eyes it would make no difference at all you could be anywhere but you're here and you've stepped in here, answering the call that you saw in someone's eyes, felt the pressure of their hands on you and felt yourself responding in kind it's dark in here it's warm in here, the air nearly stifling the door is sealed shut tightly, adding to the heat, each breath your breathe out never escape, it just circulates back and forth you're breathing in each other things become immersed in a layer of greasy sweat and his hands are slick and slipping all over you at some point his shirt has come off so has yours it is hot in here after all and the feel of skin on skin makes something ripple within you you want to think this is all because of the drinks, because of the suffocating layer of hormones that has settled all over everyone but part of you wants to think that you wanted this, that you need this, that every single moment, every step and every slide and every stare and every stride ran right to this moment and it's dark and you can't see and you really don't need to because there's nothing to see it's all instinct theatre and he runs his hand along you lightly, but trembling with something and just when you thought you hit a plateau things creep up a notch and you bite your lip to keep from gasping the heat makes breathing hard, but you think it's because of something else and it's not just you, you can sense it in him, he's falling even faster than you are, pulled by something that isn't under his control anymore and even here, in his dismal dank and too humid place, locked in while people party outside, there's a kind of poetry to even the most backalley of things each fumbling step is an echo of something else, each moan is a mirror you don't even know at which point all your clothes are off and you're pressing even harder against him but you can feel it and you just know it though part of you takes a backseat and just watches you can now, after all you're just following the steps and motions and lines, there's no volition to this anymore, for either of you and you remember the first time you saw him and thought he looked all right but you could tell there was something in the way he looked at you and the first kiss stolen on a couch with a drunken person slumped against you staring with glazed eyes at the all too interesting ceiling the first stirrings of something happened and each motion brought it closer, even as you tried to fight it even now and maybe later you'll regret this and you probably will but there's nothing you can do, it's all a train wreck heading straight for the bottom of the hill, smoke in its wake you can feel his hot breath slamming into your ear and you like it nothing any of you could do his hands encircle your back while yours do the same, feeling the slight give of muscle flab, the individual ribs, everything covered in a salty coating even as you stepped into here, pausing a moment for the decision, altered as it was by alcohol and hopes of passion and thoughts of desire and emotions that in the end control you more than you control them and the last thought of ohwhatthehell and he's breathing faster now so are you pressing against you harder and then he oh oh my oh my God shift the stairs are an endless climb, weaving in and out of your awareness, seeming to leap away just as you get closer to reaching the top like an insane cartoon the walls are made of rubber stopping briefly you pause and lean heavily on the railing, feeling your stomach stirring but you force it down you can hold it in sure you can and you nearly trip as take a step to the next step and find that there isn't a step there to step down on but you're up top now the bathroom is right down the hall and that's where you really want to go, not to, you know, but just to take a piss, that's all and you start to walk toward it, the floor feeling like one of those amusement park attractions where they fill an inflatable room up with foam balls and let you bounce around another step and you'll fall and suffocate another step and you won't stop falling careful careful don't trip on the foam balls ha ha ha you're not just another drunk, you're not drunk at all really, you don't even know why you feel like this, you must have had two drinks that didn't agree and now one of them has to go that's all but as you get closer to the bathroom you realize that the door is shut and you can see light trying to peek out from beneath the crack under the door and you hear someone behind the door it's in use goddamn time stretches out into slow time for you as you lean against the sink outside waiting for the door to open you close your eyes trying to stifle your too quickly beating heart and the unsettling feelings in your stomach across from you there's a room, you remember it fairly clearly, having been in there just a while ago, one of your fellow partiers passed out and he was brought up there loser, you think, staring into the room, drink too fast and you sleep the night away and don't even remember anything and you don't enjoy yourself either, what the hell is the point of all that there is no point but then it's not like you can talk, you're not feeling too well yourself shutup when the hell are they getting out of there you turn and lean against the sink, seeing you fragmented and swollen reflection in the small droplets of water behind you, there's someone talking in the other room but there's this roaring in your ears and you can only catch fragments "funny thing is, I would have done it, too . . . no really, I would have, nobody would ever believe me but I would have, I was so close "she was right there, sitting and we were talking and I thought to myself, this, this would be the perfect time to at least attempt it because, at least . . . at least I'd know then. For sure. And not have to guess anymore. That would be great "but he walked in and she walked out and, you know, I'll always wonder if I would have had the nerve. That bothers me I guess" you hear a sardonic laugh "but hell, you can't even hear me, and even if you can, you're so smashed that you'll just attribute this to some sort of dream. That's the only reason I'm talking now, really, the only time I can be brave. When nobody else is listening." no that's not true, you think, wanting to turn around and say something but you can't find the strength to turn around "and I want to ask you all these questions, like, I just do but I can't because I don't want to know and I do and I don't and some days I just don't give a damn" a long sigh "but I was so close dammit, that's what I always remember about this party, more than anything else, how goddamn close I was to actually doing something for once, you know and I wonder if she'll ever know, if she even suspected. Probably not. Probably not." another laugh "but then what do you know?" and you finally get the strength to turn around and you want to look in the room and see who that was because their voice felt too far away to be heard clearly and there was such a tone of lonliness and distance that you want to say that someone must care, someone must be able to help them and the door opens and your stomach rebels again and your only thought is the bathroom and you rush in without even closing the door and something heaves within you and the last thing you see is your distorted face in the funhouse mirror of the bowl, pale and warped open wide shift the night air greets your face like a lover as you let the door swing open into the cold dawn air the sounds of the stereo are still booming in your ears and you hold the door open for a second, letting the two conflicting textures, the hot air of the party and the cool calm air of the night wrestle over you then you let the door shut and the sound abruptly cuts off you stand there for a long time, remembering everything you saw, everything you didn't see, the things that happen in the dark when people think people aren't looking, the things that you finally get the bravery for when you don't feel the eyes anymore there's a lot that can happen and you stand there, feeling the solid weight of your keys in your hand, feeling the clearness of your head, the night burning away into the very early morning is a beautiful thing, the lights of the nearby city glisten like dew, or jewels and every so often a car glides past, mounted lights on a silent foundation in the distance you can hear a popular song being sung off key and you stand there, remembering everything, feeling more alive than you have in a long time, like you're tingling, like you don't want to leave, like you don't want to sleep again, ever, because you may miss another moment like thisin the halfdark, in the solitude, with just your thoughts and your memories and it's almost too much to even assimilate, to even contain it's all almost too much but you just stand there for a long time until finally you just shake your head and grin "Hell of a night" you say before hopping down the steps and heading for your car. |