wonderful/terrible (part II)

She doesn’t know why it happens, this sharp and troubling shift of emotions. Nobody really knows why we are all so bipolar now, except that it is very, very specifically human. When things are going most right, the binaries do not mingle. There is a box for right, one for wrong. A good box and an evil. Same with pain and pleasure and we do not stand in both at once, or shift rapidly from one to the other, as though their edges were a fragmented line we dissipate through. That's when things are going right. But now, the lines seem blurred and she hides.

What makes gabbby this way? Is it her own fault or the generation before hers who made all the silly boxes, named all the silly diseases and tell us right is right and wrong is wrong? It doesn't matter to her. All she knows is she isn't feeling normal.

No. No, she can’t let herself do this. She cannot lie alone and miserable no matter how much she feels more comfortable all alone than in a room full of people. You must go downstairs, Gabby. You have to live, not die. You have to live and let pleasure fully be pleasure. There’s a knocking from the ceiling beneath you, a thumping in the floor from all the life downstairs. Go.

Gabby gets up and descends. She has forced herself to feel better and she is going to have a good time. She is going to drink, dance, be interesting, interested and totally in love. Music shoots through the air and, like water poured into water, she joins the mass of bodies.

There is dancing on the floor and in the air. Many are floating now, bouncing from the ceiling and walls. There are bodies filling every space, top to bottom. They move like jellyfish being electrocuted. Gabby finds Kate, and Paige. The pair welcomes her back. They had been wondering to where she ran off.

There is love here, almost certainly. This is apparent because even most of the most stubborn sitters are dancing on the floor and preparing to levitate. Even Josh, the most brooding sitter inconspicuously joins in. The DJs have started their beats. It’s better than any prerecorded dance hit.

Gabby sits for a while to take in the scene. She feels still alone, but at least she is happy, and learning. The people in the room are theatrical. Gabby is amazed at the dancing talent of the men of the room. She has never seen so many good male dancers in her entire life. This observation pursues she and Anthony lock eyes. He motions her to hi with his finger. This makes her feel special and could possibly have been the only thing that would pull her from the observation state. They float and dance and mix.

Isn’t it strange how all we need is people? And how everything seems so perfect until the music stops. But before it stops, nobody has any care to know what everyone else it thinking. Nothing could possibly be singularly important enough to offset it all.

Gabby wants to kiss the DJ. Gabby wants to kiss the host, and Chance, who is oblivious to everything. Gabby wants to kiss all the lost friend and the girls and all the people who might hate her.

Vaughn’s eyes span the space. He says, “This is how I want my L.A. apartment to look.”

Then,
without warning or control,
the music stops.
Thump. The people fall.

When the music stops, people spread out again through the home, falling to the ground. Some conjugate around the outside table looking to squeeze the last essence of it all out of the night; others revert back to the swimming pool. They look like infants in a womb.

People start to argue and assert their conversational power other others, trying to outwit one another.

Jay gets deep and says “All I’m saying is, what is gay? What is straight? Maybe you identify with something because you’ve been socially constructed to think that. Why can I woman get away with dressing like a man easier than a man dressing like a woman?”

Paige says, “I’m getting tired.”

Gabby has kissed the DJ. Gabby as kissed the host, and Chance, who is oblivious to everything. Gabby has kissed the lost friend and the girls and all the people who might hate her. Now Gabby is wondering who there is left to kiss.

Vaughn says, “Horrible, wonderful, amazing, perfect.”

Chance has passed out on a bed. He will never do the drain dance again.

Nobody cares to talk about these things right now. There is a synchronized rolling of eyes from the onlookers. We are all thinking about our next fix (what will it be?), already forgetting about our recent high.

People are growing weirder, testier. They are forgetting about the music and how well their body contorted with others – how all the bodies together filled the space so well. Gabby watches the ashes of her cigarette float away and doesn’t feel like kissing anyone but doesn't want to leave them either.

The night is almost over. Soon the normal disconnect will set in and everyone will feel the (un)comforting isolation that defines us. The night is dieing and the stars are sinking. The wind is cradling the house like a baby ready to change. And there will be change. But while we wait for that, somewhere else, who knows where, somebody is preparing another space for wild transformation.