After Party

Erin

'It sounds like the ocean is outside,' said Erin.

The group of boys laughed. They were all sitting on a cozy, checkered bed with layers of black and white covers. Erin was leaning on the back of the head board with her knees up to her chest and her timid face sinking into her teal jumper.

'What has Erin been smoking?' said one of the boys.

She closed her eyes and a warm smile spread across her face.

'It's here,' she protested softly. Her eyes twinkled. 'The ocean is here.'

'I want to be where she is,' said another one of the guys. He took a drag of smoke. 'Erin, baby, we're nowhere near the ocean. We're on the 15th floor. Your place.'

She laughed and shook her head. The bob of short brown hair swished across her face like ripples in a stream.

'Another smoke?' said the same boy, handing a smoking joint to her.

'I think she has had enough,' interrrupted the first guy.

He held out his arm and drew it across Erin like a drawbridge.

'Erin, baby, have you taken anything else? Some pills, maybe?'

She opened her eyes dizzily and let the room focus. How many of her friends were with her? Too many to tell. Erin's gaze fell further ahead. The wooden desk, her cactus plant, the pinboard with various polaroid photos and gig tickets pinned to it. Oh, the boys were right, this was definitely her room on the 15th floor. There was a hazy shower of rain falling past the big window in front of her. Her eyelids shut again and the cactus was suddenly as tall as her, proudly standing on the sandy colour of her desk with its arms open wide for a hug.

'Cuddle me,' said the cactus.

'Cuddle the cactus, cuddle the cactus,' she said aloud.

The boys laughed again. At her? Who cared. Her boyfriend had once told her that joy was a wonderful thing.

'Wow,' said one of the boys. He was looking at his phone in shock.

'What is it?'

The boy dabbed his thumb across the screen and scrolled across it like a conveyer belt.

'Breaking news,' he said finally. 'There's a gunman on the loose. It sounds like a terrorist attack.'

'Where?'

'Really close to us. The street's on lockdown. We might even be able to see from the window.'

The boys lunged out of bed and crowded around the glass, straining their necks to see something below. Erin didn't move. Her polaroid photos seemed to be speaking to her, changing like little video clips. The little pins holding them together were like bright stars across the sky.

'Crazy,' said one of the guys. 'Look at how many police lights there are!'

Erin's black, heavy lashes fluttered as if sand had dusted into them. She had forgotten something. What was happening? Were the boys watching their own movie?

'My laundry!' she announced.

One of the guys half turned around.

'What's wrong, Erin?'

'Laundry,' she said, stumbling to her feet. 'My laundry must be finished by now.'

'I wouldn't go downstairs if I were you.'

His face was still half glued to the spectacle outside and half stuck on Erin.

'Relax,' dismissed the other boy. 'We're safe in this block. The gunman won't even get past the electronic gates outside.'