Hurt (Mendumverse)

Instrumental - Single Act

Yellow, green, pink lights, alternating unbridled against a background blue as the ocean. Unrestrained like them, people surrounded by music, shrouded with that meaningless dance, guided only by instinct. The mass was united, compact, everyone welcomed the evening, everyone enjoyed it as a single body. It was hot, there was to drink; they got tired, there was to drink; a whole cycle, a whole continuum, until dawn.
She got lost in that crowd, she joined that crowd. Who he was dancing with, who she kissed were fragmentary memories, shrouded in blue and interspersed with lights. Were they from that evening? Were they from a week ago? Were they in the one before? It didn't matter, it was okay, it had to be okay.
A glimmer of awareness as the music pounded and pounded.
A piece of crowd stopped, lost in distant, rapid thoughts. Why was she there? She knew it, and how she knew it, like everyone else. March awareness that affects souls, that trouble them. Thinking leads to reasoning, reasoning lays bare reality.
She stared at the crowd around her, pushing, moving hypnotically as the music pounded. She wanted to go back there, awareness weighed heavily. To drink, she still had to drink, to get lost in oblivion, in a perpetual cycle until dawn.
She made room, following the wave motion of that human sea, up to the counter. Others were there, laughing, joking, filtering. Were they sober? Not at all, but who wanted to be sober in there?
She put her hand on the counter, the sensor activated and the hologram appeared, the fake face of an artificial intelligence, a pale imitation created to put customers at ease. He was also a handsome man, deep eyes, a stiff face but harmonious in his parts, a trained physique, appetizing for her imagination.
An illusion, what a shame, yet she knew that they chose carefully the models.
"Please miss," he told her, in a warm, sensual voice, strayed only by a metallic tone, imperceptible in her condition.
She smiled, naively, forgetting that she had a hologram in front of her, and slipped her hand down her side, into a pocket. She missed it at first, laughed at her carelessness and finally found it.
The hologram waited, emotionless. If only he had been true, it was a dream to have such a man for one night.
The pocket recognized her fingerprint, opened, she took the UI.
"Two slides," she said, struggling with the UI screen.
She saw badly, it was hard to touch the right option. The digital credit card did not want to open, it had to open. Awareness grew, it cracked her. Why was she there? She knew very well, but she didn't want to remember, nobody wanted to remember, at least for one night.
The digital credit card opened, she showed it to the hologram, laughing, happy.
"You're welcome," he said, changing the counter screen.
She passed it, the order was received. The hologram thanked, then disappeared. Two glasses came out of the counter, blue like the lights in the room, deep, intense. Two to be sure, to forget better. She drank them in one gulp, one behind the other, and waited a moment. Then she would return to the crowd to dance, to move, to get lost.

***

The city was already asleep. She walked alone, shoruded in neon lights and white street lamps. The venue was closed, the city had to sleep sooner or later. Not her, not yet, she didn't feel it yet.
She turned around to remember the lights, the music, the crowd, the oblivion.

She turned around to remember the lights, the music, the crowd, the oblivion. They were distant sensations now. Her mind was breathing, it was reasoning, infected by the outside air.
Another place was needed, another party. She would find them, she knew it. The city had its nocturnal wanderers that evening, they were allowed not to stop for once.
She turned again, looking at the buildings that soared towards the infinite sky. Had she ever seen another landscape? Ideas were confused, maybe not, maybe only in pictures and movies. They were illusions too, reality smelled of concrete, glass and neon lights. Reality, life, work, the office. Awareness, weights.
She was alone along the way, there was no one to be distracted with, and her mind was reasoning, she was reasining. Why was she there? She knew perfectly well, but not now, that wasn't the time.
Her pirouette ended, her gaze fell on a shop window. There were beautiful, elegant, refined clothes. She looked around, the sign confirmed it: they were not at her level, not even for that evening, perhaps they never would have been.
Reality came, reflected in the mirror: no more beautiful clothes, just a woman with messed up hair, tired, fed up. There was a tattoo on her right arm, an identification code, her life. There was her level, her condition, her mark: employee, average privileges, average products, average tenor. A flat line that enveloped many people, canceled by the desire to have more. Who knows if it was possible.
She went on, she had to find another place, the night was not over yet, the dawn had to wait.

***

Intense red lights, more thumping music, fewer people even for a smaller venue. The wanderers were few, the others always tried to be loyal, as they accepted that pincer.

She felt a little nauseous, but she ignored it. A man, one of many, was dancing with her, he was dancing on her. Who he was she did not know, perhaps a desperate one, a loner like her. They sought oblivion together, only that bonded them, under the red lights of the club, shrouded by thumping music. They were no longer many, but two that moved as a single body. Why were they there?
She stopped her thoughts, sought comfort in his body, in his warmth, but the nectar of oblivion was going away, leaving only a bitter taste. And thoughts, too many thoughts. A prospect for the end of that evening, a satisfying dessert, then the next day, everyday life, a multiplication that strived to infinity.
"Sorry, I'll be right back," she told the stranger.
Pleasure seemed torment, she felt her mind thumping, like the music. She had to shut it up, it had to shut up at least for that evening.
She pulled out the UI even before reaching the distributor. Small venue, minor services. Average services.
She frantically activated the credit card, she did it wrongly three times, and finally placed it on the screen, tired. She chose at random, she didn't care what it was.
She fought back the nausea when the drink came down: she needed it, she required it. She still had to deceive herself, she could do it. She couldn't waste that precious time, not if the next day ...
"Is everything alright?"
The stranger had joined her, while she tried to gulp the drink down.

She nodded, initially, then the nausea rose as the alcohol went down. The music thumped even more, the red lights squeezed her tightly and the air failed.
He moved closer, she only noticed it from his touch, warm as before. She wanted to let herself go, get carried away by the latest euphoria, but the nausea prevailed and she needed to give it vent.

***

She had reached the bathroom in time, running, panting, while holding back the retching. Now she was there, in front of the toilet bowl, alone, empty. That whole evening seemed to have ended up in the plughole, along with its lights and its illusions. There was nothing, even the music was distant, remote. She didn't know how long she had been there, she didn't know how much she had removed. She had little strength left, she would fall asleep there, forever. It would have been a miracle if she could have done it.
She had to p

She had to pick up the pieces, call a taxi, sleep for little, too much to forget. She didn't even want alcohol anymore, only peace, quiet, for an undefined time.
She breathed in calmly, her stomach had calmed down. Or at least it seemed to.
She stood up, leaning against the walls, dragging herself to the sink. She washed her face, the cold water pierced her skin, reminded her of the headache that was arising. Why did it have to end up like that? She asked it every time, but it didn't improve, she never learned. Why was she there?
She looked up, the mirror reflected the image of a woman, messed up hair, ruined make-up and heavy dark circles. Was that her? Was that her real face? It seemed so ironic, so bitter, like the scent she had in her mouth.
One day a week they were granted freedom, leisure. One day to be ourselves, everyone said, but she found it hard to believe in front of that gaze that demanded only pity.
And what was she then she? An employee? That woman forced into the office for the remaining days, in which she only had to think about work? No, it was impossible. There was no soul in that life: clock in, sit down, work, get up, have lunch, work again, clock out and go home to have dinner. No entertainment, not allowed, expensive, forbidden for everyone. Few elect lived a different life, free from that yoke. They, average people, had only one day of leisure, always.
She spat a residue of saliva into the sink as her mind reasoned and thumped. There was nothing else, there would be nothing else. How many levels did it take to reach Elysium, the privileged area, the place where everyday life was decided by individuals? That was awareness, the condemnation to a monotonous, repetitive, cruel fate. And what were those evenings if not stupid attempts to escape, false illusions that, in reality, belonged to that infinite cycle? It hurt, that awareness hurt terribly and she wanted to annihilate it, she wanted to erase it.
An instinctive gesture, given by anger, by desperation.
She hit the mirror with her head, hard; she wanted to block her thoughts, silence them. The glass broke, her head hurt. Real pain, physical, brief oblivion for her soul.
She felt the blood dripping from her forehead, warm; she saw it in the fragments too, a red spot on a pale, limp skin. It hurt, pulsed, but it was okay.
She smiled at her distorted image: perhaps that blow, that gesture had been the most real thing in her entire life.