MOSAIC

Chapter 14: Dusk

 I was plunged in the midst of an ocean of bodies, all swaying, roaring, and fluidly flowing, their cheer-filled anarchy aimed at a sky-scraping stage of brilliant blazing light that swirled and twisted like liquid tornados. Vortexes of lasers obliterated the summer night sky with eruptions of fire and light beams, volcanic sound shaking the earth and air like a violently melodious earthquake. Crowds of moving people pressed into one another all around me, seismic bass blasting the wind from my chest. My vision was watery and mangled, the auras of mind-shattering light warping before me like hurricanes. The smell of cigarettes and weed engorged the steamy night air, making me feel so weightless and lightheaded I thought I might be evaporating. The sensation was orgasmic.

​The distortion was so intense I could make sense of almost nothing, but I could feel my friends by me. They were there somewhere. The euphoric rapture swirled me into a levitating mindlessness that liquefied me into the sea of blissful intoxication, and in the heights of it all I realized— this is only a memory, and I am alone. Then as though the air had been rapidly deflated from a balloon, I became very heavy, the storm of lights darkened, and the once powerful roar of beautiful sound dimmed.

​I lifted my face up from wet sand, spitting granules from my mouth, blinking my eyes, the scratchy grit raking against my eyelids. Cold water lapped at my pants, and I raised myself onto my elbows, discovering that I was washed up on a bleak shoreline like a lump of sea debris. I crawled up the slope away from the shallows of the water's edge, sharp grains of sand chaffing every part of my body. I tried to breathe but choked in shock when I looked down at my body; rotted, sea-torn, and bloodless.

​A chain of raspy sputters escaped my mouth but my lungs were filled with sand and water. It wouldn't have mattered anyways. Wherever I was, it was desolate. The murky shoreline of the beach stretched far into the distance, further than I could strain the limits of my eyes. There was nothing else to see. Nothing to hear. Not even the sounds of gulls. This place was dead apart from the sweeping ripple of tiny waves licking the shoreline. I carefully swished my body from side to side in the sand, trying to gauge where I might be, but there was nothing apart from bleak shoreline being kissed by the slurping crawl of insignificant waves, a fogged up sky hanging overhead like a colourless painting of sewage. There wasn't even a breeze.

​Clusters of wet sand dumped from my clothing as I rose to my feet, standing unevenly on the grainy, doughy ground like a scarecrow. Something was off about me. The sharper and more concentrated I made my breathing, the less oxygen I felt I was taking in. What troubled me however, was that it had no effect on me. My ribs had been hollowed out, air, moisture, and sand flowing loosely in and out, despite my body being intact. It was like I didn't even need to breathe. I wheezed and gasped and tugged desperately but I could not get a good breath of air in. My body neglected to even try utilizing it.

​I trudged and stumbled along the damp sands of the shoreline like a risen carcass for a time, my head dangling and my arms lifeless at my sides. Every few disorganized steps forward I took notice of some new form of disquieting realization. That a leg would go temporarily numb, or just stop working altogether for a brief period, dragging behind me in the sand like a decaying branch. Sometimes I thought one of my arms might have fallen off, and in a state of exhausted delirium I would turn about in slow circles trying to locate it. A number of times I stumbled and toppled towards the water—for which I possessed some inane terror.

​I dragged my feet back in a track parallel to the reaches of the water, coughing forcefully to reassure myself that my chest had not begun to disintegrate. The exertion was a bit much and I felt prickles of pressure along the left side of my face. I halted and reached a numb hand to my eye and cheekbone, prodding gently to ensure that I was still intact, little crumbs of sand drizzling off my skin with every touch. At least I hoped it was only sand. My head was suddenly feeling much lighter, and I feared that it wasn't sand but tiny fragments of me that were crumbling off. I pulled my hand away and stopped walking. Every trembling movement seemed to dislodge more and more particles.