Archeia's Atheneum (The First Shift)

Episode Eleven: Party Culture

52 AA3

"You're going to hate me for saying this."

"What?"

"It isn't too late to go home."

"It kinda is. What? We're going to have the taxi take us back home, pay forty bucks for nothing, an extra ten because if we're going home I'm ordering pizza, and then you're going to have to explain to everyone tomorrow why we flaked. More efficacious to just go, don't you think?"

"We could say...we had car problems."

"Didn't we already use that one?"

***

<inaudible> <sobbing> "I'm sorry, I need a minute."

"We can do this later Ms. Marsh. We understand-"

"No. I want to be done with this..."

"Alright. Um, let me see...How long did you know Steve Hamilton?"

"One year. Four months, five days."

"Ok. You were intimate with him, correct?"

"Yes. We were dating."

"How long?"

"One year, four months, five days."

"Love at first sight eh?"

<sniffling> "Sure."

"Hrmm. How would you describe that relationship? ...Ms. Marsh?"

"Um, it was happy...I-I...It was hard not to like Steve. He was a good guy..."

"Alright. Do you know anyone who might disagree with you?"

"Wh-of course. Steve was my world, I thought he was perfect--relatively. But no matter what you do, someone's always not going to like you."

"True, but not everyone who doesn't like you is going kill you."

"Sure, and some will."

"...Do you know anyone who'd wish harm on Mr. Hamilton?"

***

Cass might. Cassidy Underal was seeing Steve before me. Before we got to the club I asked him why he wanted to turn around, and he said something along the lines of, "I think we could be doing something better." That was something we started debating because he was saying how detrimental going to a party is--like out of nowhere. And we've been going out on weekends since we met, fuck, it's how we met! He was talking shit. He knew just as well as me that he was feeling awkward. I think it bothered me that he was blaming other things instead of just addressing the problem.

"You just don't want to see Cass."

He shook his head, "I don't understand why Cass keeps coming up here. We do this all the time, that's all I'm saying. What does it amount to in the end?"

I told him it amounted to memories. We're young and we can't party forever, so you might as well while you still can.

"Yeah but look at it, really look at it. We're just grinding to feel good. Just exhausting ourselves for a moment of satisfaction--if you can call it that."

I asked him what life is. Then I told him: we're these little animals running around on a rock that's soaring through space. What is the function of sex? Exhausting ourselves, grinding to feel good. For helping to continue the human race you get a moment of satisfaction. Then I told him to resent partying is to almost resent our anthropology. It's tribal, primal--it is how we lived and survived. Nothing to run away from. "You just don't want to see Cass."