When we got to the beach, we had to pull onto the side of the road because there was no parking lot. It was crowded too, cars were jammed into every available spot. We circled the block a couple of times before we could find a spot. Ruby parallel parked between a dented green Honda and a huge chipped white Ford truck. The bed of it was filled with old tires. I raised my eyebrow slightly.
Walking towards the huge gathering of people, I heard voices reaching across the long stretches of the beach, some yelling out in excitement, in joy. I can't stand loud drunks. A small bonfire seemed to be getting started. People yelled, about the fire. About the beer. About the sand. They yelled to get more sticks, more driftwood. I turned towards Ruby. Her people-tolerance today was low already, thanks to Rebecca. But the car ride and Mary Jane seemed to have mellowed her out, thankfully. She saw some people she knew, and we headed towards them.
The Colors! Oh my, the colors I saw. It was amazing, the diversity of the people gathered there. The Colors danced, flicked, burned, so bright and beautiful. I almost felt as if I was in a trance. Reds, blues, greens, pinks, purples, yellows, the colors were so bright. Some where brighter than others, though, boisterous and screaming at my eyes. Others flickered and died out a little, probably drunks in the decline of their alcohol-induced state, only to be shooken up again by their friends. I was so busy observing everybody's auras, that I didn't even see their faces, the shadows dancing around them, light particles reflected from the flame. The bonfire grew and grew as more people came, bringing dried driftwood, and the fire cackled as it ate up the wood, consuming and burning. I hadn't even had a drink yet, and I'd already lost Ruby in the constantly moving sea of people. I started to turn around and look for Ruby when someone interrupted me. “Sabrina!” A wave of beer breath. I tried to ignore it, blend away with the crowd. But I was too late, they'd seen my face. “Sabrina!” I felt a light brownish aura reaching towards me, and I slammed my walls down- blocking off my energy. I turned around, to see someone I hadn't in a while.
“Hey, Jessie.” I said, but all I could think was, god no, oh god why?
“What's going onnnnnn?” Jessie slurred.
Jessie and I had gone to the same Catholic fucking Elementary through Middle School, and then the same high school too. It was shit like that which made me hate this fucking small town. We never really talked, and I knew her through friends of friends. I never paid any attention to her really. I never paid attention to anybody actually, in those fuck-all schools. I did my best to forget all about those fucking people, but no, not with auras. Auras, those are hard to forget. With them, then name, the face it, all comes rushing back, no matter how hard you've tried to forget them. As soon as you see their aura out of the corner of your eye, a wave of unwanted and unnecessary information knocks you over mentally. For instance, i knew before I saw her face that Jessie had dark brown hair, and was kinda of tan. Her mother only spoke Spanish and from what I heard, her father was an asshole. Jessie was quiet in school, and a bit odd. Nobody talked to her, and from what I saw she didn't have many friends. I was a little surprised that she even remembered me.
“Not much,” I told her, as I took a step backwards as she slumped forward a little.
“Isn't this party great?” She asked, liquids swishing around in her red plastic cup.
“Sure,” I said, trying to keep eye contact and conversation to a minimum.
“Hey-” She started, but was interrupted.
“Jessie?!” A voice yelled out, angrily. “Jessie!” A hand reached out and grabbed her arm. “What the fuck do you think your doing?” Jessie stumbled backwards.
“Nothing!” She said indignantly, trying to brush off the hand.
“I have to go,” I said quickly, and backed away into the crowd.
“Byee-eee!” I heard Jessie call out after me.
I didn't say anything, all I could think was, Jesus Christ. I left the mass of people and set out for this wall that separated the cars from the beach's sand. It was short and flat, and many times people could be seen sunbathing on it. It was perfect for what I wanted to do now, which was sit down so I could smoke a cigarette. I was shaking a little, at what I'd seen. The man who was with Jessie. The color of his energy. I didn't want to think about it. It wasn't like anything I'd ever seen.
Most of the time, evil spirits are black, obviously, and then have another color attached. Black is never unaccompanied. Except for this time. It was just, black. It wasn't even a color. It was a black hole. It couldn't have been real. I didn't even see his face- now I was doubting if he even had one. I was scared. I knew it had no interest in me, but I wondered what Jessie had done, to find something like that. It was scary, no doubt. I was still shaking slightly as I lifted the cigarette to my lips. I needed to find Ruby and then we could go. We'd been there for so long, doubtless. Time flies when you're tripping. If the trip is hard enough, then there'll be black spots in your memory, even things that happened two minutes ago. For example, I had a cup in my hands and no clue how I got it. It's happened so many times now that I stopped caring, and just decided to go along with it. Whatever happened, just let it happen.
I reached out, trying to find Ruby's energy. The thing about Ruby that confused me the most was the fact that her color wasn't one solid color- it was a constantly changing, many colored aura. The most prominent colors were red, green, a little bit of blue and purple. She was pretty easy to find though, just because of this. I concentrated, narrowed my eyes, squinting almost at the crowd. There were so many colors, all of them bright and loud. There. I found her, standing off towards the edge of the crowd, near the waters of the ocean, next to a blue and a green aura. I went off to get her. I can't remember the walk from the wall over to Ruby. I blinked and I was there. I didn't hear when Ruby told me their names. There was some guy, around our age, maybe older, zits covering his face and greasy hair clung to his scalp. He was the green. The blue was this tall girl, red hair pulled back in a tight bun. Freckles dotted her face. She handed Ruby a small plastic baggy, and then Ruby said, “Thanks.” She turned to me. “You ready?” I nodded.
“Let's book.” We left the blue and green auras and made our way across the sand back to the van.
