photo: (criagCloutier)
Darkness descended on Avery like waves. She watched it danced and shift on the walls of her bedroom. Growing darker and dark the longer she watched. The shapes undulated and swam never keeping a form for longer than a second. Sometimes she could recognize the shape. A person. A bat. Other.
People recognize patterns. That’s the eyes’ job. That is what makes art something more than just a series and lines of colors. A television show more than a splattering of dots. The patterns are everywhere. A fluffy bunny floating down a lazy path in the sky. A face in wooden paneling. Nothing new. Nothing strange. Just something the brain does to make sense of the world and to comfort itself.
But what was ever comforting and sensical about the shapes on the wall?
Avery rolled over and pressed against her boyfriend’s naked back. She hated the feel of it. She had heard once before that we pick our mates by scent. His smell nauseated her. She wondered if she should wake him up before her mom got home. She wondered if she even cared anymore.
She closed her eyes, and the shapes kept dancing on the back of her eye lids.
2
Her mother didn’t care about Mike staying over. Or didn’t notice. Or just never came home. Wouldn’t be the first time.
They walked hand in hand through Point Pleasant, because that seemed like the thing to do. The eyes are the window of the soul. Also the first thing to decay. She had always thought Main Street was the eyes of the Point.
He produced a tiny baggie from his black jeans. He dropped a couple of the pills into his palm.
“Is it even noon?”
Mike looked at his wrist and shrugged. “Somewhere.”
“Do you think I’ll ever get out of Point Pleasant?”
“Maybe Athens this weekend,” he said. “They have a great hookah bar up there. Don’t card.”
In Point Pleasant going out on the town meant taking the hour long drive to Huntington or Athens. Now that’s saying something. There only things to do in Point Pleasant are vandalize, get stoned, or fuck. Hence, Mike, King of the Romantics, who’s idea of a great night is rolling over and watching Quantum Leap after sex.
Can’t afford college or nursing school. Could probably get a scholarship to the mortuary school outside of town – best case scenario. It’s typically where the kids who have good ACT scores and no money goes. Barring an accident or Mayor Barrett shutting down the women’s clinic, that is. Otherwise, she could see herself in a trailer with Mike and his grandma on the outskirts of town.
“Aren’t you going to take those?” Mike said. She looked down and registered the shrooms lying in her palm. She searched her mind for a reason not. Something involving Scott Bakula so Mike would understand. Failing to find one she popped them in her mouth.
3
Avery couldn’t count the number of times that she’s walked through TNT tripping balls. She could count the number of times she’s walked through stone sober. Once. It was so unsettling she swore to never do it again. She couldn’t remember what upset her. Something to do with the angles of the trees. The drugs forced her brain to make sense of them. For once she was thankful for the fog so she didn’t have to see those God damn trees.
A blue light danced in her peripheral vision. She jumped expecting to see an officer trailing behind them. Will o’ Wisps pulsed in the fog. The pounding of her heart was replaced with bass thumping. She rammed her elbow into Mike’s gut.
“Is that..is that really there?”
“The blue lights? The music?” Mike said. “I see it. Doesn’t mean much.” She grabbed Mike by the wrist and they charged into the fog. He dug his feet into ground. “Whoa, whoa! The only thing over there are some bathrooms.”
“Well, maybe I need to go.”
“Probably better off behind a tree…” They tumbled over one another through the fog giggling all the way. The mists cleared and there sat a squat concrete building. Blue Christmas lights were strung over the Men’s and Women’s doors. The bass thumped the structure’s heartbeat. The high whine of a violin gave it all a very old world feel.
A broad man watched the doors. He worked his fingers under his red cap and considered their approach.
“There’s a cover to get in.”
“He’ll handle it.” Avery gestured at Mike and charged through the Women’s room door before he could protest. She fell back against the door. The room stretched forever. The stalls were replaced with a mahogany bar with no end in sight. Paper lanterns cast red, blue, and green lights over the rave. A jukebox belted out a hybrid of techno dance beats and Victorian formals.
Her lunch bubbled in her stomach and threatened to resurface. She couldn’t remember eating any. Saliva pooled in her mouth.
An Asian girl cupped the back of Avery’s pixie cut and titled Avery’s head back. She drained the contents of a red Dixie cup down Avery’s throat. It was frothy and sweet. Reminded Avery of honey suckles. She studied how the highlights in the girl’s hair matched the cup. The room stopped spinning, but it didn’t come into focus. It blurred around the edges. The bile sloshed back to the pit of her stomach.
The girl took Avery by the hand and led her to the bar. She had never seen the girl before. Probably the same age as her too. Private school, most likely. It had been a fad for the rich to adopt Chinese children. That was until the middle class started.
She had not realized how crowded the bar was. From the door it was bare, but up close it was teeming with unfamiliar faces. In the Point it might have been an oddity to meet one person, but a room of them…Avery looked back over her shoulder. She couldn’t spot Mike or the door.
A pale boy eyed her beside the jukebox. The purple half moons under his eyes hide his irises. He reached from across the room and pulled her towards him. He might have been a little heroine chic, but she danced with him anyway.
4
Another drink.
It might have mattered if she noticed before, but it certainly didn’t matter now. The boy was white as the driven snow. His hair was translucent– the light sparkled off each dread like icicles.
The techno beat had dropped from the music. A haunting fiddle melody howled from a live band. She wasn’t sure, but the song might have been Danse Macabre. Icy fingers danced under her shirt on the small of her back. She shoved against the boy’s bar chest, slick with perspiration and burning cold.
She combed the crowd again for familiar faces. Disproportioned bodies contorted on the dance floor. In the very center was just a jumble of arms and legs. A gray skinned man with a scar running from lips to cheek ate raw hamburger from a plastic bag. He flashed a toothy grin that stretched beyond his face.
She ran frantically for the exit. The room was spinning again. She felt like a drowning swimmer. The water was far too black to tell in what direction she was swimming. Towards the surface or deeper into a watery grave.
She spotted a ray of light streaming through the water. Her BFF, Sarah.
“Sarah!” She embraced the girl so hard she lifted Sarah from the crowd. Her skin was clammy. “Thank God, you’re here! I’m freaking the fuck out. I’m too fucked up to find the exit.”
Sarah stared back with hollow eyes. She worked her mouth to speak, but only sewage bubbled out. It streamed from her mouth and down the front of her swelling belly. It hung out from under her decaying shirt. Black veins contrasted the pale flesh. She’s more shitfaced than me!
Avery spun on her heels and spotted Mike. He was cutting a Dancing with the Stars caliber rug with the Asian girl. Her face was coming off in flakes. It reminded Avery of the town hall’s edifice. Pale blue flesh glistened through the tears. His knee wasn’t stopping him today.
Another Dixie cup found its way into Avery’s hands. She marched back across the dance floor and locked lips with the pale boy.
5
She came to propped up in a corner of the room. She couldn’t make out any details of the party goers. The music was now nothing more than a tribal beat.
Sarah was shaking her and screaming. Black bubbles were the only things to escape. They popped one by one. Avery could have sworn she heard Sarah calling to her from across the room.
“You’ve got to leave! Don’t drink their drink or eat their food! It all has a price!”
“I can’t hear you!” Avery shouted. “Speak up!” Her chin rested on her chest and her eyes fluttered shut. She remembered something about a friend of hers being drowned by her boyfriend in the Ohio. Her and her unborn child. Tragic.
6
A black creature lumbered through the party. A sledgehammer dragged in its wake. Its inhalations shook the room. Its head scanned to and through. A shriveled man at height with the creature’s knees pointed towards people in the crowd. The creature nodded at each gesture.
Avery cowered under a table. The black thing pointed the business end of its sledgehammer at the table. The shriveled man took off his monocle and wiped it on his shirt. An empty eye socket continued to examine her. He replaced the monocle and the painted on eye blinked.
After an eternity he shook his head. They moved on. She fell over and melted into the coolness of the floor. Every thing slipped back into the haze of sleep.
7
Avery jerked awake and bolted up right. Her brain sloshed in a sea of hangover. She grunted and looked around. Mike was nowhere in sight. Most considerate thing he’s ever done.
She lay back down. The mists were too thick to see the sky, but it felt like morning. She watched the shadows dance on the foundation of the burned out house.
