Life’s a Party

I’ve never been to a party. Like, ever. I guess some people are born to enjoy it and others aren’t. There are genes controlling your circadian rhythm and your flow of adrenaline or serotonin. For me, there was also the lack of opportunity to ever go to a club in the first place. Like, ever. And of course, there is your upbringing. What you enjoy, what you can’t stand. My parents taught me quite too well what to enjoy and what not to. It’s a fluid process, with every situation it changes how well you fit in or maybe not.

And in that one, my crooked genes and history allowed me to be here. To enter a nightclub in the heart of the city, at night when all the rest of the neighbourhood is slowly dying out into bed.

And maybe Matteo was just a little too convincing. Because my knees are in a constant movement. How should I know what to expect?

“Life” is written in neon letters above the entrance, the lines uneven, like written by a child. Life sounds quite exciting, I have to admit. Actually so serious. I wanted to party, not to commit.

“Ready to go in?”, Matteo asks, interrupting my spiralling thoughts.

“Do I have another option?”

“Wait until you feel ready. But let’s just go in. Will be amazing.”

If he says so.

It’s darker than I expected. Smoke lays in the air like resting before moving on. And the noises. People are talking louder than I thought they were able to. It must hurt, right?

But after being through the bodyguards that dusted my body with their hands, I should maybe be used to this place’s harshness. It all comes to a peak as some person in a black gown steps on the stage, hovering behind what must be some mixing console.

“Good night ladies and gentlemen. This is DJ MaxxJZ and tonight your soul will me mine. Submit to the music and let your spirits free.“

I’d rather like to keep my soul, I think. And then it starts. People clapping as the first beats fight through the room. I feel the first urge to move and it doesn’t take long until my whole body is on wire, shaking under the energy. It’s so… great?

There are parts of me I’ve never before experienced. Like in a chamber, the bass is hammering through my hollow figure, enhancing it’s sound. And like a drug, it’s becoming my puppeteer as I move in unison with MaxxJZ’s quick finger movements.

The room goes crazy, screams fill the area and people come in and in until I have so little place, my feet keep hitting against other’s flesh and bone. But never before I’ve cared so little. Never before has someone else directed my body in such a way. Please, this moment can just be forever.

“Wanna bring me a drink?” Matteo is electrified as well. His body is filled with a rhythm that could power my nightlight. For the last second I actually forgot that there was someone here with me. That I was here because of someone else even.

“Let me enjoy this first.”

“Enjoy it with a drink.” I don’t even think there is possibility to enjoy this even more. I want to lay right into this beat, let it be my whole being, undulating through the world.

“Come on, man. I brought you here. Show me some gratitude.”

As if it wasn’t gratitude enough that I enjoy this little thing he more or less forced me to attend. But somehow, he is right.

And so, only minutes later, I find myself getting drinks. Not once, not twice. I can’t remember any more how often I went. How much I drank. I also forgot what I drank. All the bottles have so fancy names, reminding me of far-away cities I‘ll never be able to see. But maybe through these drinks, there will be the taste of a life left behind.

I only feel how the beat pierced my heart even more with every single sip. How the alcohol shakes in my blood as if making me want to move even more. And it feels… exhilarating.

There are people around me. Their faces a blur of red and blue. Their bodies liquid in this thick air, moving like ants, as a bundle with a hive mind to build circles, squares, moving against each other and creating a beautiful piece of performance. And I don’t know if I actually cry because of all the beauty or if it’s just the sweat dropping from my forehead. But the air is salty and my heart is experiencing a touch it has never before known it craved so badly. I’m moving in a group, following a rhythm I neither set nor know. It’s just obvious what you do, as if some magnet pulls me. Like the atoms of our bodies work together to assemble in nature’s intend.

And suddenly, I’m part of life. Whatever this life may be. There are people I don’t know around me, linking me as part of their dance. We do a parade, a circle. Hold hands and rub backs.

“You like MaxxJZ?”, someone asks me.

“The DJ?”

“Yes, he’s weird, I heard.”

I know nothing of what makes a DJ weird, but this can’t be it. MaxxJZ gave me a second breath, put my heart on a skip and made my body release all the energy stored from my past.

“He’s possessed or something.”

“Is that what people say?”, I ask. There must be some myths about everyone. Especially if you appear so mysteriously as this DJ man.

“It’s what experience says. I’ve been here more often. I know this ends every night. You aren’t able to leave. You just have to stay and stay and at some point he just stops the music. Slows it down to a waltz and gives you the last glance of what this night was like before all the lights go out and your ears still contain the last rhythm of A little party never killed nobody.”

I don’t want to hear a waltz. I liked music ever before, but from the song selection on this night, I know I will miss the feeling of having my heart pierced by this bass.

“But I don’t want to leave anyways.”

“Okay. Then let’s smoke one together.” She says with a light laugh.

Inside? I want to ask as she gives me a cigarette out of her back pocket and lights it right there and then.

“Don’t look at me like that. It doesn’t matter, right. We are here tonight. Wild. Free. Independent.”

The smoke tastes heavy on my tongue and thick as I inhale it. But also, it feels so light in my body. So volatile in my lungs. Where did all the matter go?

And in the background, the speakers scream Give me Everything.

We hold hands and turn in circles, rounding the beer stains on the floor. My moves are a mess, under the rhythm I become so soft, the music moulds me like a toddler playing with putty. Maybe this is just what I wanted. To be able to bend, to fly and to adapt. To shake and drink the sorrow out of me.

And time suddenly flies away like the smoke of the cigarette I dropped somewhere on the floor. The music is ringing in my ears, my body so shaky, standing still hurts so bad whenever the DJ makes a dramatic pause before the drop. My vision got so hazy, it is impossible to really see what is happening around me. And also the glass feels so slippery in my hands as I take big gulps of the stale beer. Matteo is nowhere to be seen. Haven’t been with him for what must have been hours now.

But around me, people are squishing, fighting for a place to properly dance. It is so full, my body feels so fragile under all the pressure. My blood is suddenly louder than the music and before I know what I’m really doing, my feet carry me down from the dance floor, where I miss one of the steps. My feet lose connection to the ground and before I‘m able to realise what happened, my head knocks against the dull floor.

And lying has never felt more like a relief. Don’t let anyone see me, please. Just go on with your party. I’ll join you, as soon as possible. But the floor is a bit too comfortable. I could sleep here, bedded between beer and sweat, the music lulling me in, the beat rocking me as if I was just laid in a cradle.

What a night this was. I’ve danced my soul out on the dance floor. I’ve drank lots of glasses of whatever all of this was. I’ve accepted a cigarette from a nameless stranger.

I’ve literally done all the things I swore I’ll never ever do. And I enjoyed them all. The room starts spinning out of nowhere. A slight feeling of vomit climbs up my neck. My body might be able to handle to surprisingly high amount of socially normalised toxins, but I can’t handle seeing me as the person consuming them.

Ironic.

I just wanted to have a fun night out. And here I am, lying on the fucking floor and regretting allowing me to be free for a few hours. So, Karma is truly a bitch. Or maybe the bitch is me.

I have to get up. Get out of this place. I should look for Matteo, but he can wait. He vanished anyways. For the first time, this should be about me. So, I stand up, my legs shaking as if I was a toddler, which is exactly how I feel in general tonight. I snatch the actually unbroken glass and search for the door.

People in jackets are there, just coming in. Rain is still dripping from their hair, the whole air moist and so, so fresh.

I run to the entrance, put the glass on some random step next to the wardrobe.

But then, there is nothing. Nothing out there. Air is surrounding me on all angles. Where there was a street before we entered this thing, there is just a huge cloud, so vaporous, you can’t step on it. It’s like the club became a flying island in a matter of hours. And where there was an entrance, there doesn’t seem to be an exit. Suddenly, I‘m in the middle of nowhere, while inside MaxxJZ is teaching us that he’s Mr. Vain.

I find Matteo lying in some puddle of beer, next to two other guys. Broken glass reflects the light in tiny shining fragments. The dirty clothes of the guys show me how finished they already are. But it’s late in the night, so what did I expect?

I help them stand up. Matteo first, although he needs way more assistance with standing than with anything else. His body seemed to have given up. What were once his abilities have now lost their function and he’s just a corpse that can barely express what it wants you to do.

“We have to go now.” I scream in his face, trying desperately to be louder than the music.

“I’m sorry.” is all he says. But he shouldn’t be sorry, not for disappearing. I liked all of that just as well.

“We have to go, Matteo.”

“You can’t go. You can’t leave me here all alone.”

What the hell? He brought me here, after all. So then at least let me go.

“I’m only here because you brought me.”

“You could have said no.”

But I’m not so sure about that. Because when I say that Matteo is convincing, I could have just as well said that he doesn’t respect a no. So, why say it anyways? To only be disappointed in the end.

“Please, Matteo. We have to go. I can’t stand it in here anymore.”

“But you can’t just go.” Is he sobering up? At least, his sentences sound clearer now. “You would leave me here alone. I can’t be alone.”

“But this is not my responsibility.” Not again do I let myself be convinced to stay.

“You have to tell me how to go out.”

And finally, he begins to laugh. Maybe I expected him to already, because the words he says, I pictured him saying those already while being on my way towards him.

“There is no possibility to leave. This is life.”

And from the speakers a voice tunes Heaven is a place on earth.

The crowd is maybe the highest resistance I have ever witnessed. It seems like walking through mud, so sticky, there is no way to do a proper step. Just stumbling and sometimes looking back if Matteo’s hand is still in mine.

I wanted to look for some smoking area, but since the girl told me to just smoke inside, this is probably not even existing. So how else can somebody leave the club? Turn on some alarm? Is there even one, when the smoke is not detected yet? Should I fake some health issue? But who should come looking for me if there is no single staff here? Except dancers. Even the bars are not occupied anymore. Or maybe they were never. I can’t even say what is true anymore.

Before I can look for other options, Matteo drops my hand. “We have to talk about this.”

“Oh yes.” There is probably some fire in my voice, but it sounds just like broken a voice changer. “You have to finally tell me what is going on?”

Mentally, I prepare myself for his answer. Expect him to explain to me why the hell we can’t exit a nightclub, but instead he just says “As if you didn’t know.”

“Know what?”

“What would happen. You chose to come here, after all.”

The audacity he has is incredible. “Didn’t you take me here. Told me I can absolutely not miss out on this?”

For a minute some hurt crosses his face, but am I not right?

“I only wanted the best for you. Because you never had the opportunity befo…”

“We don’t talk about that.” I notice how loud I must have been, when people around us start turning around.

I see him swallowing. “Maybe we have to. Because you seemed to be pretty easy to convince to go here.”

It was him. Always him. Matteo, who told me how sorry he was for me. How he wished I could have lived longer to be old enough to experience what he calls “the big life”.

If I ever seemed to have liked the idea of spending my second life here, it was because of him.

“You knew well enough that this was either full-on or not at all.” His neck cranes back at me. “And still, you chose it. This is what you wanted, so better enjoy it. Because there is no going back."

You cannot choose your life. You cannot choose your genes, not your upbringing. You cannot change your past and everything that led to being here, in this one single moment. And still, you can choose to act on all this or to try something else. But in this sense, my mind is a weak one. It can be bend and broken. And since I don’t like to talk about everything that happened before I came here, since I refuse to acknowledge my parents, my addiction, for fuck’s sake, even my own death, since all that, how should I move on? How should I not be stuck with my former dealer Matteo in a freaking nightclub called “Life”, although every single person in there has nothing to do with that anymore?

We stand there for what must be minutes, staring into each other's eyes over the rhythm of It‘s not right, but it’s okay. As if whoever moves first, loses this so crooked game. Until Matteo reaches out his hand, puts it on top of mine. “Maybe we can still change something, even though we are here.“

 “I cannot go back to this feeling of losing control over me.“

 “But you can do different. Love music and still be sober. Dance without the shame. Life‘s a party after all.“

But if Life’s a party, then it means seeking this ecstasy, the pleasure of being free. Everything that brought me here in the first place. Us. The boxes of pills are still engraved in my mind. Matteo‘s hands on the wheel, the screeching. The crash. How should I ever enjoy something, when there will be a fall in the end. Lying in the floor in shame? Another death of us?

If I have to stay here, I will fall sooner or later. So, at least I should make it worth it. “I need some water first.“

And in my ears, the beat changes over to a sweet little tune, as MaxxJZ puts on the charming jingle of a waltz. “Let’s dance instead.“, Matteo says and reaches out his hand.