Trench Coat Hallucination Two
I'm drowning in a sea of faces. The light is low, and everything's blurry, vague around the edges; the air is thick and smells like body, full of sex and sweat, with a faint cheap metallic taste. Music pulses, bass like the heartbeat of the party, the moving bodies its arteries.
The hostess is in the corner making out with her boyfriend -- his hand is up her shirt. I try to comfort myself with the thought that that'd be us, if you were here. It just makes your absence hurt worse.
A wave of familiar cologne passes me.
A brunette I've never seen before. Damn.
A girl comes towards me, through the crowd. I recognize her, sort of -- she has smooth pale skin and fine brown hair; her ears are pierced numerous times, and a diamond stud glints in her nose. I can see the shape of her nipples through her tank top, all knobby and hard despite the temperature. She looks at me, eyes big and brown and lined with black. Her hand reaches towards me, falls across my face. Long black fingernails flick over the chapped, bitten skin of my lips.
She takes my hand, and I follow her outside. A light snow is falling. It looks almost magical, flakes catching in the stale glow of the street lights and pausing for a moment before continuing to the ground. She gets in my car, and as I turn on the ignition, I ask what her name is. She doesn't say anything, just laughs -- a giggle mated with a five-year-old's hiccup.
I step on the gas, and we fly into the night.
---
She sits alone on a dinghy couch ... there are people milling around, but they don't talk to her. She holds her Coke with both hands -- she hates Coke, but at least this way she can pretend to do something. Her eyes dart around the room, searching for a familiar face to draw into her world of sunken cheeks and vaguely sipped soda. As one boy passes her, she looks up hopefully, but then the flash of recognition is gone. She sighs.
Suddenly, the girl stands. Her drink is set down, forgotten on an end table to create condensation circles on the glass. She winds her way through the mass of bodies. No one notices her leave.
Fumbling with cold hands, she unlocks her car and climbs in, snowflakes like diamonds clinging to her. The windshield wipers run for a few seconds; the headlights turn on. Dirty snow whicks onto her car as she heads down the street. The dark houses peter away to fallow fields. She accelerates faster and faster towards the never-ending dark.