In Continuum.

A Piece of Dry Land

Kathy threw a party, and I was somehow invited. The yellow slip of flyer passed to the students exiting the school entrance barely a week ago advertised the party of the year at Kathy's the following Saturday night. In conjunction with her twenty-first birthday and the fact that her millionaire parents wouldn't be at home, part one of the party was held at her million dollar mansion while part two was to be downtown where the clubs are.

I'm not too sure about the second part since I have never taken a liking for the type of music that they play, not to mention the repulsive smell of weed in the air as well as the taste of vomit during the aftermath. But as a rule, if you do not attend the climax of a series of parties, at least attend the first - or be condemned by the rest of the party-goers for the rest of the year. They are at the top of the food chain, these party-goers. They decide who are the hunters and who are the hunted, and of course there are always the forgettable lifeforms commonly known as the nerds, the geeks, and who can forget the Ringers and the Trekkies?

Even from a hundred meters down the road, the noise from Kathy's house invaded the insides of my car. Nobody worried about the neighbors calling up the local police because Kathy's family owns not only twenty odd percent of Boeing's shares, but also a dozen different real estate investments scattered throughout the country, almost like the way a skin disease would infect your body. Besides, they have a whole postal code to themselves, which means that the only creatures that were disturbed that night were the deers in the woods that surrounded the house, bull frogs in the bushes, the occasional squirrels and perhaps one more: Me.

I never liked parties, and never considered myself too fitting in the picture of one. Socializing has never been a forte for me ever since young, not even when my father slipped a five dollar bill into my pocket and asked me to go out there to play baseball with the neighborhood kids. I did, and ended up in an ugly brawl which I returned with a chipped tooth and a bruised left eye. The truth is, the bruising on my face rooted all the way into my heart, and the traumatizing experience of a whole team of young boys surrounding your with their fists and legs injected itself into the deepest pits of my emotions, creating the perfect nest for this anti-social character inside. But to survive in a society, I learned, one has to make sacrifices. In this dog eat dog world, one has to be with the strong or be with the weak, and as much as I sympathize with the so-called "Forgotten" population of the school, I preferred to associate myself with the upper-class, the party-goers. After all, all I needed was to show up at a party and not wave a baseball bat. The chances of me being treated like a human sandbag by the end of the night: Zilch.

Immediately, I felt out of place. Like the way a balloon would seem when it is stuck in the branches of a great tree, or the way the sun would stubbornly shine on a rainy afternoon. Or perhaps even the way a human hair would look in a bowl of clear soup. That is how I felt like, as I sat amidst the noise and the smell of those party animals, dancing to the deafening beat of the hip-hop music that registered nothing in my mind. I tried to count the number of vulgarities the rapper was trying to spurt out, but was lost in the sea of nausea, as I sipped slowly on my glass of vodka lime, staying away from socializing, away from the creatures of the night.

Allow me, with my imaginary brush and palette, to paint a picture of Kathy's party as I saw it from my point of view from the couch. In the corner of the living room a deejay's spin table was set up, and Jason was behind the table spinning away with a snobbish look on his face. There is a sudden urge on my part to push his face into the spinning discs but I don't think I am allowed to inject personal emotions into a picture, so we shall move on. Almost every corner of the house was filled with people from school, some recognizable while others weren't, under their layers of make-up and their almost too gimmicky wardrobes. The lights danced from above, bounced off the faces of these party-goers as they gave their shrillest laughs and cries, trying to compete with the speakers in terms of the decibels. As if there was a prize in winning the competition, the mindless chatter between the people grew louder and dumber as Jason's ego soared.

In the kitchen where the drinks were, the heavily depressed and the heavily drunk met, and they sputtered nonsense to each other and laughed to bathroom jokes. The smell of cigarettes filled the air, and above our heads danced the teasing cloud of smoke, rising from every lighted tip around the house. They joined the cloud above, like white sea gulls joining their flocks after being trapped in a white tube of paper, set free by the fire that raged through the black forest. And as we look deeper into this painting of the party, there in the corner of the picture was me, strangely out of place and completely uncomfortable with the surrounding - but mostly just himself.

So I excused myself from the crowd and must have took a whole lifetime to get to the front door. Claustrophobia was weighing down on my chest like a million anvils, the air rushed out of my lungs and I refused to inhale anymore as the sea gulls continued to dance above our heads and now, around our faces and bodies. I had to get out, I had to find a place without anybody to suffocate me with their appalling looks, their faces, their everything. But to find a place with nobody in a sea of people. That's as good as finding a dry spot in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. An impossible task, but a task I promised myself to embark upon as I stepped out of the front door finally and into the cold chilly night of September. It was close to midnight at that time, and in the middle of the sky hung the moon. How I wished, at that moment, to disappear into the light of the lady Moon and be alone even for that split second. Away from the crowd, away and away and away. But I had to stay, at least until half past midnight before I make my way home. It was too early, because the sex had yet to occur, save for the ones already were already happening in private corners of the house. Besides, Kathy's cake wasn't cut, the candles weren't blown yet.

An equally repulsive picture of the party inside the mansion, took place outside as well. It felt like a completely different party, but too familiar all at once. With the addition of a pool to this picture, it all seemed a little different. But without the disgusting music and the sea gulls, the party outside took a different turn, and a wrong turn at that. The sound outdoors was dominated by the sound of those ear-piercing screams of the girls being threatened by other boys to be thrown into the pool, already in their lingerie and nothing else. The sex was about to happen, and inside my mind I breathed a sigh of relief as I pictured my comfortable bed at home and the familiar smell of saliva and sweat. Just a few moments more until the hooks of those girls' bras come off, then I shall be on my way. A few moments more, stay alive. Breathe.

Something was different about this outdoor mayhem though, this open-air asylum that resembled the indoor one. Instead of just one person out of place, there was another spot in the corner of this picture, unwillingly painted upon the canvas. But it was a strange thing, for this spot looked so stunning and beautiful and yet, nobody noticed her just sitting there in the corner, drinking on her own cup of vodka lime. She was alone, a girl dressed in a simple black satin dress with thin straps hanging from her smooth shoulders, and a head of red hair that reminded me of the autumn that only just came and went. Her legs curled back underneath the bench, as if she was afraid that the world around her would take the bench away from her, as if it was her only precious possession. Her thighs emerged where the dress ended, and from where they started, an endless strip of beauty all the way down to her toes where her figure ended. Her red hair fell against her face, sharp features that resembled that of a carefully chiseled statue. She looked like a plastic doll with burning blue eyes that looked like the morning sky by the beach, which the swirling sea gulls in the mansion must have been looking for - their freedom away from these animals, these creatures. But there I was by the pool just seconds after conjuring my own thoughts about leaving, the hidden wings within my heart opened as I saw my own peice of sky spread out before me.

Without a word uttered or a gesture made, I seemed to have caught her attention, for she looked my way from between the bodies that blocked our view of each other. I felt exposed all of a sudden, despite being hidden in a crowd of people. Suddenly, the shirt that I had on was unsuitable, my hair was out of place and the casual suit I was wearing wasn't matching my sneakers. Imaginary spots sprouted from hidden holes in my face, and I shunned away from her gaze for the fear of being judged, being accused of a crime. Like the fists and the feet of the baseball team that I played for when I was younger, her stare came across harder and heavier than those, hammering down upon my body as she scrutinized me for that split second.

I dared a peek from the corner of my eyes, and there she was still looking at me with those amazing blue eyes. But they weren't burning now, but a gentle shade of turquoise like the sky right after a raging storm. She welcomed me with her stares, a warmth amidst the cold shoulders of the crowd drew me closer and closer into those invisible arms. I took a step, and then two, and then three until they exploded into a series of paces that led me slowly to the source of my infatuation. Or perhaps it was merely the hunger for a company, or a partner in crime of sorts. I needed to be alone in a party of people, and there she was guarding her bench with her slender legs, giving me the only dry piece of land in the middle of the ocean.

Our eyes met, the heart pounded against the chest. There was an unspoken poetry of affection in the air, an ode to the both of us who found each other in the middle of a riot. But we were on an empty street, Italian perhaps, and the songs played through the empty roads and streets to celebrate our meeting. But drowned and overwhelmed by the noise around us, neither of us found words to satisfy the scene and the look in each others' eyes. It was as if the spots on the picture merged into one, and from the edges of the picture they moved out and drifted into the skies gradually until the glare of the sun blinded the following eyes. We were there with everybody else, and we were alone together as well, all in a split of a second, in a moment that lasted virtually forever.

I felt my breath bounce back into my mouth as I leaned forward towards her left ear. Over the noise, I figured it wasn't the best way to tell her what I had in mind. I was afraid, almost too timid to get too close to her, because her beauty and perfection daunted me for a second. The red hair reflected the dancing lights from the house, and a faint scent of perfume was emitted from the curve of her neck. Into her ears, I bucked up my courage and hoped dearly that the beat of my heart would not reach her other ear. For she might have seen it as a sign of weakness, or a soft spot of some kind. But it mattered so little in fact, in the face of my desperation. So very little, indeed. And with the brief exchange of the following words, we flew away towards the moon, and away and away and away...

"I found you." I said.

"Hello, stranger." she replied, and smiled.

"I am going to marry you, stranger."

"I know."

I know...

I know...