“Crushed”
The phone glowers as I stand, waiting on line for my beverage. I stand only slightly away from where the music pulses so loudly it seems as though the darkness itself is undulating in time to the deep boom of the bass. Peasants writhe and glisten with sweat as they dance; they form a mass both dense and slick, as so many fish in a sea. I stand larger than them all, an outsider, an observer, but also an unwilling participant.
I glance back at my cellular, a sudden need for distraction overtaking me. The line is sluggish, the peasants too greedy. Soon the keg will empty and the mysteries of this night will die; an emaciation of the memory taken both gladly and freely; poisons protecting the mind from the flesh. I pity them.
I realize that my deep subconscious has overtaken me. For, out of the myriad of applications that I possess for auto- amusement, the one I select, the one I am drawn to as a moth to a quivering ame, is Candy Crush. I feel acrid repulsion, the vibrant bright lights like a big city, the dark of the fraternity’s basement lit momentarily by my mistake. I feel my irritation, wrath, grow like grapes on a vine.
“Are you in line?” The fragile feminine voice pierces the night like the spear of Agamemnon.
My Savior.
I raise my gaze to meet her eyes, a matrimony of the irises. I am hesitant to answer, to break this unlikely bond, but she is brazen.
She holds out her hand. “My name is Daisy Buckman,” she says.
I swallow. Even in the darkness I can see the shining glory of her green eyes. The orbs flicker under the party lights. I can barely make out the other features on her countenance. All I see is that she has dark bangs.
I accept her hand and allow her to lead me out of the darkness and into the light. Together, we cross the threshold into another world, one of light and sound and fury and speech. Her hand is soft. I squeeze it gently, as I would the stem of a fresh-plucked rose.
We halt. She hands me the drink that she has procured by some sorcery. I see that she is fresh-faced and beautiful. Innocent, despite the rank corruptions of this modern world.
“What’s your name?” Daisy asks me softly.
“Myles,” I reply. “Myles Hemingway Lonergan.”
“That’s an interesting middle name,” she says. She giggles. I laugh, too, a small chuckle.
“My parents allowed me to pick my own middle name,” I explain. “I thought that there could be no better choice.” I am unembarrassed. It is the only thing in my life that is interesting. Until now.
We speak with excitement, anticipation, savoring that time before the energy of drink and swirling bodies dissipates. We are both Cinderellas for whom the bell will toll, though we know not when.
“I like you,” Daisy says softly. She stands up taller and strokes the side of my face in a light caress.
Soon, our lips fumble heatedly. I move my hands to hold her close to me. We share this moment, glorious and fleeting, and as we move together I hum Chopin to myself. I care not for the peasants who might be regarding this display. Let them watch.
Daisy pulls away after some moments (I know not how many) and covers her mouth with one hand. She giggles softly to herself, and the sound thrums within me. “I’ll be back, okay,” she says. She steps away with gentle motions.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“The bathroom,” she replies. She now removes her final limb from touching my own. We are entirely separate now, though just moments before I had felt lost within her, as though a storm of Vergil had entirely swept me, casting me away. As she retreats, I watch her go, thinking that perhaps, even in the deepest dark of the witching hour, entombed in a basement prison of society, it is still possible to see the sun also rise.
I wait for Daisy, watching the door from whence she will return.
Time passes.
Time feels slow and pulpy, I think to myself. Pulpy, clockwork is, like an orange.
She still does not return.
I feel like I have waited for half my lifetime before I think to leave. I stand, yearning, both noting the passing of time, marking the departures of all the peasants around me, coupled, grouped, or alone, and not noting anything but the slow gasping of my heart.
Daisy.
When I finally return to my meager abode, I do not flick on the light. I move to my desk, silent. The moon is full, coming through the window.
I sit at my desk, and feel my fingers drawn to the typewriter, ready and waiting. I would appear to any artist a portrait of a young man.
Painstakingly, I type my new title:
“Crushed.”