Note: This short story was originally published in livejournal. It is presented here in it’s original form. A new version of this short story will be posted soon.
Dancing Under the Midnight Rain
All I could think about was that I couldn’t feel the pain anymore. It’s gone. The pulsating shock that reverberates around my stressed leg, stemming from an injured runner’s foot, is gone. I couldn’t feel it. It’s not there. The empty bottle laid down perfunctorily on the floor of the car became the unambiguous proof as to why I couldn’t feel the pain. I wanted to say that I felt release when that bottle aided me… but what I really felt was… youth.
Roughly an hour ago, two hours before the midnight rain was to deluge us with nature’s rock’n’roll, I had managed to successfully infiltrate a sleeping apartment complex without the blaring alarms going off… alarms that indicate to any nearby inactive adults that a twenty-something-year-old is in the complex, artfully pretending to be a sneaky teenager with an illegal contraband. I know full well that as an adult I wouldn’t be pegged as the mischievous kind. There was really no need for the pretending… but I liked the idea of pretending. Maybe it was my unexciting adult life that had prompted this desire within me. Who knows? But for whatever causes the gods of fate had cooked up to give me this thirst of pretending, the end result of this thirst is of Bilal and I simmering in the complex’s hot tub… washing away the rigors of adult life from our exhausted muscles. Our ninja ways of trespassing had successfully led us to our goal: for us to bake under nonsensical nothingness.
Yes… if I had to sum up that night, that night was the equivalent image of nonsensical nothingness. It wasn’t Napoleon Dynamite-ish in a sense… it was more like a welcome image after the sun of youth had set – when an adult walks at night, waiting for the dawn of his golden years. That nonsensical nothingness night was a reprieve from that darkness of my adult years – a break from the Sisyphus-prison I found myself in. It was a time when I try to repaint the canvas of my youth – reshaping it with the pastels of wisdom. I guess inherently that’s what I wanted that night to be: a blank night ready to be shaped with whatever I fancy… and that night I fancied my youth.
That’s why I found myself an hour later under the spell of liquor, chanting lyrics with Bob Marley as he suffused himself in the atmosphere of Bilal’s SUV. We were parked in front of my house by then, opting to stay outside as we await nature’s rock show. Our muscles relaxed… my runner’s injury – gone… washed away by my excitement for youth. Bilal’s solitude was calming, and I found myself with no need for the art of conversation. I had desired Bob’s company instead… choosing to dispense the company of any adult intellect. I sang Bob’s pain as if it was mine… successfully ignoring the nagging suspicion that I’m not at all original. Youth has no room for the mundane… no room for order… no room for the uninspired. And that night, Bob and I were inspired.
Our inspiration had led nature to accompany Bob and mine’s lyrics, drumming a conscious beat on the gravel road half an hour later. The midnight rain had begun early, spurred on by my incessant screeching for the return of youth. I looked outside through the windshield, marveling at the luminous display of nature’s rock show. I was thinking to myself then; if I could only return to my adulthood-cage with one snapshot of this summer, it would be this snapshot – nature’s own voice singing with mine. I was… inspired.
I looked at Bilal, noting his quiet surrender to the trance of our shared intoxicant. He looks at me, mystified at the grin that has suddenly marked my face. He quietly asks…
“What?”
I laugh… mischievously laughed…
“I’m gonna freaking dance in the rain!”
He shakes his head as I laughingly roll down my window. I opened the door, jumped out excitedly, and slammed the door as I ran into the middle of the street – languishing in the language that nature bathes me in… the language of youth.
I look back at Bilal… he was laughing at my antics, surprised at the adolescent that had emerged from the haven of his vehicle. But his bass laughter did not contradict my whims of that night… not once did he deny my request for immortality. He knew instinctively not to deny me my pursuit of youth. He saw no need to tame the wildness… no need to obstruct an adult’s hunt for nonsensical nothingness. He turned the volume up as I nod my head in approval. Bob and I are singing our songs again, and the midnight rain is joining our chorus.
I dance… and I dance… and I danced. The rain – striking me with gentle ferocity… a shower of approval… a shower that proclaims along with me:
This…
This moment that I am in…
This moment of youth…
This moment…
…it is original!
This moment is original!
And no one could take this away from me! Not the heartbreak moments of adult monotony! Not the tyranny of boredom! Not the daggers of adult conversations! Not the suffocating demands of responsibility! Not the un-lyrical songs of conformity! No! No! None of these will ever take this moment from me!
Youth has no room for the mundane…
No room for order…
No room for the uninspired…
And I danced… and I danced… and I danced.
I danced, quietly whispering…
This moment is original…
This moment is original…
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are a product of my imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.