March 6, 2012

Finally, I nodded with an anticipated “Yes”.
My freaky friends Tony, Sam, Claudia and Martha, out of their typical meaningless joy, yelled “Yeahh”!

And out we set, pressed and packed in Claudia’s small Volkswagen Beetle, which she prided on having been gifted by her grandfather. The night looked afresh and noisy amidst the brightly lit billboards and busy sirens and running car horns and junkies trading on the road sides and night-queens with knee-length boots and struggled glamour doing their stalking rounds stopping cars and bending and, okay, etc., etc.

My mind was still in blur, or may be, the lingering effect of those gulps of tonic, in the name of the break-up we had just celebrated, the break-up of my friends Sam and Martha. And they are kissing now! What the heck of a break up? Give me a break!

Anyway, spare them for whatever. My point is – wait - Oh well, we’re just back from the party, and I am just trying to scribble the scene I encountered, or rather, the plight, before my hazy head connects with this smelly cobwebbed pillow on this cocaine-stained bed of Tony, and my picky conscience vanishes to slumber, until I wake up again with god-knows-what-kind-of hangover. Gosh, am I really so drunk now? Whatever…

Yes, that “yes” I said, it was when these morons – I mean my friends (names stated above) were trying to console me with the flashed idea of hitting a Disco party. I had sobbed, like some waif in a tragic movie. My God, why did I even do that – literally involving myself, empathetically and emotionally, at the moment of break-up of Sam and Martha, as they started hugging and crying like babies, shedding tears (now let me change it to ‘crocodile tears’), for, what followed was a pile of shit that hit me hard!

In we walked, and there was this huge room, and Oh-My-God, the crowd in there! I wondered how anyone could even recognize anyone.  The music was jarring and vibrating the huge speaker stands near the Disc Jockey, people were dancing wildly, and humping, and along with that was the murmur of all intersecting talks of the timidly dancing folks, and not to mention those self-acclaimed sane and sorted folks sipping and watching like voyeurism in the progress, from the dim lit bar, the vantage point.

“Wait, what the hell am I doing here being such a hopeless and untimely spectator?”No sooner did this sudden thought prick my mind, than a sudden pat on my back. I turned around, and there stood this beautiful young lady, smiling confidently at me. God, she was such so beautiful - I assumed so, from the grace and the dress she was wearing, though I couldn’t really see her face due to the smoke-stained dim light. But I swore to my heart that had just started ringing the bell of love that this must be how one experienced love at the first sight – our eyes met. She was still smiling, and said to me, “Hi”. I smiled back at her with a tinge of shyness packed with dignity, and a silent pondering question mark of am-I-that-smart-enough-to-be-hit-on-by-some-dame in my mind. Soft violin music suddenly materialized in the background. I felt romantic. I felt filmy.

And then, the next moment that unfolded was like this, let me put it in slow motion: She gave me a thrashing slap on my face. Fireflies, and twinkling stars, added in my head, in that kaleidoscopic disco light. I blinked in perspiration.

Retake the scene:

“You are Marc, aren’t you?” That tone of hers seriously wasn’t sweet. I examined her face while she was asking me. God, her chin was sharp as a blade, and that rage on her face. I swore to the faded-violin music in the background right away, that, she was NOT beautiful anymore.

“Eh..err…Yes I am, but..” Hardly had I finished my inquiring utterance, her slap she left the spot, and vanished amidst the dancing crowd, after

All that I was left with was me and the “What the F….” an inner turmoil crept up in me, mixed with disgust and an irrepressible embarrassment. The question that I wanted to question her remained unquestioned as she walked away with a nonchalant attitude, after humiliating me for no reason, or if at all there was, I couldn’t even trace the flashback of it.

A second thought flashed in my mind – what the hell was that? Should I just follow her and figure out what her problem was? – I hurriedly walked out of the crowded room to follow her. By the time I could reach the exit door after nudging the dancing crowd, she was already stooping by a taxi, perhaps heading home. “Hey, you there, wait up a sec…” I shouted. And the next thing that happened again left me standing there puzzled and rather amused – the way she was shooting her middle finger up in the air and that vengeance-ridden face of hers. I swore that was something enigmatic and attractive about her. Yes, she was a beautiful bitch!

The taxi sped off. I stood there at the door wondering what the hell that was all about, and recapping the just happened scenes  - a mysteriously attractive lady who knew my name suddenly walking up to me and slapping me and storming away from the discotheque. Wow!

 “How do I see her again? I know no clue about her – who she was, where she came from” I smirked off and walked back inside the club.