The thumping was what set me off.  That constant pulsating, throbbing, tribal sound.  Are we really at the peak of our situation?  Mankind has brought ourselves out of the jungles, yet we congregate in nightclubs to hear our beating drums, and writhe together as one species.  Reverting to this instinct won't make the other problems of our time disappear.   I looked through the smoky haze to see where I was... where I could be... I wasn't really claustrophobic, but I felt like I was choking in there... so tight, so many people, so little space... Surrounded by people smiling, endlessly smiling, grins of naïvety, intolerable, insane, pointless... why were they smiling?  The thumping was getting louder... no, that was stupid... that was just paranoia... it couldn't be getting louder just to spite me... could it?

I  looked left, and I looked right... people on all sides.  Friends, people who thought they were friends, people who I never knew, people who I never wanted to know.  Breathing was really becoming an effort.  Smoke, cigarettes, air, congealing all around me.  What was going on?  How could I want to be here?  How could I pay to be here?  The thought was absurd.  People were grinning and laughing and talking and yelling... to/at me?  I don't know... space and air... when you want things, why are they always out of reach?

I stood up, tried to, looking for an exit... looking for a path to an exit... looking for something that wasn't likely to be found, but still, I would die there, or die trying to get out of there...  No escape... people all around me... touching me... why are you touching me?  I don't even know you... I don't want to know you... I couldn't smell anything... why couldn't I smell anything?  There was so much around me, smoke, alcohol, people, plastic faces with plastic grins and plastic partners lapping it all up... it should have had a smell... why couldn't I smell??

I looked up.  A snapping sound from my neck... ouch... why am I always so broken? I rolled my neck over my shoulders, trying to loosen it up.  Cracking sounds, and tension, all seemed to leave me feeling sore.  I opened my eyes again... look up... black ceiling, so high up... strange white things hanging from the roof... metal grids, people in booths dancing above us on either side, partygoers... God I wanted some air.

And behind me... my corner booth, L-shaped, me in the corner, people all around... it's like a trap was set... I fell for it.. stupid, fucking stupid, boy, don't you think??  Behind me was a set of stairs going into the ground... leading to toilets, storage areas, and lots of drunk people being ill and trying to freshen up their plastic smiles.  It was a fair drop, you know.  From my corner it had to be about three metres down... don't even think about it.

A savage grin crept onto my face.... "you stupid boy... why do you do it to yourself??"

I stood up, turned around, and stood on the seat.  I swung a leg over the railing, and could see freedom, feel it.  The air was so much cleaner up there!  But alas, a hand on my arm... I looked down, and a sweet innocent face looked up at me... it was too loud to hear words, but it was obvious the intention.  "What the fuck are you doing??"  Innocence looked at me trying to pull me back in... but the evil grin was still there, and evil always triumphs over innocence.  I wonder if that could be seen in my eyes?  Or did I just look like a madman jumping over a balcony?

But my savage grin and my crooked teeth and my broken body just smiled back, and I was over.  Down, down, land on feet, then out out out!  But a push in the back, and pain!  Can it be?  A man in black... security strikes again... you're throwing me out?  I laughed in his face.  He thinks I'm drunk... of course it looks like that, but it's not my fault I'm not sane.  Pushing in the back, that constant, very much in a Clockwork Orange fashion, that "out out out!"  And why are you pushing me?  There's nowhere I'd rather be.

But I'll be back, and you know it, and I know it.

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