I watch. I like to watch them in the clubs.
I see them arrive slowly, the early revellers. They are
usually new to the clubs, not knowing when to arrive, getting there too early.
They are the ones who still experiment with their drinks, brightly coloured
liquids fill tot glasses and cherries and pineapples garnish the glasses on the
tables. They have not yet decided on that drink of choice that will define them
from here on out. I wonder when that day comes; the day when Pina Coladas are
discarded in favour of a glass of dry-white; why does that day come at all?
Slowly the room begins to fill, seats become scarce and the
doorman becomes more select in who crosses the boundary between the night and
the mass of bodies writhing within. Soon I only see the beautiful people
entering, joining groups of other beautiful people and each group glowing with
complete confidence and complete insecurity. They are there to be seen and
admired and sit together oozing in their own assuredness of knowing that one-day
there will be no-one to look. I comply with their needs and I watch them.
I see the young crowds with their hopeful exuberance and
endless energy. I see the older crowds, old enough to be regulars set in their
ways and already limited to the same seats and tables with the same drinks and
the same friends. I see the oldest crowd, an air of mild panic as they begin to
realise they no longer belong and refuse to believe it. I see and I watch and I
listen.
I listen to the
shrieks of laughter and yells that punctuate the music. I listen to the
obligatory pauses where the DJ instructs the crowd to “Make some noise”, “Put
their hands in the air” and I watch while the crowd follows all instructions as
the music becomes increasingly trancelike and the crowd loses itself to become
a simple mass of faces and arms and noise and light. I watch them through the
acrid haze of cigarettes, my own adding to the particles that crawl into their
skin and hair and clothing joining to the sweat and stickiness of spilt drinks.
I watch them as the music and the dance reaches its height and I feel the pulse
of the crowd fall in line to the pulse of the music, all perfectly in sync.
That moment comes but once each night, it’s what I wait for, what I ask for,
what I feed on.
I leave after that, I like to remember them in their glory.
I prefer the memory of the swans that entered to the bedraggled feathers that
crawl out. The sad stragglers leaving at the last moment hold no thrill for me,
they have not yet learnt when to leave. I always leave and I always return and
I watch and I wait...
