The Party

I stood there with a drink, Ray at my side. We two had decided to find our way into one of those chic cliques that scattered the living room. We couldn’t say why we were there, but the plain fact was that, whether spontaneously generated or by careful logical steps, the middle of the charade was blemished by two individuals, Ray and I, standing alone and not talking much. We found it necessary to mingle with at least one of the pretentious enclaves that had formed throughout the party.
            The statues, a full twenty feet tall and higher, cast a shadow against the neon-colored walls and accented the oddly shaped furniture. The entire house seemed to melt into the living room, which expanded out and was lined with a balcony around it’s entirety from the second floor. Looking down we saw only a pool of people, all holding drinks, and attached to one another usually in groups of three to five. The various groups did not interact with one another, but instead kept to themselves and moved throughout the room like a single organism. Every so often they would lose or gain a person, and thereby expand or decrease in size. In such a manner did these amoebas appear to dance a waltz around the room, carefully navigating between brightly colored chairs, enormous statues and a number of other tawdry artworks. One such obstruction, however, was unavoidable: it could only be described as a giant silo, reaching all the way to the roof and slightly oblate in shape. I could only assume that this was an elevator of sorts as I saw what appeared to be an entrance to it, although I must admit I never recall using it, and I never saw anybody leave once they got in.
            The furniture was also in loud and intolerable colors; it had about it an air of sophistication in the worst sense of the word. None of it was angular or linear, but instead appeared only as a loose representation of what furniture might look like. In my duration I never say anybody use this furniture, nor did I myself use it, but I noticed that in the unconscious waltz of the floor it was always avoided. As if by some divine sense the human collectives moved around all of the obstructions, never making contact with any part of the rooms interior or with each other, in a clockwise fashion as if in an act of worship to their acropolis, the giant tower that loomed over us all. By this very madness it seemed that the silo was the point of harmony, the master conductor, the unmoved mover that maintained the careful equilibrium of this high-class circus.
            As I looked down at the people, I noticed an evolved sense of dress that implied a distinct kind of wealth. Though it was casual in nature, the clothes all glimmered like sunken stars reflecting off a turbulent ocean shore, sporting a sense of cautious planning on the part of the individuals adorned by them. The women all had nicely made up hair, and the men appeared to stand forever and eternally in an indifferent posture, occasionally jerking their head one way or another as they made insignificant points to the others of their group.
            As I looked down, I noticed that I too was wearing such clothing. As was Ray.
            I began walking with the intent of descending to this first floor, since I noticed that the second floor was entirely bare save for Ray and I. I approached the silo almost instinctively, but before I could get nearer than twenty feet I found myself at the first floor. I looked to my right and saw Ray there, who had been quiet the entire night, looking blankly around. Behind me the solid and vivid silo looked down, and before me the ancient ritual of the proverbial waltz was in full swing. We began to walk forward, drifting into the mass like astronauts in the outer-most shells of the solar system. Then, by the nature of such a machine, we were pulled into one small group—swallowed up by one such amoeba—unwittingly by the gravity of this micro-universe.
            “Oh Larry, that statue is clearly art deco!” I never saw anybody at this party speak without smiling. They all spoke in incredibly cheery voices, unnaturally wide smiles as if to say, It’s okay, no bad blood; just nitpicking with you.
The woman laughed uncontrollably after making her remark, at which point the man named Larry, standing to my right, addressed her remark in much the same way:
“I think it’s more Baroque, personally, don’t you Bill?” Bill, standing at Larry’s right, then replied in much the same way:
“Yes, but I also see it as having a very Renaissance motif—and also, for that matter, quite Rococo.” Their eyes all locked straight ahead, smiles so strained you’d think they’d have gotten tired by now.
The woman spoke up again:
“Now that you mention it, I suppose it does look quite Baroque, and also Victorian for that matter. It doesn’t look anything like Rococo, though, although I do see a Renaissance motif.” Now came Larry’s turn to retort.
“Yes, it does look very much like a Renaissance piece, and also quite Victorian for that matter. It’s very much Rococo. I don’t see it as being Baroque at all though, Valerie, when it’s clearly more Rococo.” Now came Bill’s turn.
            “It’s very Victorian, yes, but I think that to call it Rococo is a stretch. And, with all due respect, it’s hardly Renaissance… I think it accents the room very well, though, especially next to that beautiful chair which could only be Bauhaus.”
            Now came the woman named Valerie:
            “Oh Bill, that chair is clearly art deco!”

            After a few more spins through the art-cycle, I ejected myself from the group and ray followed suit. We drifted in limbo between the players of the major waltz, hearing disrupted chatter from all ends—“Art deco!”, “Van Gogh!”, “Pure genius!” and so on. I heard the chatter begin to speak about impending food preparation, at which point all the words I managed to pick out revolved around said food. I became lost looking up at the balcony that seemed miles high, the statues that towered above and the blaringly vivid colors that blinded you momentarily. The giant cycle, with each turn, pulled me closer to the mastermind—the indifferent silo—that seemed to keep careful track of us, the defectors—the lost souls among this well-oiled machine. I saw the colors melt together, the walls pull down and around and I found myself in Ray’s kitchen, quite hungry, Ray standing beside me.
            “Aren’t you hungry?” I asked Ray.
            “Yes.”
            “Have you got any food?”
            “I don’t know.”
            I looked into the refrigerator and, finding nothing, closed it and stood a while. Ray remained quiet, and after a couple minutes I decided to open it again in the vain hope that perhaps I missed something good the first time.
            As I checked the interior, I found only unsatisfactory options. As I came to the conclusion that it was useless to look further, a voice echoed behind me: I think there’s shrimp in there somewhere. If you can find them, feel free to cook them up. With a renewed sense of rigor I looked harder. The first level of the refrigerator had no signs of shrimp, but moving down to the middle compartment, between a city of bottles and cylindrical containers, I saw the edge of a bowl which I quickly unearthed. I was elated when I saw the shrimp sitting there, and quickly grabbed hold of the bowl and handed it behind my back to Ray. I heard it touch down on the table behind me, but I had not intention of turning around. I felt that perhaps there was more that I had missed, and as I knelt down I looked in the vicinity of the shrimp to seek out any other gems. Unfortunately there was nothing.
            As I began to stand back up I noticed a black square on the bottom of the upper compartment of the refrigerator, directly above where the shrimp were. Intrigued, I moved in closer and saw the square expand. I reach over to it very slowly. I saw my hand pierce it, but I felt nothing. The top of compartment was unaffected, yet my hand had entered it and was free to move around. I moved in closer to this material abyss, and as my face and head approached it I saw it grow larger, accommodating my torso.
           
            As I began to emerge through it, I saw only a long, tall corridor that spanned back about fifty feet, very dark and mostly quiet. I noticed that my head and torso peeked out of the back right corner of this corridor, and in the distance—at the far back—I saw only two figures melting together and re-shaping in a brusque and abrupt manner. The only sounds I heard was that of things landing around me, sliding toward me and sliding away from me. I saw objects fly through the air, syncing up with the sounds perfectly.
            One such object landed near me, and I was quick to pick it up and notice immediately that it was nogiri, a tasty Japanese treat consisting of a triangular block of rice wrapped in seaweed and usually having a core of some kind of fish. The whole thing is little smaller than an adult human fist. Excited, I grabbed onto it and any other objects that landed near me, recognizing each of them as various kinds of gourmet or tasty foods.
            I heard nothing from Ray, but the thought of such tasty food made me immediately choose to seek more. I began to emerge from this square, and as I pushed my body up I saw it expand to accommodate me. As I looked down at my legs, I saw nothing but blackness; the refrigerators bottom compartment gone, the place where the shrimp stood obliterated. As my feet passed the threshold I felt nothing.
An infinitesimal instant of time went by and I was at the bottom of the corridor, no more than a few feet from the obscured figures.
            The corridor was long and tall, but it wasn’t very wide—perhaps eight to ten feet at the most. I now saw these shapes a bit more distinctly as two human bodies; they moved seemingly randomly across one another which produced a figure far different from human, but as they separated their true form became clear. I neither heard them breath nor move, and as I stepped back I noticed that my own movements were devoid of sound. I attempted to speak, to breath, but I felt and heard nothing.
            I saw the figures move as they had been doing, picking up these various food-treats and hurling them toward the back of the corridor, near the point that I emerged from. I looked at that point for a long time, but the square that I came from seemed to be gone, or at least obscured, by a shadow of roughly the same size that took its place. As they hurled this food toward the back of the corridor, I noticed that a very slight incline existed and the food would always slide back, only to be picked up and hurled again. They were aiming for the shadow that had consumed me only minutes before.
            I decided to walk up the incline toward the shadow, but immediately I concluded against it; it seems that instinctively I knew it was impossible. I was a fly trapped in the chute of a carnivorous plant, and though the impulse to leave existed for an instant, I quickly saw that any attempt to move up the chute, however little the incline, would be futile. It was as if some force not only kept me from climbing the chute, but kept me from even attempting to climb it—kept me from even thinking about making such an attempt.
            The two figures paid no attention to me whatsoever and, indeed, acted as if I was not even there. I did not attempt to interrupt their silent eternal dance for the same reasons I never climbed the chute, and found myself standing there, a thin film of silence covering up everything except the sliding and slamming of the food-curios. I looked down and saw many such curios at my feet, and though I started my journey for hunger I found myself completely lacking it now. In fact, I found myself lacking in everything; I neither felt tired or awake, hungry or full, alive nor dead…
            And as this dark corridor existed, I clearly felt my own existence slipping away; my consciousness was there, but not active, my body was capable of moving, but did not care to; there was a sudden sense of extreme hopelessness, as if all meaning had been ripped away. I knelt down and picked up one such piece of food, and looking closely at the obscured figures and my own hand, I pulled my arm back and ripped it forward with all my might. I felt no strain, and after a brief pause I heard the crash and the slide until I saw the food come back to my feet. I felt, even if just for a moment, a meaning—an existence—however insignificant or trivial, come for an instant and then, fleeting, leave me back at my original state.
            I knelt down once more, this time for a handful.