The Exit Light

Chris fancied himself a writer. Maybe that was because no one seemed to listen to him any more. He was always on the periphery of the party, now. The action no longer seemed to hold the same appeal – at least for participation. He still wrote about it, though.

Notebook under his arm, he realized that there was something vaguely poetic about walking across the dance floor, unmoved by the shifting mass surrounding him.

Of course, by the time that thought finally crystallized, he’d left the dance floor behind. In the place of its fading noise, he tried to remember the words to some song. He couldn’t remember it ever having been played at the party, and he couldn’t think of where else he could have heard it. Just my imagination. In his head, another neuron flared.

He walked on until he found the stairwell. After going up a couple of flights, he sat down on the broken heater in one of the landings, settling his notebook on his lap and pulling out his pen.

What was that song?

The door half a flight below him was pushed open, and a young couple entered, unaware of his presence. Gathering up his book, Chris made his way up the next flight, catching a last glimpse of the two of them – the girl, seductive, and the boy, lascivious.

The laughter of their supposed discretions pursued him further upwards. He’d lost track of how many floors he’d climbed when it came to him that he just wanted out. This was a thought that had never occurred to him. He didn’t even know where “out” was, but he knew that’s where he wanted to be.

He kept climbing.

Why can’t I remember that song?

Some time later, he came to a door marked simply “Mechanical Room.” Trying it, he was rewarded with a blast of stale hot air and the metallic rumble of machines. Boilers of some kind, it seemed. While passing between these, he heard the door close behind him. He walked back to try it, but the handle refused to turn. Making his way around the room, he found another door.

This one opened on a small white stairwell that went up one flight of steps and then turned abruptly to his left. The once-white-painted cinderblock walls had been covered in various messages and drawings of paint and ink. The air was rank with pot. He turned to look at the door as it closed behind him. On it were drawn flames, and, crudely, the number 666.

From up the stairs and around the corner came the sounds of people approaching. A door opened, letting their conversation in. He walked up and turned the corner.

At the top, a few steps up from where he was, two girls and four boys had entered the stairwell from a side doorway, and were walking down the steps. They grinned at him mischievously.

“Hey dude,” one of the girls said.

But he looked past them, out the other door at the top of the stair.

It let in the moonlight reflected off of snowdrifts.

Chris walked past them, nodding in acknowledgement of their greeting, and pushed the door open a bit. Then he turned and looked at the six of them, who were forming a loose circle on the landing.

“The stars are so nice tonight.”

“Yeah, man,” one of the guys said.

As he turned to walk out the door, he caught a bit more of their conversation.

“Look, guys, she’s in the corner again!”

“Man, this is such an episode of ‘Danger High’.”

Walking out under the stars, Chris began to sing softly.

“Mirrors on the ceiling,

Pink champagne on ice, and she said:

‘We are all just prisoners here,

Of our own device…’”

Another Story from Inside

Tessa was dying. Ben knew that.

As surely as he couldn't remember the sun, he couldn't remember a time without her. Despite the fact that she was younger than him (a fact which amounted to naught there), she had been at the party much longer than he had. She couldn't imagine living without it, and now it was killing her.

Ben had fallen for her, he didn't know how long ago. He would have said "God knows how long ago," but he knew that they had no God. God simply did not exist there.

A newcomer on the scene, Ben had learned everything he knew from Tessa. She had relished combining her party life with that of a mother hen of sorts - one that had no problem with incest.

Neither of them were sure if they could call it romance. Not in a place like that. It was what it was.

Ben knew it wasn't going to last. Every instant, every hit, every drink, every fuck, everything brought Tessa closer to the nothing that surrounded their world. She had lost control before they ever met, and he knew she was going to crash. But he couldn't leave her.

As he walked with her away from the noise, away from the crowd, and into the familiar stairwell, his left hand held his pipe in his pocket while the right had his lighter flick-flicking out in front of him.

Minutes later, he watched Tessa, the hash burning away, the pipe to her lips. After taking a hit, she held her breath and leaned forward to kiss him. He let it all in, the smoke crossing from her lungs to his - but Tessa dissolved the bond in a fit of coughing.

"Sorry..." she managed, offering up the pipe and lighter to him.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yeah," she replied between coughs, and smiled.

He lit what was left in the bowl and, closing his eyes, took as big a hit as he could. It didn't help that he could still see her. All the times he'd found her passed out. The time she'd choked on her own vomit. All those times that he was holding onto, despite the party's efforts to make him forget. How could he forget? Those moments had become so many he couldn't distinguish individual instances any more.

He realized he was just inhaling ash and opened his eyes.

And saw Tessa's staring into his. She seemed to be in one of her lucid moments, now.

"Ben... do you love me?"

He stopped. Put the pipe and lighter down on the step.

"Ben..."

He took her head in both hands, brought his face right up to hers, and kissed her. For what seemed like-

eternity.

Which perhaps it was.

"But do you love me?"

Back to the (n)ever-changing present.

"Tessa... do we even know what that means?" The only answer he could think of.

"No... I guess not," she replied, her eyes already starting to glaze over. "Come on, Ben, let's get back in there. The vibe should be getting good around now."

He picked his implements up from the stair and they returned, hand in hand. Maybe this would be her last round. She was already talking about the amazing coke that Brad had stashed away under a certain couch. He knew he couldn't stop her. And that was what made her.

Interior

The party had been going on for as long as everyone there remembered. They couldn't tell whether that was an hour or a hundred years ago. Nor could they tell where it was. People came and went - where to or from, no one could recall, let alone say. It was a party and they were there. That was all that mattered.

It was a party of ever-changing constants. Some people had been there the whole time (for lack of a better expression). Some had just "arrived." But the party stayed the same. You could get anything you wanted.

Elise wanted everything. James wanted Elise. Katherine wanted both James and Elise at once. Brian wanted to get high and forget his troubles. Simon wanted to beat the shit out of Brian. Jennifer wanted to watch him. And then afterwards she would fuck Brian. Ad infinitum.

No one knew how big the building the party was in was. There was a main room with dance floor and alcoves. There were side rooms, hallways, stairwells... places for secret trysts, sessions, orgies... the inevitable tears. Anything the mind could think of doing, someone could find a space for it. But everyone gravitated around the party itself. Where else was there to go? There was no exit, no outside - and no one cared.

It was as if no one ate or slept. The building and all the people in it were alive with a permanent buzz of substances and sweat. Emotions ran continually at peak amplitude- things were usually consistent -and sometimes into the red. but occasionally something snapped

Jane had been dancing with Rick for a while. He wasn't a great conversationalist, but she could live with that - at least until she grew tired of him. He was a good dancer, though, and besides that he was fun. What more could anyone expect, really?

After coming back from the washroom, where she'd done a couple of lines with Jasmine, Jane went over to the bar to get a Rum & Coke. By the time she finished it and got back to the floor, Rick wasn't where she'd left him. Turning to a side exit, she caught a glimpse of him being led by the hand out the door into the dark hallway beyond by Jasmine.

Following at a discreet distance, Jane caught their excited whispers and hushed laughs down the hall ahead of her. They turned aside at a numbered door, and she waited a couple of minutes before pushing it open and proceeding warily inside.

The door opened on a small lounge, with Jasmine and Rick's clothes already strewn about. Murmurs and laughs came from the hall beyond the brightly lit kitchenette. Jane paused next to the counter as footsteps approached.

Jasmine rounded the corner, nude, and her eyes widened as she came face-to-face with Jane, who immediately closed the distance between them. With her left hand, Jane brought Jasmine's head towards hers and kissed her full on the lips. With her right, she grabbed a steak knife out of its rack on the counter and plunged it into Jasmine's side, between her ribs, and into her heart. What little noise escaped the union of hers and Jasmine's lips was little more than a gasp.

When she entered the bedroom, she found Rick lying naked on the bed. She ran up and straddled him, bringing the knife to his neck.

"If you move," she panted as his eyes snapped wide open, "I'll fucking kill you."

She proceeded to get into position, preparing him and adjusting her dress and undergarments with her left hand while her right never budged. After several minutes, when she was about to come, she sliced as deep as she could. She remained mounted for a few seconds more before disengaging, dropping the knife and shedding her bloodstained clothes on the way to the bathroom.

Jane remained in the shower until it was so foggy she could hardly breathe.

When she emerged the bedroom was spotless, without a trace of blood or violence. No body, no clothes, no knife. She found a clean dress that fit her in the walk-in closet. She took the care to turn out all the lights as she left.

When she returned to the party, it didn't matter how long she'd been away. Nothing had really changed.

Jane realized that no one would even remember them, anyway.

incomplete

I met Eric a few weeks ago. I was exploring a construction site in the area that had been intriguing me to no end. I wasn't sure why I went in there. But after I met Eric, he told me the answer. It's interesting that someone can have the same restless curiosity and appreciation of strange beauty as me. I had thought that I was alone in that.

Eric used to be an accountant. When he was twenty-six he abruptly left his job, his home, and his girlfriend of three years. When I asked him why he just tossed his life, he said, "That wasn't my life. Those were my circumstances. If I'd stayed much longer, I wouldn't be really alive any more."

That night, in the construction site, I was just poking around idly when Eric and I stumbled upon each other. He was looking around for a suitable place to bed down, while I was framing up a shot of what looked like an empty elevator shaft on my SLR. When we both realized that the other was harmless, we got to chatting about what the hell we were doing there. I think he was impressed that I fancied myself a photographer - even more so that I hadn't gone digital. He got talking about how this place was a work in progress, and that's why he dug it. I realized that's exactly what drew me to it in the first place. Leave it to a total stranger to make you realize what you're thinking.

He told me about another site he'd seen that he really wanted to get to before "they ruin it" by completing construction, and he said that with the floodlights filtering through it I could get some great shots there. The next night I took the bus to meet him at this place. I brought my camera, as well as two rolls of film and a few bottles of beer. After I'd shot the rolls, we sat down to drink and we shot the shit. It turns out that after he "dropped out," Eric started wandering around the city, sleeping only in construction sites that he could break into at night. He's twenty-nine now, and although he looks ten years older, he swears he's never felt more youthful.

When I asked him how he managed to survive when he had no job, he just shook his head and smiled a bit. I asked him what that was supposed to mean, and by way of reply he pulled several folded sheets of lined paper out of his coat and handed them to me. I read the pencil-written text for the next ten minutes or so. I was absolutely enthralled. Here I was, in the company of an enlightened soul, a philosopher-tramp.

It turns out that Eric writes whenever he has a chance. He'll write anything - short stories, non-fiction, manifestos, editorial work. He freelances and is published by some small papers and magazines. This gives him enough money to eat. What really got me, though, was his admission that he writes far more than he publishes, and that if he had his way, none of his work would be published at all. "Whenever I know I'm going to need some more damn money, I'll submit a few things. But only when I have to. Getting them out in the popular media just cheapens them. Besides, most of my stuff is unfinished - I write best that way."

I could write a book about our conversations, but I'm sure he's going to actually do that before I could motivate myself to bring pen to paper. I know if he writes that, he'd die before it got published. I know I wouldn't want to publish it either if I wrote it - a little bit of Eric, rubbing off on me. Right now I'm just trying to get into this creative process, this state of mind that this man lives every day.