After Dark

Going over his photos during a moment of relative quiet and indefinite (but definitely too short) duration, Robin noticed that nearly all of the people in them could pass for movie stars. He wasn’t sure of the last movie he’d seen, couldn’t think of any he wanted to watch, even. But the movie-star look was unmistakable, no matter where, when, or how many drinks into the evening. It was something in the eyes, he surmised. Or maybe -- yes, perhaps this was closer to truth -- something absent from them.
Not that anyone else cared for such mental diversions, here. In a world where nothing holds up to close scrutiny, you learn how to avert your eyes and suppress your musings without even being told.
Robin had long felt that no one else would care for his photos. Maybe because mine all look different, but theirs all seem the same. Flipping to the next photo, he could hear Lily’s voice as clear as her face that grinned out at him. Elitism doesn’t become you, Rob.
He couldn’t help smiling back.

They’d met a long while ago; there had been a sort of interest on his part, a bit of infatuation -- the usual for around here. Then, as nothing came of it, he couldn’t recall seeing her for a very long time. They’d both gotten swept up in the flow, and as the pace of the party picked up, neither bothered to look back for people long gone.
Lily had later called it “the longest blackout you could imagine.”
And neither of them had realized until they met again, perhaps a thousand years -- or maybe the blink of an eye -- later.

Robin wasn’t having such a great time. It had come to that damnable dilemma: down some more drinks, or make his retreat -- where to, it didn’t matter. He cursed his indecision -- anyone else in his position would already have gotten a couple of shots by now, he figured. So why do I hesitate?
“I just don’t really want to,” a vaguely familiar girl’s voice just next to him was saying to her friend. He looked over that way. “Not now.”
“Lily--” her friend said from behind a bottle.
Lily… wow, it’s been ages.
“Don’t worry about me.” The girl took a step away, cast a quick look at Robin, then turned and headed for the washroom. His gaze rested on her for a moment. Did she recognize me? There was something about her that was different, he knew, but he couldn’t put his finger on what.
The other girl had noticed the object of Lily’s gaze. “Hey, you’re kinda cute,” she said. “Want a drink?”
What a jerk, she thought as she watched his retreating back and finished the drink herself.

He wasn’t sure how he’d found this hallway. He wasn’t even sure if hallway was the right word for it. He couldn’t see a roof -- the walls stretched ten feet up, and above that was only blank darkness. He was colder than he remembered being in a long time, but that was just fine with him. This chill did wonders for his head.
Robin contented himself with sitting halfway between the two walls, looking down the pathway that stretched on seemingly infinitely. The walls were blank gray and unmarked, with just a few doors breaking the monotony. The one just to his left was open, spilling some warm light into the otherwise monochromatic corridor. And just beside it, the only evidence that he wasn’t the first person to have discovered this space, was a message scratched into the wall: Matte Kudasai. He had no idea what it meant, but he appreciated the effect.
Then another point of light appeared a hundred feet in the distance, and a figure was silhouetted in front of it. The figure paused, then started towards him.
“Hello?” Lily’s voice rang through the empty space between them.

She’d had no more idea where they were than he did. But he could sense the same curious fascination that it held for him was just as strong in her, witnessed in the fact that neither of them had made any attempt to relocate somewhere else. Also in the fact that neither of them had propositioned any drinking, drugs, or sexual experimentation. Come to think of it, he thought, we’ve been talking for a very long time. And that fact nurtured a kind of excitement he felt he vaguely remembered. A nervous excitement, but one totally without fear.
“Look up there,” Lily said. “What would everyone else think of that?”
“I dunno, but do you think we can really tell them?”
They both laughed and grinned. “Nah.”
Lily pulled out a camera and snapped his picture before he could even pose out of instinct. “Gotcha.”
“Hey, wait a second, I wasn’t ready.”
She just looked at him, her lips twisting upward a fraction of an inch. Right. That’s the point.
“Oh my God, a distraction!” he exclaimed, and grabbed the camera out of her hands.
She scowled with just as much menace as if she’d smiled. “Jerk.”
A picture spat out of the camera. Without looking at it, he snapped one of her. After the flash, he caught a glimpse of motion through the viewfinder as he lowered the camera.
Her fist caught him right in the nose.

They’d stayed in that strange hall until the cold finally became too much. Sitting in a fairly busy stairwell later on, they examined the photos.
“What the shit is that?” Lily said, upon seeing the one she’d taken of him.
“What?”
“Look at the top. Those look like… you know.”
Stars. He flipped to the next. Her picture too. I haven’t seen the stars since…
“Lily, what the hell are we doing here?”

Neither of them had an answer, but once those thoughts started, the party couldn’t force them out of their minds. Robin found he was spending less and less time taking part in the party than ever, and when he was there, it was always with Lily, but they never stuck around for long. Neither of them ever so much as suggested leaving, but it just always ended up happening. So instead they spent their time with exploration and discussion.
But no matter how long they walked, no matter how far they went, no matter how many empty rooms and eternally-forgotten dark corridors they explored, they never found that roofless hallway ever again, and they ended up stumbling upon the party every time.

They walked into the dance floor, refreshed and contented enough that Robin turned to Lily with a smile that didn’t fit in with the sweat and thump of bass.
“Wanna dance?”
She put on a mock scowl. “To this?”
“Nah, just however we feel like. And if we bump into people…”
“They won’t even notice.”
They laughed and moved through the jostling crowd, limbs flailing, fingers snapping, making up words to sing along with.
And then the music changed.
The bass, the synth drums, the screeching, all gone -- replaced by the sound of a single piano. The crowd about them muttered in confusion and annoyance, but soon even that faded to a murmur.
Lily and Robin locked gazes, stepped closer together. Realization began to dawn.
As they took each others’ hands, they became aware that the very world around them had changed somehow. They weren’t the only people who had started to think. Everyone around them began to echo through the room.

My God, what time is it?
I never even knew his name…
Mom will be wondering where I am…
I shouldn’t have done that.
Fuck, I’m so wasted… I need to get away from these people…
They were aware of all of it. The wide eyes all about them told of the same. But something was different with them.

For less than a second, everyone stopped talking. For less than a second, the light seemed less harsh. For less than a second, everyone actually listened to the music.
For less than a second, there was clarity.
Then, with the scratch of a needle and the thud of a new beat, the coalesced vapour of thought dissipated in the indoor twilight.
And no one noticed the empty space that had appeared in the middle of the crowd, for it was soon filled again.