Just Another

I was walking over a bridge one rainy October. It felt like a lifetime ago, a memory shelved away in the folds of the back of my mind like a faded picture in a dusty guest room. It was a cold and hazy night, the flashing lights at the end of the bridge were a beacon of warmth. I dragged myself along the bridge, ambling as fast as I could be bothered to, in a half-assed attempt to avoid the weak tropical drizzle.
It was a lonely month and the world weighed heavy on me back then; it felt like I had rolled down my last hill.
At the end of the bridge was a mass of bodies, and warmth under a multitude of hypnotizing lights. It was an enclave of vices that buzzed a certain kind of desperation. A lonely individual wouldn’t be able to help themselves but feel like something in that human dogpile, in the most hopelessly detached way.
I slipped right into the crowd. I drank, I danced, I showered in hearts that were poured, and I did it again, and again. I did it until I forgot that I had holes in my heart, and then I did it some more.
When everyone is smiling in big groups their faces tend to morph into an amorphous being, bottled, blurred, and caught up to the rhythm of the night.
I caught her face etched into the far corner of that dark little chamber. She wasn’t smiling the same way as the amorphous smile, but she was smiling. Our eyes caught each other and we didn’t let go. The thump of the bass cocooned us, and with my blood pumping, I lost her and I saw her again. The curve of her smile, the rustling of the sheets, and the echoes of loose laughs; I loved and was loved for a night. The rest of the memory slips away quicker than my heart was beating as I approached her. Another 4-hour love story.