Crying in the Club: A Nightcrawler's Catharsis
Her phone screen floods the dark room with a beam of light. An invite from a friend to an underground party pops up like a spring daisy. Each week it seems like there are more and more. It’s still morning, but their thoughts are focused on nightlife.
Being all dressed up with nowhere to go was endearing in the beginning, but has now lost its charm. She wants to be hugged by soft leather and strappy cotton. She wants to rise above this period of loneliness, confusion and uncertainty on platform boots.
It’s been one year and a half since we’ve all had to readjust our lives, habits, comings and goings to keep ourselves and our communities safe. As conditions get better, we tentatively take steps closer and closer towards each other.
She used to go to these clandestine places to feel the stressors and disappointments of life fade away, or to intensify the joy that she felt in the daylight. It had been so long since it was safe enough to come together again. Away from the quietness of the city center, out here, she could stay all night and laugh until her belly hurt, but that night there was another feeling present in her guts as she approached. A moth fluttered around inside her stomach. It was as restless as she felt, and as unpredictable as the situation. If only the smeared glitter could reflect a better, more stable future coming, or at least could guarantee that this wouldn’t be the last night she swayed, stomped and twirled, hand-in-hand with new and old companions. These thoughts quieted, or rather were drowned out by the loudspeakers as she drew near the clusters of people, and as the night embraced her.
It trickled down her face so quickly her brows and cupid’s bow couldn’t catch it. Dripping down into her mouth, she realized it was too fresh and saline to be sweat. Tears streamed from her plastic-coloured eyes, which gazed up at the strobing lights, then around at the crowd, hypnotically-moving. The DJ’s bumping BMP caught up to her heart, pounding from her chest. An overwhelming feeling of joy, peace and grief for lost time washed over her. Throughout the dance floor, other creatures of the night felt themselves come alive again, wailing, shouting and breathing in familiar scents of closeness.
This group catharsis happens in unlikely places: this one was in the middle of an industrial park - far away from the city center. The location was made secret until she purchased a ticket. The experience was to be a private affair, hidden away for only those who made the effort to seek it out. Far from the ears of the police, concerned neighbours and those who don’t feel something stir when the bass ripples through the ground, up your limbs and into your chest. An experience both collective and deeply personal. As you wriggle with eyes closed, to graze another’s fingertips with your own, and instead of pulling back, your hands join together. Two moments merged together in an instant.
This is a space to be seen and to be invisible. A place where the darkness feels like a familiar face, and where tender friends are illuminated in harsh, sporadic lights. A night for her to feel it all and leave it all on the muddy dancefloor. ◆