The Unscene

        I was much younger then, perhaps almost a teenager.  It seems too long ago to recall exactly, as most of the details have become distorted, contorted, and otherwise muddled.

        If I remember correctly, it all started when I was on my way home from a friend's house.  The city was so warm, and the sky was so red, I thought I would forsake the bus and take a walk.  I passed through strange neighbourhoods, past signs written in foreign characters, and walked by people speaking what I now recognize as Sanscrit and Aramaic.  It was odd, after a certain point there were no cars, and even the buildings looked more primitive.

        I should have known it wasn't going to end well when the man with the bushy black beard paused in the middle of a conversation with his companion and pointed at me, shouting curses in his native tongue.  After that, the rest of the streetfolk became hostile, chasing me and hurling insults and threats.

        I ran until the sweat soaked through my shirt and the sun retreated behind a column of buildings.  I took side streets, hopped fences, and ran through parking lots.  Eventually I managed not only to evade my pursuers, but to find a part of town with seemingly normal décor.  I was ecstatic to see flashy new cars and bright advertisements.  Though it was unfamiliar, this place was definitely lively. 

        The people here didn't even make eye contact with me, and their manner of dress was very trendy.  As I kept going, things seemed to die down a little and the business district was becoming more and more slummy with every block I traversed.  At this point I was certain I wasn't even going the right direction.

        I began to scan for a place where I could get directions, or maybe even use a phone.  There were no convenience stores, but eventually I did spy an open structure. 

        The repetitive bassline could be felt before I could even read the sign.  As I drew nearer, I felt compelled, drawn to this place.  The double doors were non-reflective and intensely clear.  The silver handles almost seemed to be hovering in midair.  The sign was small, with little yellow neon letters alerting people of the source of the noise.  It was the only lit building on the street, a dance club.  The sign read, 'The Unscene'.

        The bouncer could hardly have been much of a threat to anyone.  He was tall and lanky, with almost invitingly warm features.  His eyes were a steely gray, and his pearly teeth drew focus from his slick goatee and even slicker ponytail.  He shook my hand as I entered, not even asking for identification.  In his inviting gaze I forgot all about direction-asking and phonecall-making.  I asked if there was a cover charge and he simply smiled and pointed to the dance floor in a welcoming gesture.

        The floors were spotless and chess-style checkerboard, with plush red walls that might have passed for carpeting in some other type of establishment.  The lights were inside of wall-fixtures fashioned to look like torches.  The bar was shiny and black like volcanic glass, and the dark blue stools were all empty.

        The club, however, was far from empty.  There were hundreds of patrons, all dancing in a fast-paced, almost hypnotic frenzy.  Golden and red locks flew about, revealing nothing of the heads they were attached to.  Sweat flew from person to person through drenched clothing, most of it white.

        I had never seen anything like this.  It was as if I had just discovered an isolated world embedded within the one I used to know.  I was entranced.  My feet were eager to move in time to the music, but first I had to use the facilities. 

        As I walked toward the restrooms, I caught the stare of the bartender.  He was wearing a shiny blue button-up shirt and cleaning a glass with a rag.  I don't know why this stood out to me at the time, but all of the bottles on the wall behind him looked as if they had never even been opened.

        The bathroom was even nicer than the club.  Everything was new-looking and shiny.  The floor was like black glass and the walls of the stalls were reminiscent of polished silver.  I noticed that the window was only about a foot tall and two feet wide, set high above the floor.  There were bars over it.  I speculated to myself that it must be necessary to keep people from sneaking in.

        Most restrooms have mirrors over the sinks, but in this one the mirror was the whole wall the sinks were connected to.  I was most impressed by the fact that there were actual paper towels instead of those stupid blowy thingies.  Like the bar, this place was deserted as well.  I didn't think this was strange at the time, but I should have.

        I returned to the dance floor renewed.  I jumped right in and started dancing, eagerly wanting to become a part of this older and hipper group.  They were all older teenagers, of all skin tones and hair colors.  The girls all had perfect bodies and ideal faces, and the guys all looked like they had come directly from photo-shoots for pants-modeling. 

        Some had their eyes closed, but I was struck by the far-off look they all seemed to share.  I tried several times to dance by girls and perhaps get one of them to look my way, but they were caught up in their own rhythmic contortions. 

        After maybe an hour of dancing, I was quite thirsty.  I headed to the bar for a drink, and the bartender looked at me expectingly...as if he had not had a customer for years. 

        He asked me what I wanted, and I told him I would think about it for a minute.  He said I could get any drink I could think up.  Being so young, I wasn't much into drinking alcohol, but I wanted to test the man's prowess.  I was certain he wouldn't know how to mix an 'azure lemonade' (a collegiate cousin's invention), so I asked for one.

        I dropped my jaw to see him drop two-and-a-half ice cubes into a cup, add two shots of vodka, half lemonade, and the rest blue kool-aid.  My final shock came when he pulled out a bag of gummy bears from a drawer and added the two blue ones needed to complete the drink.  Had my cousin been lying about his inventiveness?  It appeared so.

        The drink was grand and refreshing, and the alcohol surged through my veins like firey charging earthworms.  I was ready to dance again.

        I bounded onto the dance floor with renewed vigor, doing moves that were outrageously unconventional.  Mostly I was just jumping and flailing like a mental patient, but nobody even glanced my way.  It was quite strange.  I took their indifference as a sign of acceptance, and it was great.

        After perhaps another hour of dancing, I suddenly remembered my original purpose.  I had to find a phone and get home!  By now it was no longer night, it was becoming early morning.  I asked the bartender if there was a phone and he just shrugged and said it had never been an issue before.  I scanned the whole establishment for one, but to no benefit.  I went back to ask the doorman.

        He gave me a look like I was a dog who had just peed all over his new Persian rug.  He didn't say anything, but simply nodded in disgusted disapproval.  I tried the doors, but they wouldn't budge.  The doorman gave a snicker.

        "That's not the way out," he said.
        "Well where IS the way out?"  I was starting to become tense and nervous, and my mood wasn't helped by his reply.

        "THERE ISN'T ONE!!"

        With this, he started cackling maniacally, managing to keep his arms folded and not move an inch from his spot.  As I darted away, only his widening eyes followed me.

        By now I was frantic.  I ran to the restroom and tried to jump up to the window to utilize it as a means of escape.  It was hopeless.  The bars were wrought iron and the gaps between them didn't amount to more than a few inches.  I gave up my hold on the high ledge and let myself drop to the ground.

        I collapsed into a small heap there, breathless.  As I sat resting, I noticed my fingers tapping in time to the deafening music.  I felt a strange compulsion to go back and dance.  I knew I had to fight this impulse.

        I sprinted to the dance floor and grabbed a blonde girl by the shoulders, trying to break her free from the trance.  She managed to strike me in the face with a well-choreographed punch and sent me flying, without even breaking her rhythm or looking in my direction.  I tried to do this to several people but with no luck, just pain and a newfound respect for the fierceness of those so committed to a cause.

        I sat on a stool, with the bartender nowhere to be seen.  I tried to review what I knew about this place.  First, I was the only one to arrive during my time there.  Nobody else seemed to have entered or left, that I saw.  Second, I was the only person who had gone to the bar, the restroom, or even left the dance floor.

        I wanted to cry at the futility of it all, but I held back to make more observations.  I looked for a disc jockey or for speakers and saw none.  I listened to the simple repetitive song, which had no words.

        It had been the same song all night.
        Something was obviously very wrong.  I looked over at the doorman to see if he cared that I knew about the sinister nature of his establishment.  He wasn't there.

        He wasn't there!
        I figured this might be my only chance for escape, so I grabbed a barstool and charged to the door.  I swung it hard against the glass, squinting my eyes to block the glass shards I anticipated.

        But there were none.  The doors didn't even vibrate at my efforts.  The metal leg of the stool was bent, and I was knocked down by the recoil.  Nobody even cared.  I stomped off to the restroom again, tossing the stool furiously at the mirror in an attempt to break it.  Of course it bounced off without leaving a scratch.

        I meandered over to the girls' restroom to see if there was anything useful to my escape attempts in there.  There wasn't.  The room was exactly the same as its male counterpart, with the simple exception that there were no urinals.

        I screamed in anger, but it wasn't even audible over the music.  That stupid music.  I felt myself quaking frustratedly in time with it.  I tried pacing, but even my paces were a tribute to the timing of the beats.

        There was nothing left to do but dance.  I went out to the floor and vented all my frustrations through fluid motions of my body, not thinking about anything in particular, not caring about anything in particular.

        I was so far gone in my euphoria that I almost didn't notice the young woman approaching the door to the club.  I saw the doorman reach for the handle.

        Of course!  They HAD to open the doors to let more people in...
        I pushed through the dancing patrons in a most impolite manner, shoving and punching myself a pathway.  He pulled the door back and she began to step through it.  By this time I was halfway there. 

        The doorman saw what I was up to when she was standing in the doorway and tried to slam it behind her, but I was too determined to stop at this point. 

        I tackled the girl, sending her sprawling into the sidewalk.  After that I blacked out.
        It might have been hours or days, I don't really know.  The next thing I saw was a man looking right at me.  The sun was shining in a light blue sky and there was a crowd surrounding me.

        I found myself lying in the middle of the street, and the people were shocked when I rose and started walking.  They looked at me as if I were Lazarus, but I felt rested and happy simply to be out of that awful place.  I looked around the street for a minute, completely discombobulated.  The club wasn't there.  This wasn't the part of town I was in the night before.  Where was I?

        I walked up to a man standing in front of an appliance store and asked what time it was.  He narrowed his eyes at me as though I were a piece of trash and said he didn't know, even though a watch was clearly visible on his wrist.  He walked away, leaving me there alone.

        I looked at the reflection in the window of the shop, but all I saw was a white-haired old man with tattered clothes and facial wrinkles caked with dirt.

*Author's Note:  To be fair, this isn't really a story I made up, in the traditional sense.  This is based entirely on a dream I had in sixth grade.  I typed the original story shortly after, but completely rewrote it for the site.  The dream played out exactly as above, even the ending. 

(c) 2003 Jordan Baugher