Desperate Dealings

I was drunk when I fell asleep but not drunk enough to sleep soundly through the night. Of course, I was visited in the night, or presented with a vision, but definitely offered a raw deal. My nights had become a series of visions of terror. 

Global warfare, global famine, global destruction, mixed with very immediate and real visions from my local life. Friends betraying my cause, enemies turning to my side, family turning their back. 

The months had become filled with despair in my sleeping life, to the point where I was drinking myself to sleep every night for hope the alcohol would reprieve me of my wandering mind. 

As the dreamscape began this night, I walked into a party inside a house new to me. The crowd welcomed me as one of their own, greeting me with smiles and offering libations. These chemical reprieves from the night were as welcome as those I had imbibed to reach sleep. 

I accepted everything which was offered and was enjoying myself around a coffee table. Across the table on the far wall was a fainting chair in which an androgynous young person had strewn themselves, a common sight in the middle of a party when one becomes overwhelmed by what may be available. 

We sat in a circle in this grand living room around an oaken table littered with playing cards and beer cans, passing a jug of something strong from which we took great swigs. The card game was new to me but I won again and again as if the hands dealt were all familiar. Everyone was glad I had joined as we sat about reveling in the evening. 

The carpet, shag, was a plush maroon and the walls were lined with dark, wooden paneling. The ceilings hung so far above us in the smoke of the place that we could not even make it out. 

When I searched for the source of the smoke, I found myself puffing away on a large cigar from which all of the cloud of the room was emanating. The musk of the smoke was as aromatic as the room would allow. I was not concerned as to where the cigar had come from to reach my grasp.

The young person in the fainting chair awoke with a grin and walked into the kitchen. I heard the faucet open and a glass fill. I took another swig from the jug. A young lady made eye contact from across the coffee table and we gazed longingly into one another’s soul as the androgynous young person returned to the fainting chair just behind the young lady with their glass of water, still with a grand grin upon their face. 

But I did not notice the return so much as assume it, as if this young person were obligated to the chair. And I won the game yet again as I laid my hand, and everyone celebrated.

By the time the crowd began dwindling, and the music emanating from outside the room began to decrease, I was surely enjoying myself with this new company of partiers about the coffee table. The young lady had stood up in the middle of the last game and came to sit beside me on the couch from which I was playing, across the room from the fainting chair. 

Soon, myself and the young lady were the only two left of the original group around the table. We were in heated conversation, inching closer and closer to one another, as the androgynous young person from the fainting chair finally awoke. 

“Time to party!” the androgynous person shouted as they stood.

The young lady at my side again looked me in the eye as I returned my gaze from the fainting chair and I had enough time to look her deep within. I gazed longingly, feeling a sense of oneness with this lady. I could describe her as blonde or brunette, petite or full, sexy or homely, but I could not describe the sense of longing and comfort as we shared a glance. 

The gaze was broken as I realized upon my other side the androgynous person had dropped to the couch. When I looked in their eyes, surprised by their immediate presence, the feelings of longing and comfort gave way to a malaise of loss. 

“How did you find yourself here?” they inquired.

“Well, I walked in and everyone welcomed me. Never thought I’d be here, that’s for sure.” I explained.

The people about either side of me giggled, the young lady high and squeaky, the androgynous person crisp and edgy. In the midst of all, the music died and the room seemed almost full of smoke. 

“I want to offer you something.” the androgynous stated, handing me a sheet of paper and a pen.

“Thanks…” was the best I could do in receiving the document.

“It’s yours, just sign it!” the young lady to my left insisted.

“Just take the deal and you’re in.” the other stated.

“But what’s the deal?” I asked.

“Just sign and you’re in.” the young lady confirmed.

“But I don’t know what I’m signing.” I clarified, “I don’t know what I’m agreeing to.”

“It’s all in there.” the androgynous person insisted.

“Yes, ok. But what do I offer and what do I get in return?” I asked the young lady. 

She replied with a blank stare. I turned to the androgynous person and saw a hint of angst in their eyes. 

“Just sign it. It’s all there.” they insisted.

“I get what you’re saying but I can’t read what this says.” I continued.

“Just SIGN it.”, the androgynous person growled. 

They seemed uninterested in clarifying and frustrated with my hesitations. Shadows began dancing across their faces, first the androgynous one and then the young lady. 

Sitting between these two on the couch, I began to hear a rumbling approaching from outside the kitchen. A rhythmic beating, in time, and the clamor of brass and woodwinds, closer and closer, until I heard the kitchen door slam open and into the living room came an entire high school marching band. 

Grand Marshall pumping away at the front of the line, flag girls with smiles and twirling about, a drum line; a hundred or so souls across the room from the kitchen into these huge doors which I had yet to see on the opposite side of the room. 

“A good time!” the young lady insisted.

She leapt up from the couch and followed the parade through the doors as they heaved shut behind her.

“I don’t think I can sign this.” I stated as patiently as I could.

“Then you don’t get to go.” my remaining partner insisted.

“Go where?” Iasked.

“It’s all right there.” the person stated.

“Right, but what do I get out of it?” I asked again.

The shadows swirling about their face began to solidify upon their skin. The forms of letters and signs took hold of these darknesses and they became permanent upon the face. I could not decode what the meaning was, but the understanding now was that this person clearly was not being forthright.

“Just sign it.” they continued.

“But I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to understand. You just have to participate. Don’t you want that?”

“I don’t know.”

And they smiled. Their grin growing and growing as they stood to their feet.

“You just have to sign…” they trailed off. 

And they danced around the room now, twirling in their own way about. They did a cartwheel, they rolled across the cards on the table, splashing the empty beer cans to the ground. 

Not understanding anything now, I grabbed the jug for another swig. As the mouth of the jug  touched my lips, and the liquid splashed upon my tongue, the jug was wrenched from my grasp and the androgynous person let out a shout of joy, stealing away from the table toward the grand doors through which everyone had left. I stood to follow.

“Ah ah, not so fast, you have to sign first!” they insisted, and slipped through the opening of the doors, closing it behind them.

“But what do I get in return?” I shouted through the door.

“It’s all in there…” the voices from behind the door insisted again, trailing away toward the sound of a great celebration beyond. 

And then I awoke, alone with my thoughts, my doubts of being left out, my own sense of confusion at the mystery presented to me in the night.

Centrifugal Forces, Paul Klee, 1933