Glorified high ✓

II

The first time I saw you, your short hair was the colour of bright pink bubble gum and you wore classic black framed ray-bans. It was night and we were in a club, so I knew right then and there what that meant - there just must've been a hundred layers of you to peel back and discover. And you were hiding your pupils. Later I would always tease you about that and randomly play I wear my sunglasses at night by Corey Hart and you would roll your eyes at me but smile.

I wasn't planning to go out that night. It was only my first week in the city, I didn't know anyone yet. But my roommate, lean and lanky psychology major, with longish dark-blond hair that always looked like it needed a good wash, invited me out with him and his friends to a party. In a club downtown. My answer was clearly a no. I didn't think I'd ever been to a club, it wasn't really my scene, on top of that I believed that the concept of clubs in the city was significantly different from the ones in small towns. He insisted, saying that I didn't actually have to go clubbing with them afterward if I didn't feel like it but at least to join them drinking in the nearby park. So-called pre-drinking was a popular activity amongst most students, so I couldn't really say no to that. Eventually, after a few beers, I didn't say no to the club either.

The place that a group of us went to was not what I imagined a club to be. Bare square room, low ceiling, beats of electronic music that was definitely not on popular radio stations, people of all ages dressed in casual wear, some eccentric but others surprisingly ordinary. It was all so very dark but I felt welcomed. In all honesty, I expected to be judged because I didn't dress up, or didn't know words to the songs. But that wasn't the problem at all. These songs didn't have words, only hypnotizing beats that made everyone sway and jerk their bodies, focused only on the DJ and the rhythm, not who was wearing what brand or who would pay the next round. After a few hours, the club was on fire, it made me shiver with emotion. More intense than any concert I went to during high school.

I didn't meet you that night. Even though you approached our group and exchanged few words with my roommate and his girlfriend, my position in the corner next to a pillar and the constant mingling of the crowd around us in addition to loud music never allowed us to actually make any kind of contact or introduction but I was aware of you since that moment. I wouldn't say that I wanted to meet you then, but there was this unexplainable feeling of wondering who you were and what you were to my roommate and his girlfriend and why you moved from one group of people to another, never staying in one place more than ten minutes.

Your mere existence demanded attention.

Even from the distance, I just knew you were different; strange and raw as those rough, uncut precious stones. My eyes followed pink around the dim room, you were The White Rabbit, I was Alice going straight into a rabbit hole. I thought that you might be a dealer but I always thought dealers looked less flashy, less pretty. You certainly weren't invisible with that hairstyle and bright coloured t-shirt, fluorescent in the dark whenever UV lights came in contact with it.

You were always a moving flashing beacon of light even if you were darkness itself.