Circle

I watch them laugh, hysterically, dragging it rather slow, as if with care. They’re just afraid that they’ll finish it before the fun is over. The girl laughs hysterically, as they take it away from her. She bends in two, coughing through tears and hysterical breaks. Her hair seemed so clean, so tidy and combed when she headed inside. 

What about now?

It’s messy due to endless ruffling, pulls, rolling over the dirty floor with rain puddles due to the thunderstorm outside. Inside her head it’s the same like outside. It’s a clear sky with that one cloud roaring, hitting cells, causing small yet major chaos.

Chaos.

That’s what it is, as I observe the small object in my hand. They are too drunk to care that I did not give a drag. Would they care? No. Then there’s more for them, more laughter involved, more screaming, more extreme actions. One guy opens the window, his eyes wide as he laughs and looks down. He puts one leg in the air as a sign of a joke.

More laughs, giggles, hysterical horse like laughs.

I just watch him out of the corner of my eye, praying that he won’t do anything foolish. Instead he leans against the window frame, his hands shaking as the cig is passed onto him. His eyes are bloodshot and his clothes are dirty, messy and wet. All of them were running here, weren’t they? Their eyes mad, bodies shaking, need growing devouring them leaving nothing but hunger and desire to feel what they feel now.

They feel happy, something they don’t want to feel by making it themselves, by achieving. No, instead they spend money, countless endless money buying their addiction. I pass it on, watching the fire burn its tip with smoke coming from it filling the room with its unmistakable drug smell.

Who are they?

I barely know anything about them and yet I know everything. The guy with bloodshot red eyes lost his job as an architect.

The girl is a failed actress that somehow ended up in one film with a famous blonde actor yesterday, earning money for the drug. She’s playing some sort of fictional self-portrait, that’s why they took her. Because it’s not that hard to play herself. I switch my gaze onto the next one.

Wife ran away with some hot Mexican who knows how to love her and who has a billion different lovers aside from the stolen wife. He doesn’t bother to fix his glasses and on the next drag they fall on the floor with a thud. I see a crack in them, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t see or understand anything now, he doesn’t even laugh as he just stretches out his arm, inhales, and exhales and passes it on.

A couple sit with their hands intertwined, making out ignoring everybody. They are the contrast in this circle, the ones which don’t really inhale all the time. I don’t bother kicking them out, as I inhale my boring plain cigarette. I watch them amused, feeling that there is some meaning of life left out there. But then, maybe there isn’t.

That’s us. We sit in the dumb circle, inhaling, laughing, making out and falling.

The girl looks at the bloodshot guy who took two drags in a row. She stands up wobbling, tripping lightly. He shows his pierced tongue at her. An architect with a pierced tongue? I take my eyes off the making out couple and look at the falling girl curiously. What does she want to do? Rage fills her eyes, as she holds onto the wall. She needs to inhale, not just oxygen but the smoke, the smoke coming out of the cig. She reaches out, but the architect shakes his head, mocking her with words aloud. The actress swears back, biting her lip, grinning widely, laughing, yanking a steak of her hair.

The couple stop making out, adjusting their eyes to the bright light. No need to keep their eyes closed so long. They both looked at the architect finish the cig with three drags in a row. The girl shrugs and takes the chin of her lover smashing her lips against his ignoring the further actions. Her lover boy doesn’t protest. I have a feeling that the drugs aren’t what they come here for. They keep me entertained by chatting with me in breaks of passionate kissing.

The divorced guy makes no action, even when the girl makes a run, well, several steps at a fast pace towards the architect. He presses his fingers against his lips, as if to find some ashes, a bit of the cig to inhale, his eyes look up, making some fake eye roll. I stand up, afraid that he might go unconscious, but he doesn’t. His hands fall down hugging his knees. The divorced guy starts humming some unknown song, most likely to mute the actress’ swears and curses.

The actress grabs the long beige curtain pulling it hard, expressing her anger threw it, giving the deadliest drunk glare to the architect. The curtains fall with a small thud, pilling near to her left foot with several cuts on her exposed skin. She starts shouting, screaming as the humming gets louder and louder.

She stretches out her hand to push him, the architect. Instead he laughs at her, muttering something under his breath between coughs. She waves her arm pretending to be a bird and then pointing at the open window.

He nods, mockingly looking at her, saying something about that he can fly by himself and then he turns around.

I stand up.

The humming stops and he looks up with his foggy eyes, tears clouding his light eyes.

The couple stop making out and turn their heads, placing several broken kisses on each other, but not tearing their eyes off the architect.

He says he can fly.

And he proves it wrong.

The architect shifts his weight onto the other in the air leg and leans forward.

The actress’s shout of victory doesn’t stop him, my warning, the couple’s gasp and the divorced guy’s new humming he just goes off into the night.

I lean across the window, pushing everybody aside. His face is calm, I feel time go slow. How old was he? I never asked. I watch him stretch out his hand, as if calling me, I watch him mouth different unknown phrases, which are lost in the noise of the room and the traffic.

He’s calling out.

He is calling all of us.

I breathe out heavily, throwing the remaining of my cig towards him, as I watch him flap his arms like wings, laughing, proud of himself. Then his face changes, it goes still, without any emotion.

Then I blink and turn around.

The actress lights another one, laughing as hysterically as before.

The humming gets louder, but I can’t hear it properly.

The couple press themselves against each other in agony, trying to forget what they saw.

Everything goes on. 

Mouthful