Who We Are or Children In The Night

A fictional drama on the college bar scene.

 

Our hearts were drunk with a beauty Our eyes could never see.

-George William Russell

In the confusion we stay with each other, happy to be together, speaking without uttering a single word.

-Walt Whitman

One of the most destructive things that's happening in modern society is that we are losing our sense of the bonds that bind people together - which can lead to nightmares of social collapse.

-Alexander McCall Smith

 

Who We Are

Or

Children In The Night

 

It started. With a slight nod, if one could nod truly without realizing it. Her head lowered               - almost imperceptibly - to the side and stayed there, leaning softly toward him. For an instant, that nod became the answer to that single pervading question never openly asked�" but answered just the same. The answer, perhaps for the worst, was yes. And so, what began with an introduction, albeit drunkenly stumbled upon, ended with a nod from a beautiful young woman sitting in a bar.

He knew he shouldn’t have been there talking to her and she knew what talking to men in bars, beyond the inevitable drink they bought her, meant. She was immensely attractive, and funny, and vaguely reminded him of someone he once knew. He knew he was perhaps more than a little drunk when he met her. His attentions were drawn by her physical presence; after all how could this young man know anything more of her. Perhaps, had they met in another life, she would have discarded him along with her glass of wine when she was finished or simply never have met him at all. The choice she faced was a child of the bliss soaked moment �" and it intoxicated her. She knew what that the empty glass of cheap scotch in front of him, accompanied by two identical empty shot glasses, meant.

They both knew what they were subtly heading toward was a bad idea. The kind one might, more often than not, regret in the early morning journey home or the sluggish clarity of a hangover. The nod had come anyway. It had been quickly followed by a giggle and a smile when the movement went overlooked by the charming figure fumbling his way through a night out. Instead of placing his hand upon hers, or leaning closer to her in his chair, he continued the numb happy grin of the intoxicated.

A lock of hair had fallen from behind her ear, dislodged by the gesture. He wanted to reach out and gently move it back. Seize the opportunity to brush the back of his hand against the marble perfection of her high cheekbones to feel the warmth of life that flushed red just beneath the surface. So much of his life was spent in the chase of rare episodes of profound truth found in the beautiful. He made no such move.

 Their opportunity,  for which young souls often fight for so ardently, teetered in the balance; caught up in the air that seemed to condense around them. The moment, bizarrely perfect in its imperfection, hung between them, slowly mixing with the bright laughter that tumbled out of the dim room up into a world covered with the dust of fresh snow.

Suddenly the situation dawned on the young man. Under more sober circumstances he might have been conscious that the pressed button-down shirt he wore had been stained by scotch. Or that his hair had been disturbed, not unpleasantly, by his habit of running a hand through it as he drank. Or a number of other things those called men,   primarily by right of age rather than merit, are want to be self-conscious of.

 …Then again, under more sober circumstances he never would have said hello.

She observed his eyes, like his hands, drop suddenly below the table. He had grown pensive rather abruptly; however this was one of many details she had begun to overlook as the night unfolded. Her lack of awareness, a side effect from a cocktail of interest, frustration, and suppressed desires              - topped off with 25ml of vodka, was the price paid for relief from the stress that plagued her.

 She had already given her approval. The night now rested in his hands to do with as he may.  

Had any other young man been blessed with the coincidence of a lady, some liquor, and a little luck, they surely would be directing their hand toward her’s. But this young man, despite all impression to the contrary, was at most almost like most young men. It was because of some slight deviation in his humanity, an undefined basic respect for strangers, that his hand faltered in its course. Instead his hand came to land quietly next to hers on the cold granite bar.

She took his hand, squeezed it, and glanced sporadically at his eyes until they returned to meet her’s. It could have been uncomfortable. But they were young, they could talk to one another with an uncommon ease �" neither hiding nor offering who they were. They felt older than their years should have allowed them: their ideas and passions inflamed, they looked through eyes that  saw the blurred moment for what it could be. Drawn to one another, they sat in that moment through the unknown possibility of night. They were more than themselves. They were drunk.

 Drunk on that false freedom from reality that falls upon the young at sunset and leaves before sunrise.

The awkward dance continued as they walked hand in hand down the cold streets and hailed a taxi. While she directed the cab back to their campus he replied to texts from his roommate, frustrated to learn that his room was unavailable, it being well past 2am. Some half-remembered portion of their conversation reminded him that her room was equally occupied. He sank back into the crease formed by the leather seat and the plastic door, his right arm cast around her shoulder. Together they watched the street lights blur as they passed by. He cast his attention down to study the hard angles of her face, trying to burn her image into his brain. To him she was truly beautiful, and begged himself to remember.

The cab stopped with a jerk and he paid the fair for the fifteen minute drive back to campus, despite being dropped off on the wrong side.

The night was cold, she was warm under his arm. They walked without purpose, feeling one another’s company in the lonely dark that settles in after 2:30am. They found themselves under one of the bare trees that lined a pond near close to  the center of campus. She had been chilled by the winter air and he had insisted she take his jacket. There, under the stars and branches, they stood with nothing left to say. He turned, as if something was pulling them towards the other. Their faces, washed pale in the white moonlight, edged closer until their lips brushed tenderly. The touch, more than the will of half-sobriety could handle, ignited.

And they kissed.

The following days were filled with confused regrets. He woke up, alone in his bed with only the memory of their kiss for company.  He failed to remember: what had happened after the pond, her name, where she had gone, and even the image of her beauty. All of it had been lost with his dreams as the sun rose overhead.

He asked Mike, his roommate, if she had come back with him last night: she hadn’t. He checked his texts, his call history, his contacts and found no trace of the beautiful girl. He spent the next few weeks subconsciously looking for her in quick glances as he went about life. As the weeks sifted by the memories dwindled, as if a candle was slowly burning out. He saw her once, for a moment. Their eyes recognized one another and a sudden flash of a moonlit face was thrown desperately before him. Jarred, he turned his attention back to search the hallway behind him. She was gone, lost in a pulsing sea of humanity.

She had seen him a handful of times before and after that night. Every encounter became a silent struggled to decide if she could or should approach. Time decided for her; as he walked away. Then one night he sat down next to her and even talked to her. Scrutiny from her friends along with her own fear that he had forgotten her �" worse, that he had remembered and deemed her unworthy of his notice �" held her back now as it had before. At night she lay awake, replaying the night. She sat and stared as she watched the events twist and unfurl behind her eyes again and again unable to remember the details she craved. What had she said to him? What had he said?

One day she will walk past him, looking right at him, when he looks up from his phone and meet her gaze once more. Before he is able to recognize her she will turn and enter her classroom, sit down, and hold back unbidden pains of an opportunity just beyond her grasp.

It will be as it is so often. A moment, trapped the amber of the half forgotten. A moment that could have been so much more. Should have been more.  

 

Author's Note

All commentary welcome. Interest in your thoughts as to the commentary on college life and the influence of alcohol on social interactions, particularly romantic ones.