A hundred thousand faces

Just the story of a night with friends and strangers. Rough draft, just wrote it, any feedback welcome.

'I looked into the mirror

to see a hundred lifetimes

collected beneath the silver surface

of reflection..' I say

to noone in particular,

sinking against the wall.

'Standing for days and secoonds,

doors opened before apologies,

breaking apart what was thought as mine before..'

'Excuse me, is this going to take long?' Someone asked from across the floor of this dark room, face obscured by glowsticks and lightning striking to the rythym somewhere down the hall 'I was trying to tell a story..'

Apologies and apathy, the quiet renassaince lost to my subconcious like some fleeting dfream.

She continues at a point that leaves me lost to all but the urgent mistakes of regaining your place

'A hundred thousand faces

all pressed around me.

And not a single one

I know'

'So you're lost in the woods is what you're trying to say?' Sam asks from a pile of clothes that's become his new home.

'It's not about where you are

I came from so many places

to be in that spot,

to become lost in the sense

of powers beyond me, stilled

in our perception,

living in times beyond us.

I sat among the moss

that life and death that cycles

constant.

I stood beneath sentinels

that thought in decades.

We speak in words

and believe these comfort creatures

will produce something worth liveing for,

never stopping to think about where

we come from. Where

didn't matter in that moment,

don't you get that?'

It was like she was pleading to the words themselves to be understood, not us.

'You've lost it, you know that Kasey? You're fried, maybe hold off for a bit,' Tony said, words flowing out like sludge, thick and heavy in our ears, clogging them against all that Kasey had left to say. 'Marcus, I think you might be falling off a bit too, what were you talking about?'

I glance over to Kasey, seeing the light of experience fading into the gloom of these rooms. 'Just thought of some new lyrics, thinking of starting a band, something like , you know? That heavy s**t, doesn't need a lot to get going.'

'Let me hear it.' There was no question in his voice, and the room had become a cell. I wanted to go back to that mirror, and shut the doors to these days. If there were a place for me, it was not amongst these friends.

'I stood before

a silver mirror,

hundreds of lifes flitting beyond me

a single ties holding us to these seas.

We float beyond what remains

within this fallen monstrosity.

In reflected abstractions,

we are more than you and I.

And months and days and weeks and seconds

will never reveal the truth in these lessons.'

I guess that could be a song, something drunkenly thought of in bathrooms filled with dark corners and odd introspection. 'It's rough, but we could move with it, right?'

'We need shots!' Tumbles from down the hallway, a chant rising behind it, moving feet, breaking us out of this mold we'd cast ourselves in for this short time.

'Shots?' I ask.

'Shots,' Tony says, stare unbroken by those already moving to the kitchen. Was there anger behind that stare? Or was I just high?

Gathered around the table we raise our third glass, looking around as though all consciously waiting for the toast we'd gathered for.

'It's nights like this we break

shells from vulnerability,

expose what's true deep within

and only ask forgiveness

in the light of morning.

It's days like tonight,

we remember

only for not remembering.

It's clear why you're here,

so take up that beer,

hold up that shot,

and spark the pot,

we are here to fade away

until we're lost in yesterday.'

Quick glances, glasses against the table then lifted to lips, and the music fades back up. We are lost in a mass of entangled limbs, a ritualistic killing of civility breaking down the every day barriers we cultivate obsessively. I grab a girl with blood on her lip and kiss her. She kisses me. We melt into the cheers of the dance floor until we are just one head in this collective body.

The current leads us in to the kitchen, our turn to refresh, cigarettes, introductions, beers, dreams, shots, and we're back in, giving another few their time.

'Where did it GO!?'

Tony is screaming towards the pile holding Sam. I walk back towards the room, seeing little more than Tony's back. 'I swear to god, you junkie son of a --' Spinning around, I see Sam is safe again in his hovel, Tony's focus found something more responsive. 'Marcus--'

'What's going on here, man? Come back out to the living room, Sam's f*****g gone.'

The door's shut and I am up against it. I'm too drunk for Tony's ire right now. If I just let him--

The sting brought tears to my mouth and pennies into my mouth. 'Where did it go Marcus? What the f**k did you do with it?'

'I didn't touch anything you piece of s**t,' I try to evenly tell him while pushing him off of me. Even with a few extra inches and pounds on him, he didn't make it easy. 'Last thing I had was that hit YOU gave me. You really think I would take your s**t?'

Ashley comes in behind me, blood cleaned from her lips, laughing until the confusion sweeps her up into this little scene. Tony glances to her, looks back at me, Sam, me. A wide grin sets across his face, 'I trust you Marcus, you know I always do.' He starts towards me, 'I'm gonna get back out there, go have a dance. I'll talk with you later,' he says as he slaps me on the back, harder than friendly.

The door shuts as the pile against the wall rustles, settles, turns over. 'Sorry Marky,' barely heard through the muffling layers.

'What was that about?' Ashley absently asks as she pulls out a vial of something.

'Don't worry about it,' I say to both and noone.

She measures, pours, drops some water in, mixes, and passes me a vial in the reverberating silence of the bass trapped in this echoing chamber.

And then

all is forgotten..

'remember,' she said,

'Remember when we were kids,

climbing high, above our homes,

holding arms to some thought of release?

We didn't know that

to be the way we'd live in these days,

but we started it back then,

with no safety below and

no answers above.

We were searching for something,

something lost in those times, as though

we could retrieve ideas from the clouds.

I want to go back, go back

to when we were fresh from innocence,

still not yet tarnished. Stripped,

maybe, but we still had our light about us.

Now we sit about, trying to remember,

as though that will be enough.

We will never truly be, I fear.

We will never be, until we see

what ever it is we saw

in those empty skies.'

'I never knew you then,' I say simply, head laid next to hers. 'I don't know you now.'

We stay still, her body pressed against mine, Sam's soft snores in the corner, alone.

The line to the bathroom finally clears ahead of me, and I walk in, avoiding the mirror, purpose before purpose. I am lost in thought breifly as I stand there, thinking of those days which seem so far away, heavy clouds of fog clouding all but the most general of details. No sunny days, or playing in the groves. I know of my sister, my mother. There was a father in some parts, but not enough to rise above the haze.

There was a coffee table once, on the front lawn, sun glinting off the glass about it as though some expression on the shattered norm. It stood on all four feet. Then I was waiting in a bus station, surrounded by broken men and women, waiting to make my way to wherever it was my grandmother lived, I could never figure it out, but I didn't want to be there, that much I remember. There was a pay phone, and a few timid appeals for spare change. Sam's mother pulling up, helping me with my bag. She was nice, didn't ask any questions, just smiled and asked if I liked chicken.

I looked over to the mirror, only to see someone I barely recognized. There was a knock on the door, and then the line kept moving.

Ashley was at the kitchen counter, chatting with Kasey and a few other people, when I was finally released from the pulsing floor of the living room. She handed me a glass she'd been holding and gave me an inqusitive glance as the current topic continued to spill from everyones mouth.

'It didn't used to be that way..' 'I never had to deal with that from him..' 'Maybe he's left.' 'I saw him out front awhile ago.' 'Where did you say you were from?' 'What do you do?' 'I just got back from India for..' One after another, I stared into whatever help this glass held, lost in a calvalcade of snippets from this person and that.

'It's red bull and coconut water,' I hear wispered from a smiling mouth pressed close to my ear.

I mumble a thanks, force a smile, and make my way to the back.

There was a new line out here, less organized, more energetic. Someone had kicked down the railing, and brought a few matresses to the other side of the trampoline beneath it, so we could fling ourselves headlong off the railing in a show of what truly plagued us. I lit a cigarette and stood to the side, watching for a few minutes before turning to talk with someone beside me.

'Hey, Scott.'

'Good to meet you. Marcus. Haven't seen you arround here.'

'No, probably not. I just moved down from Grand Rapids.'

'Mighigan?'

He laughed, 'No, South Dakota. A little closer...

'It was too long before we were strangers

that we shared so many secrets.

We felt our way along dark hallways

and held hands beneath storm clouds.

I kissed you once,

I was drunk, you laughed, but

you still blushed the next time I saw you.

I left, before I knew your name,

to become something new.

You stayed, and became

something truly beautiful.

Maybe one day I'll get the

chance to know your what again.

or your who..

I still have your smile

today, to bring me back

to some day we've both forgot.

I get back in to find the pool table racked, and someone standing against the wall, pretending to text while they hold a cue. He looks up hopefuly as I pass into the kitchen, then continues working away with his thumb, trying to appear as though that glance never happened, but in that moment, we both were disgusted and saddened by desperation and cowardice. I wanted to play, but not like that, with that feeling of dispair and trying hanging above the table next to the light. He pretends again, as though he's content, I pretend I didn't see him, and just like that, another interaction is lost like nothing had ever been, and I crowd my way into the kitchen.

Ashley's still there, it's been less than ten minutes, and it seemed like the conversation had turned serious. 'I cannot be okay with someone who's going to just sit there and let another HUMAN BEING call out for help like that,' someone who's name just couldn't make it's way past the liquour was saying. 'If that were you, wouldn't you just want one person to stop and help? Hell, wouldn't you just want someone to stop recording and just call the f*****g ambulance?'

'Of course I would,' Kasey says, 'But there isn't anything we can do to make people, everyone is so disconnected from everyone else, I am not surprised people just stod there taping it. We don't give a s**t about people anymore, that's been obvious for years, how the hell do you just miraculously expect that to change because one person's death made it to the news?'

'But isn't that the point? Isn't it that the very issue we're dealing with? The fact that people can stand around video taping as a man CRIES OUT FOR HELP while bleeding to death, and that's perfectly acceptable? That you're defending all those people that had to do nothing more than hit a few buttons and save that man's life, and instead chose to press a few to capture his last moments?'

'What do you expect? These weren't his friends, they weren't people he knew, they were just people that passed him on the street and saw something that freaked them out --'

'Freaked them out? No, it fascinated them, just as we're taught to be fascinated by the death and stripping down of every person around us. We are programmed to not think of death as somerthing to help prevent, but as something to witness, something strange and foreign that is constantly happening around us, but we are helpless to stop.'

'You sound like my grandfather,' I say, 'blaming the media and society. Until you are there, until you are the one behind the camera, who are you to say you wouldn't do the very same thing. If we're "programmed" to do this, haven't you undergone the very same indoctrination as the rest of us? You trying to make a stand against what exactly? Society? The disconnect of the "youth"? Regardless, it's not something you can change, so you go right ahead and get heated, stamp and shout about how horrible all of this is, I can't. It's not gonna change anything, we'll just be left here being sad and angry and go on treating so many around us as though they never existed.' It's Chris! 'Sorry Chris, that's just how I see this whole deal.'

Hearing his name gives him a pause, long enough for anyone that was on his side of this drunken debate to rethink his argument, or lose interest. Either way, it was obvious he'd lost whatever momentum he'd had behind him when he started again.

'You know what, this isn't the time for this type of talk,' he says while lining up enough shot glasses for everyone that had been audience to this whole exchange. 'Let's get back to tonight.'

At that, everyone made some noise, and the whole thing was forgotten, like so many other things are apt to be.

There is a lull, the hour's grown late and we are somewhere between two sheets and our second wind. The music is droppping low, and people have slowed on the floor in front of the speakers and makeshift stage. There's a few instruments and a table, I think Ricky, Tony's friend, has been Djing for the last few hours. I'm talking with Ashley in the kitchen, one arm around me, the other pouring us "just one more" when I hear a mic come alive. People look up, confused, wondering what the new development means for the rest of tonight. I crane my head around the corner and feel a head lay awkwardly on my shoulder as I see a brand new face scanning the crowd, eyes full of energy and purpose.

He speaks in a soft, oceanic tone that lulls everyone into a trance, gently commanding an audience, he raises his hands to his mouth, obscuring his face. A few others make there way behind him as he begins speaking out,

'If this is drunk,
please hand me stronger.
This body may be slow,
but the mind races ever harder,
an attempt to out run...'

a chord is struck, fingers warmed up, people gathering. He continues

'...sorry, caught myself thinking,
can't be my own enemy, 
I've quelled this war once
and civility has a strained grasp
of these two pieces, 
body conquered mind to conquer body, 
failing to see benefactors true checking
the co-op abysmal...
the f**k am I saying...'

voice found, the levels right, the noise of those crowded around starts to swell as the sleep that was encroaching starts to fade,

'...now where'd I put that drink.'

At that, the morning is put off for a few more hours as we break into the frenzy of those willing to lose themselves completely. The ritual continues, as though it never faltered.

I step out to the front porch, unable to take the frantic movement anymore, needing the kiss of the sweet night air to allow me a breif respite. I move towards the steps and see a few people mulling through the cars parked on the lawn, couples talking, people checking out engines and pointing to this or that with a beer in hand. The calm is not a lack of energy, just a break from all that's happening inside.

'Marcus!' I hear slurred from somewhere behind and below me. 'Hey you little s**t, where you been?' I turn around to this playful call to see a furious face staring up at me.

'Tony, you're still here? Thought you left hours ago.'

'Not before I got the chance to talk to you again, finish that talk we were having earlier.' There were a few people mixed in to the pile of cans surrounding Tony's feet. 'Come down here.'

Knowing I shouldn't I start down the steps, headed to where the little group sat beneath the porch. A few of his group looked awkwardly away, a couple stared me down. The few I knew gave me looks that did nothing to assuage my worry, but I continued on, thinking I knew Tony well enough.

'Where you been man, haven't seen you up there for quite awhile.'

'I been out here, just have �" having a good time. But I think we still have something to talk about don't we?'

I stood there with a genial smile, the music inside pounding too loud for me to concentrate, everything I'd done tonight, clawing past in some rush of an excuse, as though I'd done something wrong, trying to keep Tony off Sam, talking all night with Ashley. I felt guilty for something I hadn't done, and now I stood here looking that guilt in the eyes.

'I know it was you who took all that s**t, Marcus; took it all with you, probably split it up with Sam. Now you're laughing about jwith him too, aren't you?'

'Tony, man, I don't know what it is you think we're doing, but you know me, I wouldn't take s**t from you, you know me.' Trying to calm him, trying to talk some sense into him, wasn't gonna get me anywhere, I knew that already, hell, I knew that when I walked down here. Why was I here? 'I can help you find out who took it, I can try to figure this all out with you, but s**t man, I didn't take anything from you.'

He was beyond listening, his temper was flaring and his voice was rising as he walked towards me. 'Just keep saying all that bullshit Mark, just keep talking as though you -- you haven't done anything to f**k me over.' A few others walked along behind him, and looking around as I backed up, I noticed a few heads I didn't quite recognize turning towards the commotion, hoping for a little more entertainment tonight. 'I know that junkie Sam and you don't give a s**t about f*****g me over.'

As he took his next step, I saw the swing coming and ducked out to the left, pedalling back, keeping distance. Trying to just get this over with I kept backing up, only to feel someone's hands in my back pushing me back towards Tony.

I ducked another punch, 'Listen man, I'm not trying to fight you, I didn't steal your s**t, I'm just trying to go back up and have a good night. We can talk about this tom--' another push towards him, this time into a jab, and like that, the music was drowned out by the crowd of animals around us, screaming for blood and murder like so many onlookers before them. I got a few blows in before he managed to get on top of me and beat about my face and arms. I got out, got up, and we danced around, trading, jab, hook, jab, jab, knee. We were down again, I was on top, he rolled me, I slipped out, we were standing, he had me, up again. Dodge this, move, and then everything dimmed, the crowd's cries lost there feveerance, the lights washing upon us lost their color, and I lost my footing.

I felt pain in my stomach that screamed up to my throat, and sang in my balls. Something caught my stomach, I nodded again. 'You're gonna give me what I f*****g want, or you're f*****g done,' I heard from somewhere far off beneath the haze that radiated from my head and body. I opened my eyes enough to see a crowd around me, arms holding people back. The music was still playing, but that was all that could be heard besides Tony and the cries of 'Get the f**k back!'

I raised myself enough to brace for the next kick, it still sent me back down, coughing and grasping at air. I saw a glint of light somewhere to close to my face, felt a cold point against my cheek. 'You guys want to f**k around,' I heard in ragged breaths, 'let's f**k around.' A searing pain flew across my ribs, adrenaline fading. Gasps and yells and cries and shouts surrounded me now, but nothing I could see came any closer. Except that dancing figure moving about the clearing, looking about as though he were a warrior in the pits, giving the show everyone wanted. Another burn as he dipped close again, and then a loud noise rang out.

People ran, people screamed, the music faltered, picked back up, but a few faces pressed against the window, and it stopped again. I saw Tony dip into the crowd of those that had held the inner circle of our makeshift ring and jog away, hearing 'This isn't over,' as he went into some shadow.

My hand gave way as I tried climbing to my feet, but a hand was there to catch me as I fell. I looked up to see Chris helping me make my way up, gun clutched in his other hand, head frantically swivelling, searching for something I couldn't see or care about. He got me to the steps, and a second hand took my other side and led me up.

We made it through the bathroom, the silence of the house more disconcerting to me than whatever continued to burn about my ribs.

I heard yells in the living room, saw unfamiliar faces at the doorway, and someone I recognized pushing through, yelling at the throng to make room.

People, satisfied they wouldn't see a death that night, made there way back to the living room, and the music picked up with more energy than ever. Scott, from South Dakota, turned out to be a paramedic with a full jump kit in his car, and patched me up well enough to not have to go to the hospital, mocking me playfully with cries of "It's just a flesh wound," as he patched me up. Chris stuck by the whole time, asking what the hell had happened, and when I finally got annoyed and burst out, asking if he was a f*****g cop, he told me he was. Then he laughed and just told me he was just trying to find out what had happened. I told him well enough, and we got back out to the kitchen, and against Scott's yelling, I poured another shot.

Ashley came in, to tell me my nose was bleeding, some concern in her eyes, but we both knew it was little more than the alcohol. She took the shot from in front of me and led me back into the hallway.

We settled on the floor against the wall, and fell into some conversation about nothing, my sides literally in stitches, her trying her hardest to make me laugh.

In the corner, Sam's snores sang out softly as our conversation turned to California. She had been out there the same time I had. She was trying her hand at writing, and wanted to follow the footsteps of so many greats, living in a small flat in San Francisco, searching for inspiration. She told me her favorite place to visit had always been just north of the Golden Gate, that park they filmed for Star Wars, she said, the name escaping her.

'Muir Woods, I know the place. I worked there as a seasonal a few years.'

'That is the most beautiful place I have ever been. I loved it, the towering redwoods just made us all seem so small, all the worries slip away, nothing mattered but that moment. Just being was all we needed to do.' She stared away for a moment, recollection taking hold of her voice. 'I read something, on a bathroom wall, once, while I was there. Nights like these always bring it back to me..'

'"A hundred thousand faces,'

I finished,

'"all pressed around me.

And not a single one

I know."

It stuck with me too. I was the one that had to clean that off.'

Author's Note

I lost sight of the middle, things get hazy, I plan to flesh that out more with a fresh mind.