The Best Days of Our Lives

by Ben Ashwell

I’m sat on a balcony with five friends and not enough chairs to seat us all, overlooking a festival of flashing lights that once looked spectacular, but now looks so familiar that I don’t even squint when a pink or blue or green neon light hits my eyeball for a split second. The floor must literally pulsate a couple of millimetres every time people jump up and down or the music builds up to a disappointing crescendo. These are the kind of thoughts that I have when I am here, watching skinny jean clad boys and girls with glow in the dark hair styles, who only seem capable of moving at the seams.

Marcus turns to me at shouts in my ear, “Having fun?”

“Meh”

I don’t know whether he hears me or not because he’s taking a swig of his double vodka lemonade that tastes more like the ice that hits your teeth and stops you from downing the whole glass in one. At this point Jake turns to me, having been drinking warm ale all night because it was on a drinks promotion. I guess no-one drinks ale in clubs. His blonde hair, which stretches down just below his eyes, rubs my whiskery cheek.

“Don’t you wish you could come out and have as much of a good time as they are having after just drinking two alco-pops?”

We laugh but it takes me back to this time last year when I was here with a different set of friends. There were two couples, who have subsequently split up, and three guys. We all sat and commented on how good the DJ was and how it was cool that there was finally a good night out to be had where we lived. We danced a little and somehow we were all quite drunk.

It’s coming towards the end of the night and someone suggests that we should go to the smoking area. We all walk towards the outside bay, which is marked by three railings covered in colourful posters advertising other nights out that surely someone reads. On the way out I see cleavage and legs everywhere and I feel like Billy Corgan at the start of The Smashing Pumpkins’ video for “Today”, where all he can see is couples kissing passionately.

In the smoking area we huddle round, sharing the last two roll-ups of the night, looking on at people smoking Marlboro’s and Mayfair’s and all the other trademark brands. The roll-ups keep going out and our lighters aren’t really working so we have to throw them away and go back inside. By this stage the bars have closed but for some reason we stay till the end, watching from our balcony once again. On the last song a large circle of people form on the dance floor and I imagine hearing some death metal music and watching the circle swirl smaller and faster until eventually there is nothing but bodies colliding with each other.

Instead a petit girl with cropped peroxide blonde hair strides into the middle and throws her top off, revealing a black bra. This should have been the best thing that I saw that night, but as I watched men clamber into the middle of the circle and dance up and down her chest I felt like I was too far gone. Too far gone down the road of ‘I wish I was drunk and wasn’t so cynical’. As the lights come up and the DJ thanks everyone for another amazing night we walk past the large circle and someone we don’t know tries to unclip the girl’s bra.

“Hey,” she screams, with a cheeky smile on her face that doesn’t quite add up.

Leaving to the dodgy looks of the bouncers I feel obliged to thank them. In this moment I wonder if this is how I should be spending the best days of my life.

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~ This piece was posted on Monday, January 12th, 2009 and was filed under Short Story, Writing. You can make comments on it below. ~