DJ La-Di-Da is working the decks with her honey fingers and the place is buzzing. The humid clouds of smoke rub against each other, fizzing and crackling with static charge. Multicoloured lightning splits the room as the beat thunders on.
The descending bass scale vibrates my internal organs in sequence; heart, lungs, liver, kidneys; over and over again. A sea of people ebbs and flows across the dance floor, waves of sound and emotion washing over them, with their mouths full of gum and their heads full of E, the chewing gum for the mind.
A young girl in silver sequinned skirt moves towards me, wide eyed behind her yellow tint shades. “Look at Meeee! I’m driving a car!!”, and she is. As she works her way through the human traffic in her imaginary car she signals, turns the wheel, changes gear and toots her horn, mechanically synchronised with the music. She parks herself by my side and starts to massage my neck, “You want a drink?” she asks, handing me a glass of sweet metallic liquid.
“Thanks,” I say, and she kisses me and disappears back into the rush hour.
I leave the basement and head for the main hall through the labyrinth of corridors and stairwells. The route is choked with wildlife, like fat clogging the artery walls of the club.
Thin hipped youths hop up and down, chopping the air with their hands, willowy women sway from side to side, entranced by their own waving arms, and in the dark corners shadowy silhouettes writhe in lust induced frenzy. I slow my pace, and move with the rhythm of the masses; bumping and dodging as needed.
Basement tunes blend into tunes from the main hall and the anticipation grows. I can hear the roar of the crowd as the DJ taunts them with the opening riffs of a raw new anthem, drawing them in, making them wait. One final surge and then I’m there, through the gateway and into the arena.
A thousand gladiators punch the air with fluorescent swords as the DJ leads his chorus line of dancers and trancers with his sonic baton. He hangs the tune for an eternity, bringing the masses to an orgasm of expectation and then at last, when they can take it no more, he lets it go. Hold the beat, stop the beat, drop the beat. The erupting wall of noise is like an earthquake, and here I am at ground zero.
I’m swallowed up by the throbbing melee, cuckooned from the outside world of work and rain and traffic by the ravers, groovers and ice-heads. And there I stay. Later, much, much later, as I’m heading off home into the sunrise, I try to remember what just happened.
What did I see, what did I do, what did I feel, during that long technicolor night? My head is filled with tantalising flashbacks of brief encounters and vivid emotions, but most of the memories are lost forever.
I’ll just have to do it all again.
