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Bluelighter
I can't remember how the conversation took that particular path on that particular night, how it veered left off the road as if skidding in the rain. Maybe I was muttering again about the bad hand I had been dealt, how the world might pile up crap on everybody but my shitheap was looming larger than most, or how we are cast into this world naked, alone and screaming, and how it pretty much deteriorates from there. However it started the topic suddenly lay there before us, ungarnished and raw on our little serving platter of conversation. God.
"What do you believe?" he asked me.
And there it was, the cow on the track. My train of thought ploughed into the mass of meat and stopped violently. For a moment I was almost taken back to find that I was sitting here on the roof of this dingy club. The two of us in our cheap gear, sitting in amongst the grime, cigarette butts and spat-out chewing gum, backs against the walls atop the tarred roof in the suffocating summers night. The chemicals working their wonders, like warm smoke inside our bodies, each twist and turn lightly tickling the undersides of our skin as it flowed. The reality rushed back into view.
"What?" I asked completely stumped.
"What do you believe?" he repeated.
I remember leaning my head back against the wall and closing my eyes as I felt the soft drone of the bass filtering through the club. Just enough to be felt up here, but you had to be still and make an effort to feel it. "Why are you asking me this?" I sighed. "I want to know, what do you believe?" came the reply. It felt like an eternity before I could speak, I just sat there for who knows how long, sitting and sweating and hoping he'd forget what he had asked and we could just change the topic back to how very bad music was on the radio these days and how everybody should feel this wonderful even if only for once in their lifetimes. But all I could think about was how damn hot it was. Hot, humid, coastal summer. "So humid there's fish swimming in the air" I remember him saying earlier.
"Well?"
"Dammit I don't know". I was getting annoyed and this was not the type of thing I wanted to be talking about. Sterile churches on Sundays, old women smelling like mothballs and those songs sounding like they were written by Shakespeares' less astute brother where I would just stand there and mouth the words to because I couldn't sing why the fuck must I sing or even be there when I can't sing because if I wasn't made to sing then I wasn't made to sing hymns. Dammit. Were clubbing! CLUBBING! Why bring God into it? Then something perched itself on the tip of my tongue. An idea like a little bird looking out onto the world outside. I spat it out quickly, as little birds have a nasty habit of shitting just before they fly.
"God... God was here, he was but now he's gone. He came, se saw, we fucked it up and he left". I so hoped that this was the end of it, or at least I had annoyed him to the extent that he would shut the hell up about it!
"God has never left" he said.
"I can take you to God".
He was far too composed.
"I'm not that way inclined I said" throwing the comment off a sideways glance.
"I'm serious". The same calm voice. "God is here, right now. I can show you, if you want".
"What, are you going to summon him out of the sky?" I asked sarcastically, waving my arms up like I was casting some spell on the heavens. Harry fucking pillhead.
"No" he replied.
"In a place you have forgotten. Here. Do you want to see?"
By this time my annoyance became mild intrigue seasoned with just a pinch of amusement. The only thing I could think of was this old man with a beard and a long white robe with open-toed leather sandals on the hot seething crowded dancefloor, hooting and screaming and waving his glowsticks manically in the air to the beat. An aging sweaty raver, but yet somehow dignified and divine!
"Right" I said under my grin. "Show me"
He stood up, grabbed my hand, helped me up, and we started heading for the stairs. The place was crowded, packed to capacity, or perhaps even beyond. The stairs were narrow and the insides of the building were a number of twists, turns and sudden descents. We shimmied down the stairs, one line of people moved up while the other moved down all rubbing against each other as we moved in our designated shoals on the narrow little staircase. I made a deliberate attempt to suck in my gut as a revoltingly sweaty man moved passed me on the stairs. "Sorry" he mumbled, eyes rolling back in his head as his stomach left a large sweaty mark on my shirt. Thanks buddy, I'm getting enlightenement here! We carried on down the next flight of stairs, it was dark here, everything was painted black, the only light came from several ultraviolets placed on the low slanting roof above our heads. I held onto the brick railing as I slowly felt each step on the way down. There was a finger-sized gash out of the stair rail that had been neatly smoothed and painted over, I always wondered what manner of equipment, keg of alcoholic beverage or out-of-it ravers skull had made this mark and how long it had been here.
Someone had taken the time to paint faces on the ceiling of the staircase, painted in fluorescent colours onto the dark ceiling so that they shone up under the blacklights. A man with a hat tipped to one site, a women with eyes like a cats and thick pouty lips, a spiky haired "cool guy" with one eye larger than the other, a guy with horns on his head. I stopped.
"Look if you're bullshitting I'd rather not play this and go dance" I said. If this was a joke it had gone damn far enough and there were better things to do with the time, especially considering our current state of mind.
"I'm not kidding" He smiled calmly. "Come, I will show you". He was serious, and I had no idea if going along with this was such a good idea any more. Someone up the long line of people at the top of the stairs yelled "dude, pedal on the right" and whoever I had stopped behind me gave a polite nudge (such as nice ravers do) and I found myself finishing the stairwell.
At the bottom of the stairs he met me with that same calm demeanour that was becoming quite unsettling. I know every inch of this filthy place, there is nothing that he can show me that could possibly have any remote connection to God. Fuelled by the drug my mind raced along with my heart in nervous excitement.
"Are you ready?" he asked. "We are close"
Of a thousand witty remarks that I have had lined up at the back of my head ready to fire, the only thing I could muster was a weak "ok".
"Close your eyes" he said. And as I did this he positioned himself just behind my left shoulder, cupped his hands over my eyes and started leading me slowly along the narrow corridors of the club. I tried to guess where I was going, but my muted sense was causing havoc with my mind and all I could do was obediently put one foot in front of the other. I heard people talking above the drone on either side of me, felt a wave of heat being forced past our chests as the large fans sucked hot air from the dancefloor and blew it towards the entrance. The bass was so damn loud I could feel the hairs on my legs vibrating. It suddenly got quieter. "Step up, carefully" he said. And I felt for the step with my foot, and hoped like hell when I rested my weight that whatever it was I was standing on never gave way. It didn't and he stepped up behind me, all the time keeping his hand over my eyes. It was light in here, the light filtered through the gaps between his fingers making rich red-orange streaks on the inside of my closed eyelids.
"We are here" he said. "But we need to wait a bit". It wasn't long till he guided me forward, and then stopped me just a few feet on. I was aware that there were people next to me on both sides, close. I could hear whispers and the shuffling sound of fabric on fabric all around. There was a strong smell of urine. Urine and vomit. And as the words "In a place you have forgotten" drifted through my mind, he moved his hand away from my face and said "open your eyes".
I swallowed hard, and opened them.
Here I was, amongst the filth and the grime. Among society's underbelly of choice. Here in the heat with the drugged and the tired and the stench, standing here with a large bald man on my right, sweating heavily leaning up against the wall. A short curly haired boy on my left, unshaven and swaying slightly back and forth. Here I stood silent at centre trough of the men's toilet, standing looking directly at the face before me. My face, staring back from mirror in front of me.
The face was running towards the exit of youth, still young, but older. Tired. Pale. Large pupiled eyes with heavy bags underneath stared sadly back at me. And in the eyes, or in my head, or in my dreams, or in the drugs the words came to me. A soft question wrapping itself like a warm blanket around my being.
"Why, have you forgotten me?"
And in that moment I knew the answer, that I could never aspire to the depths of all that could be quantified heaven, never reach the immensity of that which has the ability to grant life measured in the vibration of an atom. All of that greatness towers above me, and I would forever stand below it, hanging my head, mortal in its shadow. All of this measured by man, as a man, can only be failure. I had tried to hold it in my heart, and I had dropped that thin glass dream long ago. It had broken into a million pieces and I had to stop walking to try and pull each tiny crystal spike from my bleeding feet. And I could live that dream no more.
The answer was not up there. It never was. All there is up there, is stars. It was right here all the time. In me.
Each day now, as I rise. I stand in front of the mirror. Stand and stare into those eyes, and remember that time at the club. That first time that I learned the truth, there in the filth of my humanity. And I try to remember it throughout my day, and in what I do. For tomorrow I will have to stand and face myself again, and I would so very much like to do it as I did this morning, with pride, grace and humility. And above all, love.
"What do you believe?" he asked me.
And there it was, the cow on the track. My train of thought ploughed into the mass of meat and stopped violently. For a moment I was almost taken back to find that I was sitting here on the roof of this dingy club. The two of us in our cheap gear, sitting in amongst the grime, cigarette butts and spat-out chewing gum, backs against the walls atop the tarred roof in the suffocating summers night. The chemicals working their wonders, like warm smoke inside our bodies, each twist and turn lightly tickling the undersides of our skin as it flowed. The reality rushed back into view.
"What?" I asked completely stumped.
"What do you believe?" he repeated.
I remember leaning my head back against the wall and closing my eyes as I felt the soft drone of the bass filtering through the club. Just enough to be felt up here, but you had to be still and make an effort to feel it. "Why are you asking me this?" I sighed. "I want to know, what do you believe?" came the reply. It felt like an eternity before I could speak, I just sat there for who knows how long, sitting and sweating and hoping he'd forget what he had asked and we could just change the topic back to how very bad music was on the radio these days and how everybody should feel this wonderful even if only for once in their lifetimes. But all I could think about was how damn hot it was. Hot, humid, coastal summer. "So humid there's fish swimming in the air" I remember him saying earlier.
"Well?"
"Dammit I don't know". I was getting annoyed and this was not the type of thing I wanted to be talking about. Sterile churches on Sundays, old women smelling like mothballs and those songs sounding like they were written by Shakespeares' less astute brother where I would just stand there and mouth the words to because I couldn't sing why the fuck must I sing or even be there when I can't sing because if I wasn't made to sing then I wasn't made to sing hymns. Dammit. Were clubbing! CLUBBING! Why bring God into it? Then something perched itself on the tip of my tongue. An idea like a little bird looking out onto the world outside. I spat it out quickly, as little birds have a nasty habit of shitting just before they fly.
"God... God was here, he was but now he's gone. He came, se saw, we fucked it up and he left". I so hoped that this was the end of it, or at least I had annoyed him to the extent that he would shut the hell up about it!
"God has never left" he said.
"I can take you to God".
He was far too composed.
"I'm not that way inclined I said" throwing the comment off a sideways glance.
"I'm serious". The same calm voice. "God is here, right now. I can show you, if you want".
"What, are you going to summon him out of the sky?" I asked sarcastically, waving my arms up like I was casting some spell on the heavens. Harry fucking pillhead.
"No" he replied.
"In a place you have forgotten. Here. Do you want to see?"
By this time my annoyance became mild intrigue seasoned with just a pinch of amusement. The only thing I could think of was this old man with a beard and a long white robe with open-toed leather sandals on the hot seething crowded dancefloor, hooting and screaming and waving his glowsticks manically in the air to the beat. An aging sweaty raver, but yet somehow dignified and divine!
"Right" I said under my grin. "Show me"
He stood up, grabbed my hand, helped me up, and we started heading for the stairs. The place was crowded, packed to capacity, or perhaps even beyond. The stairs were narrow and the insides of the building were a number of twists, turns and sudden descents. We shimmied down the stairs, one line of people moved up while the other moved down all rubbing against each other as we moved in our designated shoals on the narrow little staircase. I made a deliberate attempt to suck in my gut as a revoltingly sweaty man moved passed me on the stairs. "Sorry" he mumbled, eyes rolling back in his head as his stomach left a large sweaty mark on my shirt. Thanks buddy, I'm getting enlightenement here! We carried on down the next flight of stairs, it was dark here, everything was painted black, the only light came from several ultraviolets placed on the low slanting roof above our heads. I held onto the brick railing as I slowly felt each step on the way down. There was a finger-sized gash out of the stair rail that had been neatly smoothed and painted over, I always wondered what manner of equipment, keg of alcoholic beverage or out-of-it ravers skull had made this mark and how long it had been here.
Someone had taken the time to paint faces on the ceiling of the staircase, painted in fluorescent colours onto the dark ceiling so that they shone up under the blacklights. A man with a hat tipped to one site, a women with eyes like a cats and thick pouty lips, a spiky haired "cool guy" with one eye larger than the other, a guy with horns on his head. I stopped.
"Look if you're bullshitting I'd rather not play this and go dance" I said. If this was a joke it had gone damn far enough and there were better things to do with the time, especially considering our current state of mind.
"I'm not kidding" He smiled calmly. "Come, I will show you". He was serious, and I had no idea if going along with this was such a good idea any more. Someone up the long line of people at the top of the stairs yelled "dude, pedal on the right" and whoever I had stopped behind me gave a polite nudge (such as nice ravers do) and I found myself finishing the stairwell.
At the bottom of the stairs he met me with that same calm demeanour that was becoming quite unsettling. I know every inch of this filthy place, there is nothing that he can show me that could possibly have any remote connection to God. Fuelled by the drug my mind raced along with my heart in nervous excitement.
"Are you ready?" he asked. "We are close"
Of a thousand witty remarks that I have had lined up at the back of my head ready to fire, the only thing I could muster was a weak "ok".
"Close your eyes" he said. And as I did this he positioned himself just behind my left shoulder, cupped his hands over my eyes and started leading me slowly along the narrow corridors of the club. I tried to guess where I was going, but my muted sense was causing havoc with my mind and all I could do was obediently put one foot in front of the other. I heard people talking above the drone on either side of me, felt a wave of heat being forced past our chests as the large fans sucked hot air from the dancefloor and blew it towards the entrance. The bass was so damn loud I could feel the hairs on my legs vibrating. It suddenly got quieter. "Step up, carefully" he said. And I felt for the step with my foot, and hoped like hell when I rested my weight that whatever it was I was standing on never gave way. It didn't and he stepped up behind me, all the time keeping his hand over my eyes. It was light in here, the light filtered through the gaps between his fingers making rich red-orange streaks on the inside of my closed eyelids.
"We are here" he said. "But we need to wait a bit". It wasn't long till he guided me forward, and then stopped me just a few feet on. I was aware that there were people next to me on both sides, close. I could hear whispers and the shuffling sound of fabric on fabric all around. There was a strong smell of urine. Urine and vomit. And as the words "In a place you have forgotten" drifted through my mind, he moved his hand away from my face and said "open your eyes".
I swallowed hard, and opened them.
Here I was, amongst the filth and the grime. Among society's underbelly of choice. Here in the heat with the drugged and the tired and the stench, standing here with a large bald man on my right, sweating heavily leaning up against the wall. A short curly haired boy on my left, unshaven and swaying slightly back and forth. Here I stood silent at centre trough of the men's toilet, standing looking directly at the face before me. My face, staring back from mirror in front of me.
The face was running towards the exit of youth, still young, but older. Tired. Pale. Large pupiled eyes with heavy bags underneath stared sadly back at me. And in the eyes, or in my head, or in my dreams, or in the drugs the words came to me. A soft question wrapping itself like a warm blanket around my being.
"Why, have you forgotten me?"
And in that moment I knew the answer, that I could never aspire to the depths of all that could be quantified heaven, never reach the immensity of that which has the ability to grant life measured in the vibration of an atom. All of that greatness towers above me, and I would forever stand below it, hanging my head, mortal in its shadow. All of this measured by man, as a man, can only be failure. I had tried to hold it in my heart, and I had dropped that thin glass dream long ago. It had broken into a million pieces and I had to stop walking to try and pull each tiny crystal spike from my bleeding feet. And I could live that dream no more.
The answer was not up there. It never was. All there is up there, is stars. It was right here all the time. In me.
Each day now, as I rise. I stand in front of the mirror. Stand and stare into those eyes, and remember that time at the club. That first time that I learned the truth, there in the filth of my humanity. And I try to remember it throughout my day, and in what I do. For tomorrow I will have to stand and face myself again, and I would so very much like to do it as I did this morning, with pride, grace and humility. And above all, love.
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im not gonna give up. wanting all of bluelight to see this.
