Outside the party

"Are you gonna be okay?"

I sat down on the edge of the sidewalk and rubbed my eyes.

My ears felt full, the pressure had went up too fast. It happened to me at least three times a day now. And for about five minutes.

"Are you gonna be okay?", he asked again.

"yeah... i'll be fine"

" 'kay".

I tried to look up again for a little second but I gave up midway through it. Anyway, there was no point.

I felt and heard him walk around a bit with his hands in his pockets. He was getting impatient, I was ruining his evening, you see.

"Just tell me when you want to go back in, 'kay?", he said, while walking up and down next to the lamplight at the corner of the street.

...

I was staring at the ground. It was full of stains and marks and little breaks and cracks...

I thought...

"See, I was thinking we could tell Terry about this thing we saw in the shop's window today, he'd like that, the twat loves shit like that.", he opened his mouth again.

Hum.

The sound in my head was getting pretty soothing actually. From damn annoying it had changed to hauntingly melodic, I could discern a beat in between buzzes and I even started swinging slightly on the edge of the sidewalk.

I noticed the pavement didn't really have stains. It was more like a contagion, spreading traces inch by inch, until miles away. And i started to make out landscapes, very long landscapes... landscapes that spreaded for miles, oh, for miles and miles... I saw a road move fast in front of my eyes, flying by faster than wind or, fucking christ, faster than i'd ever seen, it was surrounded by hills and lakes and cities... And all along this road... there were hundreds of them.
Thousands of them people. And the music in my head just kept growing louder, enormous drums pounding and all mixing together, one huge thunder of sound, and as it kept on growing it just became a hissing, regular cuts stopping the sound in uneven patterns



A car drove by, the headlights blinding me for a second, I blinked a bit.



When I opened back my eyes slightly, I just kept on staring at the street. I didn't feel any presence in my back anymore, I knew he'd gone back inside.

I felt something warm and moist in my hand, I opened it with difficulty and put back in my pocket the Stanley knife i'd held squeezed tight in my palm.

I just stayed there and tapped my foot in a puddle right next to me.,watching the blood drip softly down into the gutter.

And I waited.