Eat, Drink And Be Merry, For Tomorrow We Have PowerPoint Presentations

A story of a teenage party and its aftermath. For more of my writing, go to andrewhenleywriting.wordpress.com

Last night’s leftover atmosphere haunts the sitting room dancefloor. People lie in the party graveyard in hangover comas, surrounded by gemstone green beer bottles. Their headaches speak of rebellion and regret in varying ratios. The curtains boiled in unfriendly sunlight. They were promised that the night and the music and the good times would never end by the silent speaker in the corner.

 

The sapphiric midnight sky was spotted with light like chicken pox while bridges and cigarettes burned. Under the clichéd romance of darkness, kisses and tongues and promises were exchanged. The boys wore skinny jeans that revealed their ankles like risqué young women in the 20s. The girls wore leather jackets and smoked like angry young men of the 60s. None of the boys were Prince Charming, but there was a Cinderella shortage so they all got laid. In the morning light, the grass weeps dew and shines like hair gel.

 

Upstairs, a Sabrina’s warpaint is streaked with broken heart tears. She wakes up naked next to Peter who watched his girlfriend Lindsay get drunk, get naked, and get with another man. Sabrina, Peter and Lindsay all have artistic dreams. Sabrina usually wears her camera as a necklace, ready to capture the portrait of modern life. Peter is a painter, uncompromising and violent with his depictions and brushstrokes. Lindsay’s slender fingers dance along the ivories, creating melancholy and redeeming melodies.

 

Sabrina and Peter spent last night in a lovers’ Mexican standoff, each of them daring the other to commit and get shot down first. They slept naked but unloved. In a bed in the next room, a lipstick lovenote lies on Lindsay’s leg. Her mascara and gloss and perfume mark the pillow like everlasting footprints on the moon. Her ginger hair is sticky like tree sap. The red writing on her exposed buttock says ‘I love you, call me’ and a fake phone number.

 

These three young artists do not meet again until five years later. Dressed in cheap, dull business suits, they sit in the off colour fluorescent spotlight of the waiting room, their feet rubbing nervously on the worn out, wiry carpet decorated with black bubblegum lakes. They meekly glance at each other while pretending to read year old magazines. The only pictures Sabrina takes are holiday snaps with her boyfriend and twin sons. The only lasting thing Peter has painted is the spare bedroom. Lindsay hasn’t touched a piano since she moved into her one bedroom apartment with her new boyfriend.

 

For these 20somethings, the party came at a U-Bend time in their lives. The messy part where their dreams are flushed away. Replaced by a £16,000 starting salary. In their childhood, they ran and played with water pistols, and dreamed about what they’d be when they grew up. In their adulthood, they’ll where white collars and stress over PowerPoint presentations, and remember what it felt like to be free and young. That night was their last night before the future became the present.