Dead People at a Party

Dead People at a Party
By John Fish

I dreamed of dead people at a party. It was an odd invitation. An odd affair. We had all been at the same party the night before and it hadn’t been much fun. However, this time it seemed much more lively. Possibly because we had done it all before.

It was in a strange, dark house, next to a freeway, yet also on a secluded hill. Though it was a single family home, we had to park in a lot carved from the hillside that had impossible turns and angles. I realized my brakes had given out as I pulled onto the steep path and suddenly knew I was going to die. But the car floated to a stop and I realized I didn’t need brakes at all. The home had an unkempt quality, yet felt elegant. It was in a quite tony neighborhood and when I went outside to urinate on the side of the road, I saw glistening polyester rooms filled with movie stars wearing clothing from magazines. I realized they were all preparing to come to the same party. They just wanted to make a dramatic entrance.

The rooms of the house were filled with marvelous objects that draped in red, blue and green across walls. The air was simultaneously blurry and glittering. People surged in waves that were thick, heavy and fluid. As we passed, we connected, and blended together. But only for an instant. For a second we were thinking the same things and feeling the same emotions. Then we passed. When I looked back they were but characters in a book and I wondered where I had found them in the first place and why. And they moved on to another individual to unite and momentarily form profound globules of energy, then dissipate.

Oddly enough some brought their mothers, which I felt was an inappropriate thing to do for such a sordid gathering. Yet the mothers came in handy at moments when things got out of hand. They lent an air of sobriety and maturity to the otherwise unruly guests. And we were unruly. Like children we cried, played with our private parts, threw food and giggled when one of us fell down.

I walked out to the hillside and saw the lights of the city sparkling below. I was amazed at how everything had change without me realizing. It seemed like yesterday that everything was sleepy and small and now the vista reminded me of a theme park on a holiday. Yet, for all its charm and glitter, it was unreal. I decided to go back inside to the dead. Still I had a yearning to be in the lights that would not leave.

When I got back to the party, it had a comfortable humor about it. The rooms chuckled with rich, vibrant red, blue and gold blooms that sounded like the bass on a car passing that was playing loud music. The faces of everyone I found more interesting, though the same. I saw in each person’s eyes a deep sense of fear, confusion, pain and suffering that had melted into a passion that could only be described as joy. I felt as if we were all one. Different. Yet all one being.
Then I woke up.

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Tags:

dark, dead, dream, poetic, short story, story, surreal and writing