The thumping of the bass guitar matched my heartbeat. It was a Foo Fighters song. Dave Grohl was raging into the microphone. The voice was the only thing keeping me from throwing my sanity away, which felt like pieces of crumpled paper held in unsteady hands.
Breaking into full runs, then creeping along hedges, I felt unstoppable. The shops were shut, neon lights were like glass eyes watching me. I don’t remember the streets of the town being as quiet and deserted. Then again, don’t think I’ve ever been out this late other than on New Year’s Eve. Something told me the cold was going to last a long time. My breath was fogging up in front of me. I crept. I took off again, breathing hard. I ran without thinking about stopping.
I was listening for something else amid the din in my head. It was like waiting to hear a whistle in the middle of a raging storm. I passed the familiar butcher’s, the flower shop, Matt’s pub, the halal meat shop – lights out in all of them. It was deep into Saturday night and all the familiar people would be safely home in bed, dreaming of Sunday stretching out forever.
Was that a car coming? I straightened up, pushing my entire frame against the shadow of a brick wall. A pair of lights came swimming in the mist, appeared to slow down, then sped off, heading out of the village.
I came out of the dark once the tail lights disappeared. I wanted to walk in the middle of the street, on the cobbled stones, feeling a kind of abandon that was new to me. My pores felt alive and open to the chill air. I wanted to shout and I did. I let out a howl. I don’t know why but something in me wanted to be uncharacteristically reckless. I was rubbing my arms, especially my inner arm, and kept walking. Then the urge overtook me again and I began running on the road. There was music playing inside me but it was not limited to my head. All my nerves and blood vessels seemed to be alive and threatening to fizz out of control. I was running to keep up with my heartbeat. And the music.
Then I began to slow down. My feet came to a reluctant stop. I stopped because I could see headlamps lighting up the wall of trees on the kerb ahead of me, with my jagged shadow in the centre, where the road through the village swerved gently before heading out to the highway.
I turned, realising that they had driven up behind me. They were in the car, behind blinding headlamps. I struggled to look, my eyes nearly shut. There I was standing before the warm heat of the headlights, sweating, euphoria still running in my veins, in the glorious throes of a rock-n-roll number, on a high I’d never experienced. My hands were by my side, my palms were open. The arm still felt itchy. I continued breathing hard but the music had ended. The euphoria will be the next to dissipate. They had found me and things might become unpleasant.
Photo by Eberhard Grossgasteiger in unsplash.com