red plastic cups

Sometimes I find myself longing for sparkling good times that belong to the other side of the spectrum. It was a club I couldn't crack into for a long time. In college, I did. In my giddiness, I soaked up the parties, all parties, all parties with stale beer stained air, laced with over-applied cologne and smoke from amateurishly lit cigarettes. Strobe lights whirled and gave me a headache, I whirled with them, sometimes strangers whirled with me. The moments were heady as promised. Then something happened, the fun became the same. Whenever Kanye's Stronger played for a second time, or said strangers moved on to my porcelain-skined friend, or the sticky floor had finally claimed the better part of my shoe, it was time to go home. But the more novelty slipped from me, the later I stayed. Like an addict, I needed larger doses to sustain the same high.

The next day, friends with much more sense would ask what they missed, their eyes widen and crinkle at all the right moments. As I finish with a satisfying period (a kiss, a fumble, a line that went one too far), they answer with a laugh and a head shake. With each shake, I was pushed into the sparkling world I had desperately tried to crash.

One night we were the last ones whirling on the sticky floor. 3 a.m., in an overworked, floaty white skirt, I had finally reached the end. Stronger had already been played four times, or was it five? In the haze of a lone, purple light, we plummeted toward the other end of the arc. The couple in the corner started to leave, her hand in his. Two guys sluggishly went around the room, stacking used red plastic cups, pouring dull, yellowish liquid out. I looked around. The red cups were everywhere and identical. There were so many of them. What was the point? I exhaled. I could no longer smell the beer nor the cologne. The air had infused and merged with the air in my nostrils. I desperately wanted a drink to quench a thirst (of what, I wasn't sure), but I could not pick out my own red plastic cup. They all looked the same.

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