A Birthday Party

There’s a non-dance song on the speaker.
A couple romances in the balcony.
Four other conference in the corridor.

What is the one who has been held hostage to do? He can’t be a part of the couple hugging and sharing feelings. One broken up, one fucked up. He can’t be a part of the conversation in the corridor wherein awkwardness is being discussed. He isn’t privy to them, to it.

I want to go home, but the alcohol which has been my escape now prevents it. The party I was invited to now becomes a party I can’t uninvite myself from. The birthday is over, but waiting anymore is no more a celebration. I am not complaining. There’s nothing to complain about. Oaksmith, the host, the company, the music. None are unwelcoming at all. But they have stopped being welcoming.

Nobody wants to admit that the party is over. The couple wants privacy. They are reeking of it. The director wants sleep. He stinks of it. The disfavoured wants time with her. The stench is palpable. R just wants to party. He doesn’t care.

And I? I want to go home. Or just observe. Or just not care, but I can’t not care. I’m a writer. I need to observe.

Amidst all this, what of the birthday boy? He is attempting to hold together these disparate elements of his Mad Men party. Reminds me of Don Draper at Megan’s party in Cal. How he is a part of it, yet disjointed from it. Doesn’t help that it is almost a digital marketing crowd. But yes, irreverent dancing, alcohol, and a sense of “tomorrow does not matter” completes the winning hand. Garnished by my own superiority complex, observing the party.

And that’s a birthday party.

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The music skips a beat, but not the genre.

The director has slept. There’s a duel between the companions over a girl, of which I am not supposed to inquire about. What is the use of being a guest unknown to the ongoings? How long can I note without being personal? I wish I could not hold my drink and pen. I wish I had conflicts of love. I wish I could make a scene. Perhaps then people would be glad if I left?

Or I wish I was R. Immune to everything but the joie de party. Just chilling. Enabling the chill. Unaffected.

But no! It’s the curse of the wrongfully confined. The curse of the prisoner- to note, to suffer, to be bothered. To not know what the jailers are discussing. To not know what’s happening above the dungeons.

Or I wish I was a Sleeper. Mixed drinks too early, did not eat, slept.

How I wish! I wish. Will my wishes end? Will a writer’s wishes ever end? Will a dreamer’s dreams end? No. They cannot. Because then they lose the verb that nominates them. And at a party, at this, I am all of them. A dreamer. A writer. A party attendee. I cannot not exist.

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I now feel how the forest and the sky and the hills and the trees feel. Overhearing conversations I am not supposed to. But how does one react? Change the curtain of leaves? Draw a blanket of rainclouds? Change the dress of flowers? Scatter the birds? Or just accept and forget them, despite forgetfulness not running in my veins? Then arteries make these conversations a part of my flesh, spreading them until the leaves change colour. Until the clouds get a lining. Until the flowers fructify. Until the birds sing.

But what does a prisoner-of-party do? He negotiates writing amidst planning an escape. He observes people sleeping. Peeing. Conspiring. Romancing. And he plans. And he does not stop listening to the sad songs.