Face you demons
01:41 Apr 28 2007
Times Read: 562
Face Your Demons
Some towns have cool, bright, clear summer nights, perfect for parties. The people of the U.S. had every reason to party. The Vietnam War over, the flower power era rushing to an end, didn’t stop the music that flooded out of the downtown apartment complex, whose grand walls were splashed with graffiti.
Boys and girls swayed haplessly to the sound of the intoxicating music. Black and red lights flooded the faces of the partygoers. In the farthest corner of the room a melancholy figure melted out of the shadows and blended in with the crowd. Her eyes flew from face to face, body to body. Moving through a sea of shifting bodies, while her slender frame was jousted to and fro she stumbled forward.
The live hippie-clad band played music loud and wild. The beat pushed the girl forward, droning in her ears. It drove her crazy. She skimmed along the wall toward the open door, stumbling.
Her small frame faded back into the blurred sea of movement that had slowed down all around her. Pushing through hot bodies packed together she stumbled and fell. Dragging herself up from her trap on the floor eyes held in their sights.
Running out the door and down the stairs, she flew into yet another crowded room full of the young flower power children. Lights cast shadows upon the faces in the room giving their eyes a sunken, sickly look. The girl pushed though the crowed room. Other unsettling figures lurked in a blackened corner. In their hands they held silver fangs and lit candles. Eyes wide, she turned back and ran through the door.
To her people in the hall represented demons of her past come to take her away into a radical world. Her feet dragged on the floor as she progressed down the hall to a dark door. Her hand gripped the doorknob with a nervous, sweating palm.
Upon entering the room, she saw neither lights nor people calling from the corners. She saw nothing. Mind still racing, eyes still searching; she stumbled into the gloomy room. Trudging toward a corner, she slumped against the wall-- the only thing able to support her. Finding a damp space in the corner, she sank down and closed her eyes hiding inside herself.
Sweating, rocking, shivering, she held burning tears back. Never will she return to those demons in the corners or rooms filled to the walls with tightly packed bodies. With these thoughts in mind, she opened her eyes to assure herself that no one was there.
Slowly, after a time, she rose from her haven in the corner. She stumbled toward the double doors at the end of the hall leading out into the summer night air. The doors could not be to far away from her outstretched groping hands.
Thoughts of falling back into the trap of those horrible demons plagued her mind. Shaking her head she pushed on, her feet no longer dragging. Her body fought to move faster, to outrun her garish thoughts.
The door was in reach as she heard her name called out after her. This only drove her on faster. Her freedom from the hellish nightmare lay on the other side of those doors. Her hands gripped the doorknobs with all her strength and, she pushed them open and stumbled out into the night.
Stepping outside, wind whipping her face, she closed her eyes and turned her face to the sky. She sighed and called a cab; but when it pulled to the curb, she chose to ignore it and instead let her feet guide her to the one place she was safe. Home.
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