The night air is brisk and heavy with the notion of rain as we hurry toward the club, ready for anything. The heavy pounding rhythm beckons to us, summoning us from the street. We join the short line just inside the door, and as I wait to pay the cover and receive admittance to the wonder that lies within, I survey my surroundings. Under foot, the carpet is crimson, complimenting the scarlet lamps and other red accents around the room. The rest of the colors are dark, eluding my eye. To the right is a wall, cutting me off from the dance floor, but I can see the bar past a short wall on the left. It’s a typical bar, covered by a smattering of empty or half empty glasses, with two attractive bartenders working steadily behind it. In front, people stand drinking or talking in various states of relaxation and drunkenness. I notice one in particular. He is lounging with his back to the bar, drink in hand, wearing black pants and a black pea coat. His short, black hair is gelled into a messy bedhead spike. He is wearing tiny round reflective sunglasses that just cover his eyes like silver dollars. His gaze is pointed in my direction, but the mercury pools hide his intentions. He could be looking at any number of things around me, and I realize with a jolt of surprise and pleasure that he may be looking at me. I pay the cover and a beautiful girl with jewels on her forehead places a paper bracelet on my wrist, signaling to everyone in the world that I can do what I want, when I want.
I stride up the curving walkway, eager to join the dance, but my friends need liquid courage to be able to celebrate. We go to the bar, and I drink a cranberry juice while they take their shots and their chasers. I wait impatiently, the music already causing my body to sway in time. Finally, finally, my friends breathe in the last of the amber bubbles, and we hurry to the floor, which is a big black space filled to the brim with noise and light, that swirls all around the bodies causing them to move and gyrate sensually. In the middle of the floor is a column from which grow wrought iron vines, twisting and turning up and along the ceiling like tree branches over our heads. These tendrils are covered with little white lights, which sparkle like fairies in the forest. All around are white and colored lights flashing and strobing in time to the music.
We find an empty spot and start to move. It takes a while to get into it, and finally my friends decide they need more libations. We go back to the bar. We pass him, the guy in the pea coat. We get our drinks, and we find an empty table where we sit and talk and laugh. All around us I see people in groups of two or three, drinking, laughing, and talking. I drink it in, along with my berry-red juice, sparkling with ice cubes that are still rough around the edges from their birth. The people all look so happy and relaxed. To my right a pretty girl flirts with a pretty boy, touching him, laughing, and tossing her hair, while her less attractive friends look uncomfortable and unhappy. I tell my friend and we smile about the girl’s oblivion to the sad plight of these ugly step-sisters. Right at that moment, while I am smiling my best smile, I notice the guy from the bar has moved around to a spot closer to where I am and seems to be looking at me again. He is holding a cigarette just like a man should, leaning casually with one elbow resting on the bar. The end of the cigarette glows orange in front of his fingers as the smoke drifts away toward the heavens. Again, we decide to dance.
We start toward the dance floor, and I suddenly realize that I have left my friends. I turn to find them and almost fall over the guy, who was walking right behind me. As a colony of butterflies fly in frenzied choreography around my stomach, I act like I don’t see him. I turn into a frightened doe and dart around him in pursuit of familiarity. I quickly find safety with my friends, and we go back to the dance floor, and this time the music is more motivational. As I start to dance, the white flashing lights blind me, stealing away my sight. I close my eyes and am carried away to a place where there is no me, only rhythm. I move and sway with the beat. My nostrils fill with the scent of sweat and smoke, but it doesn’t bother me, it’s all part of the music. This is no longer a dance club, it is a forest, full of magic and mystery. The fairies flit about overhead, drunken with our worship. I am jolted out of the music by my friend, who wants me to see that the guy, this Oberon, has taken off his pea coat and joined the dance. He now wears a black pinstripe shirt, and dances masterfully with a group of girls to my right. I tear my eyes off of him and concentrate on my own magic. Soon I realize he has moved around the circle and is dancing right next to me. I decide that I am Titania, I am Aphrodite. I pretend he doesn’t exist and that I am music and beauty. Soon he moves away.
My friends and I go outside for a respite, and the sky is shedding chilly tears. It refreshes us and clears our minds, freeing us from the shackles of the smoke and heat and soon we are ready to rejoin the revels. The music sweeps us back into its grasp, and we once again feel the movement and begin to make merry with the other worshippers of the night. My hair whips around my face, and my feet are free to move as they wish. Soon, Oberon is behind me again and is actually facing me as he dances. I fear him, but I decide to grab the moment and dare to look into his face and smile. I look back down and dance with all I am, but when I look back up the tide has carried him across the floor. I continue dancing, and soon he disappears. I realize he has left, and for me the magic is gone. The lights are just lights, the branches have been replaced by iron, and the music has lost its rhythm. I continue dancing until the end of the night, but it’s all for effect. The smoke has made my contacts fog up so that I am looking at the world through a white haze of clouds. When the music stops, the people tumble out of the forest that has transformed back into a normal building on a normal street, and my friends and I trudge tiredly across the sparkling wet pavement toward the car, tasting the cold air. I look back briefly and see Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustardseed scamper away, giggling happily in the night.
