A fair at night.
by pugflavoredsub
I couldn’t tell you if I had showered or not that night; the humidity was so thick that my sweat matted my hair down against my neck – I waterlogged myself, if that’s possible. And in an open-air setting, I wondered if the people passing by could smell me. It’s easy enough to get lost in a crowd when you’re short and inoffensively unattractive, when you don’t feel particularly smart or capable or interesting, when you feel like you can barely speak English, let alone another language.
So I almost hoped you could smell me that night — that somewhere within the bouquet of sand, sweat, engine exhaust, and fried food, there was a whiff of something undeniably me.
I couldn’t tell you what we all talked about that night; it wasn’t because I was drunk or because I spent most of the day with my headphones jacked all the way up; rather, it was because the sound of the night drowned us out — so dense that it had its own smell, even. It was children screaming in delight, the groan of the little roller coaster, the crackling of sugary sodas and foaming cheep beer, endless radio stations blaring over endless conversations, and every hazy ghost of a vendor hawking blankets and sculptures and comics and bongs and cordels and bowls and CDs and DVDs— metallic and oily, sweet and yeasty, earthy and manufactured.
And I was nothing to look at — scabby knees, sunburned, wearing a worn sundress; but there was more than enough to enjoy besides the sight of me. Eight millions lights — street lamps, high beams, and the occasional firework shimmying into the sky. The whirlygigs, overhead strings of lanterns, and blinking carnival rides — hot greens, bloody reds, dirty yellows. Eight million lights, and all of them seemed to shine on us. And in one beery, endless moment, we were eight million colors without realizing it. When I turned and saw you, quivering and shimmering like a prism, I briefly wondered if we were something greater than just two people.
And then we stepped out into the street and made our way back to bed. And we were nothing but perspiration and silence, all nudes and greys and whites.
