The noise around me is pressurising and increasing. So many people gathered in a small place drinking dancing, talking - the voices rising ever louder to compensate for the inching increments of increased volume from the loudspeakers as the evening progresses. As the drink flows, their expressions mean less until it is little more to me than a mindless blathering, shouted over a monotonous beat of meaningless noise. The sound of flesh-surrounded holes through which noise must escape unhindered.
I try to fit in and enjoy myself along with them but I find it impossible and eventually I find myself drifting away from them in spirit. Instead, I focus on the mechanism underlying this gathering and why people should even want to be a part of it. There is little or nothing to be gained by any part of this meeting. People will recall the same stories and laugh loudly at the same things doubtless having heard them all many times before. Perhaps that kind of recognition is something that people find important or comforting or reassuring. Or perhaps this is how people find enjoyment in social gatherings like this.
Of course I didn't ask to be here but found it very difficult to refuse in the face of inexplicable pressure applied to me by colleagues, two people whom I should explain mean nothing to me and who only seemed to want me there because I have never been at any such gathering before. At times like this - when the masks slip and the creatures beneath can reveal themselves in the truest sense - do I find myself perversely entertained the most.
The conversation returns to the events of the day. "He was a good guy...he deserves a proper send-off". There is a shouted assent at this. I suppose few of us will realise that, in the end, our lives end up being an excuse for others to get drunk on our memories. Someone is telling a story, but my apathy and the noise around me makes it impossible to hear. I gauge the others, and interject a passing smile at what I hope is the right interlude. Of course, in truth I never knew the man despite working with him for nearly ten years and seeing him every working day. I was simply uninterested. I have learned to fake everything, from appreciating times spent together, to pretending to like the same TV programmes, to knowing when to smile when someone is telling an incomprehensible anecdote about someone whose life means nothing to me whatsoever. This is how they behave. Pretend this is a study.
The unaccustomed alcohol is definitely taking an effect on me but to the best of my knowledge it is not affecting me outwardly. I wonder what it is that makes people want to associate with other people just like themselves, or with people who share their worldview, or with people who share their daily experiences.
I would ask them, but likely I'm lacking the tools of articulacy to be able to express that question without sounding like I am here for an ulterior purpose. Instead, I stand in a loose group of people who are admiring one particular man who is telling a story very loudly and who is expecting everybody to laugh along as he tells it. His story is not funny, but that is only because I don't understand a word of what he is saying. Or rather I understand the words. I just do not understand the motivation or anything that links put this coming out of his mouth with the sound of laughter from others. I fix myself with that half smile that we reserve for moments when you have to sustain amusement whilst someone tells a funny story. It sits awkwardly on my face like a mask, or stranger, or a shadow. I move a little to the music, hoping that no one will actually notice, because not only can I not dance I also only moved to compensate for the weighted feeling in my legs which made me think that I was going to overbalance. I've not drunk as much as this in ages.
One of them asks me why I am being so quiet. I have absolutely no idea how to answer that question.
I could tell her the truth, but that truth is not something that survives being spoken aloud.
A playlist for the album can be found here.
Titles conceived, composed, arranged and performed by Mike Dickson
(c) 2026, Black Cat Music Factory