Strobe

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A sliver of light flashes across her face, revealing one eye, and the suggestion of a smile; her hair, recently cut short, the ends stained blue, brushes her cheek, and I reach for her, the warm curve of her hip. In an instant she's gone, arms swaying in the darkness.

I have no idea who's on stage; a DJ, and next to him a very tall man in a shroud, bass guitar slung low from one bony shoulder. Kneeling now, the singer cries out in a shrill, obviously modulated voice; her face is wrapped in plastic, party lights strung around her forehead in a loose crown. Loud and energetic, they keep us moving, the crowd a crashing wave of bodies.

She is at my side now, and then, like a fish, slips around me. I feel the touch of her fingers along my neck. Blindly, I grasp her wrist, and in one fluid movement bring her to me. She rotates between my arms; I catch the scent of her neck, that pure mix of sweat and soap, the briefest touch of floral perfume.

The DJ lays out a layer of heady synth; the singer is crawling across the stage; the beat drops, breaks apart, drops again, harder, and all the lights cut out except for the multicoloured crown on the singer's head; the crowd responds with a primal roar, feet pounding the floor, and then the strobe lights kick in.

For an instant I see her as she is, her chest raised along with one arm, the other at an angle across her forehead, the muscles in her slim legs taut, hair a blonde/blue aura around her perfect face, and then she is gone, and with her the crowd, the venue, and the music, so that for the span of a heartbeat I am stranded alone in silent darkness. The light flickers: music and crowd crash back into existence, and I see her hands in her hair, head tilted back, throat exposed, and then it is all gone again, blacked out, and I am nothing and nowhere, a single point of fevered consciousness stranded in a void.

I reach out, and as the light flickers I witness my own arm alternately crawling across the space between us and ceasing to exist; I touch her shoulder in the noise-filled light, sense less than empty air in the silent blackness, and as the strobe continues to cut me in and out of the world, I call out to her. I can see her expression changing, in one moment confusion, the next fear, then panic; does she feel me leave and return? Is the same thing happening to her? Her mouth is forming a word, but I can't make out what she's saying. I hold onto her, and then only to the thought of her, to save me. I feel like it's been this way forever.