flood zone
Jordan
one year later
The swirl of bodies won’t stop. It’s hypnotizing, watching this whirlpool of limbs churn in front of me. Join us, they all call out, begging me to enter. Dive in, head first.
A part of me yearns for it, to lose myself among all the other lost souls.
This must be hell, I think. It’s so hot here. This incandescent heat seethes through the air. Makes it so hard to breathe. I’m almost choking
with every inhale.
I can’t stop watching them. All those people. I wonder who they were before they entered the fray. What lives they had that
led them to this very moment. To this abyss.
I’m supposed to go in. Join them.
The heaving mass of men and women moves to its own rhythm. What dim glow there is—it’s so dark in here, faces cast in colored
light, red and orange shadows—leaves a sheen across everyone’s skin, glistening as they writhe over each other. I clock a
myriad of different expressions: agony and ecstasy, a certain giddy insanity, that mischievous glint in the eye, there and
gone before each face slips back into the roiling cesspool of body parts.
I could step right in. Get swallowed up by the pit, becoming one with every last lost soul. Drown with them. Never come back up for air again.
Is that what I want?
I’m so outside myself. I’ve been trying so hard to sync up with my sense of self, try and connect to my own body again, but
nothing seems to work. None of this feels real—
like me
—anymore. This doesn’t feel like my own body, like I’m . . . like I . . .
Who even am I now? What’s happened to me?
One night. That was the deal. A trial run, back in the saddle. Go out with the crew, get a taste for the nightlife again.
Dip a toe in the water, see how the temp feels. It’s been months since I was last social. Folks were beginning to wonder if
I’d left town. Or died.
You got that right. I was. Dead. For a while, at least.
So what the fuck am I now?
Just one night, Lys insisted. Take it slow.
Bad call.
The Flood Zone is a mid-tier concert venue that gets its fair share of national acts. It’s not as small as some of the other
clubs in town, like Twisters or the Metro, but the place is packed with underage kids from across the river. All the high
schoolers on the Southside have made their way downtown tonight, gotten their hands stamped to show the bartender they’re
not drinking, no booze for you, sorry, boys and girls, have a soda pop, and they cram themselves in front of the stage where Inquisition pummels the sound system.
So—yeah. This must be hell, alright. Maybe not H-E-double-hockey-sticks, but sardining with a bunch of suburban Hot Topic
goth kids sure sounds like a living hell to me.
What if one of these kids were to just . . . disappear? Not make it home tonight? How long before anyone would notice? Before their parents called the police?
Christ almighty, where in the hell did that thought come from?
My anxiety prickles. I can feel it kindle. I need to leave. Get out of this place.
Now.
The mosh pit spins in the center of the open floor, pushing back all the concertgoers who don’t want to participate in the
eddy of elbows and knuckles.
Audience decorum insists that if there’s going to be a pit, and you better believe there’s always a pit at an Inquisition
show, everyone’s got to look out for each other . . .
I’m not so sure tonight. Something about this pit in particular looks downright biblical. Something out of a Hieronymus Bosch
painting. The Mosh Pit of Earthly Delights.
I don’t like it. At all. Something is off about the vibes tonight.
Maybe it’s just me.
Who am I kidding? Of course it’s me. It’s always me that’s off, off and away . . .
One woman rises up above the rest. She looks like an offering from the pit, born out of this vortex of writhing bodies. Spat
out from the mass. She’s now passed over everyone’s heads, her arms outstretched at her sides. I can just barely make out
the arms below her, the faceless crowd grabbing hold of this girl and sending her along to the next set of hands.
Look at her. She has this rapturous manner about her, eyes closed, mouth open, as all those hands take hold and pass her along.
I don’t know if I’ve ever seen someone that ecstatic before, her spine arching upward, head bent back, letting everyone touch
her.
Who is this woman? This saint spit out from the pit? She’s having the time of her life. Sure looks that way, at least.
Then she’s gone. The woman slips down, losing her elevated position above the rest, swallowed back into the throng of heaving
bodies below. There and gone in a blink.
I shouldn’t have come. I know that now, know it in my bones. What the hell was I thinking? Going out? Coming here? I’m not ready for this. Any of this. Being with people, back with the living, back in my own body. Bad call on my part all across the board.
Get out of here. Go. Now.
Sweaty bodies are crammed in just about every corner. Chests heaving, breathing in the music. I’m watching others get swept
up by the sound. This band’s channeling enough energy to light up half of the city. You can see the music sweep through the
crowd. It’s a summoning. A séance. We’re all divining electricity with each chord progression, whipping ourselves up into
a frenzy.
I can’t abide. Participate in the pit. Not tonight, if ever again. My physical therapist would have my hide if he found out
I’ve been moshing. My body’s not up to it, still broken.
All the king’s horses and all that . . .
Too rich for my blood.
My bones.
I scan the roiling crowd. What am I even looking for? What do I see? Wasted potential. We’re all somebody’s victim, aren’t
we? None of these are mine; someone else’s.
There’s a scent I can’t quite put my finger on, lingering beneath the beer and sweat.
Sulfurous, somehow. Brimstone.
Is that burning hair? What’s that thing doctors always say? If you smell burnt toast, but there’s no toast around—phantosmia, they call it—well, you just might be experiencing a stroke. Chances are, you’ll be dead before the toaster in your brain
can go ding!
Who would’ve thought charred bread would be the harbinger of doom?
Me, I’ve been dead already.
Guess it shouldn’t come as such a surprise that I smell sulfur wherever I go now.
What if this really is hell?
What if the last few months of recovery have all been some extended dream sequence? An Occurrence at the James River Bridge? My brain has been blasting off residual signals of my life, flashing before my eyes, tricking me into believing I’m still
alive, still living, when in fact, it’s all just a dream? My sins are finally catching up to me and it all comes to a head
tonight, here of all places, where this infernal mosh pit turns out to be an endless cesspool of damned souls, ready to grab
hold of me and drag me down?
Stranger things have happened, right?
I’m standing in the back. By the bar. There might have been a time when I would’ve been up front, pressed against the rest
of the crowd, all those bodies heaving for the stage, but now I’m finding myself needing as much space as I can get. I need
whatever air there is.
I shouldn’t be here.
The panic attack starts off slight. A fingertip poking my solar plexus. I’ve been feeling the pressure mounting for the last
few songs, the weight of it growing by the breath.
Now it’s a brick. Keeps getting heavier.
It’s not long before that brick becomes a cinder block on my chest, its weight pressing against my lungs. Too many people.
Too many faces, all blurred.
I need to get out of here.
Gotta go
go
go
I wasn’t always like this. Was I? Ever since I woke up from the coma, I’ve been stuck in stasis. I second-guess myself. Hesitate.
I live in the winces. I never flinched before.
Who am I now? What happened to me?
And where the fuck are my friends? I can’t find them. Did they all ditch me? They did, didn’t they? Motherfuckers. I’m all
alone here. Surrounded by so many people.
I told them—I don’t think this is a good idea, guys—and now I know it for a goddamn fact.
But the music is too loud to say anything to anyone, if I could just fucking find them.
No conversation can cut through the Inquisition, now that they’re in full swing. No more words.
Just sound. Sweat. Aggression.
I shouldn’t have listened to Lys. She insisted I get off my ass and go out. You’re wasting away, she said. Maybe she’s right, but this feels like too soon, way too soon.
I’m not ready for this. Not ready to be outside. Amongst people. All these bodies pressing against each other, crowding around.
Gotta get out of here. Everyone’s laughing. Gotta go. Everyone’s sweating. Go go go . . .
I can’t breathe.
Lys and Deak have been dating for the last few months, trauma-bonding over their broken-boned friend, shattered and reassembled.
They’ve slipped off into the shadows somewhere where I can’t follow, most likely making out in some corner of the club. I
highly doubt I’ll see them for the rest of the show.
Freel was standing just next to me two overpriced drinks ago. Now he’s long gone. Probably slipped up front. He’s been keeping
an eye on me, a real regular den mother, so I understand if he needs to blow off some steam. Get his aggression out in the
pit.
I’m all alone now. Drowning from the inside out.
I can’t breathe . . .
Can’t breathe . . .
Can’t . . .
I’m not going to say the crowd parts right in front of me, but I swear, for just a second, it definitely feels like it does.
The mosh pit breaks open, the cellular walls of a living organism bursting, the swirling ring of bodies releasing one of its
own.
It’s her again.
Her.
The woman from before. It’s bound to be her.
Isn’t it? Do I know her? Have I seen her around?
She’s upright now, standing on her own two combat-booted feet.
Blue jean jacket. A black skirt and a web of fishnet stockings.
A tattoo wraps around her wrist. A black rose on the back of her hand, its petals brushing against her knuckles. Thorns along her thumb.
Did her tattoo just move? Did her skin ripple?