Nightlife Highlife

Channah
Channah
Sep 8, 2018 · 3 min read

I. Time

it was at night

they always came out at night; not when the hands were divided between twelve and six, not thirty seconds or minutes after seven but nine. Nine o’clock was perfect.

all the deviants went out at Nine o’clock, they enjoyed the darkness

II. Street and scents

their heavy perfumes twisted up the noses of passers-by

mixed with the burning cigarette butts lining the street

and flashy cars that brightened the fog in the atmosphere

III. Everything shiny

jewelry so heavy and bright, time was neon, blinding

sharp nails that could have cut you and piercings that invited questions of purpose and adoration but also envy

colored hairs that embarrassed their parents because they didn’t accept them for who they were and fashion defined by sense of self

IV. The forbidden

they talked about all the taboos and engaged in them

they were bad news and preached exposure

but that’s what the parents of “good children” always told their children

V. Reasons

these things were done to express themselves, to control their environments, some merely compulsion

reasons weren’t necessary because they didn’t owe explanations as to why they chose to adorn their bodies

because flesh rots and burns and they’d have liked to believe their souls took these as identifiers

VI. Culture and flesh

just like tribal marks and clothes and how language lubricates stiff conversations

as old as time, they were of the beginning and a new birth all the same and must be of the end

they were of the nights that rolled out of dreadful days

VII. Freedom

and they said there was just something about the air at night that played with freedom

untangling them from pitiful mornings and signing in and out of log books

was it the traffic free roads or the knowing that work had ended and play had arrived

VIII. Sound

catholicism and anglicanism was classical music, street religion was afrobeats and all the sounds that influenced it

the difference in listening to sounds in homes during the day than at night with friends on body packed fields or tiny rooms with poor ventilation, struggling for air

but all that didn’t matter, the heat let off was due to conversion and mixing of repressed energies that had awaken

IX. Lights

the lights on these nights made them forget the discomfort of staring into bright lights

they were softer, seemed to project all the finest moments

they dispersed slowly from linearity as one person absorbed and touched another

X. Dance and laughter

passing currents from body to floor, recharging as they were of earth and belonged to it

the drums that forced their senses to bend and broke their bones one by one and folded into many styles like paper

games where prices were won and truths were told, the sound of friendship as a laugh enveloped and tickled these people from behind

XI. Alcohol

that’s how they felt, lightweight, as all the drinks they had consumed carried them as far as the electric guitar from 1:36–2:18 on skatvibrations’ jindadi, still farther they went

it pocketed anxiety and made every fantasy a possibility, every impossibility a small challenge

That they are, were, could be, can be whoever and whatever they want, the secrecy and mystery they and the night possessed

XII. Feelings

those nights that felt like they were in a movie, like they were being watched from their best angle, their best selves

they were writing themselves into history, biographies, their version of events

of nights that were filled with nothing but were everything because how they felt in those moments was all that mattered.

Channah

Written by

Channah

I write. Glorious spirit.