sign on the door ii

The kitchen is more intimate.  People come and go. They fix drinks. Few stay. I debate setting up shop in here. Shot glasses line a counter top.  Someone’s hunched into the open refrigerator searching.  This boy and a girl make out in a corner.  His hand slowly slides up and under her shirt. A frat guy from the other room cat calls through the pass-through wall between the living room and kitchen. He edges them on. 

There are a bunch of quarters scattered on a table in the eating area. No one plays Quarters.  The people at the table play Kings. The cards scatter between them.  Face down.  The group, five or six of them, disagrees about the rules. It’s something about what the Jack means. That one kid gets mad.  Uneasy glances pass to and from others at the table.  Empty Bud Light can pyramid on the tile floor from past games.

I’m out of place, here.

Overwhelmed.

There’s just too much. Have trouble focusing. Colors and sounds blur in the tailspin of sensory reception. Details wash over me.

The present is a wave.

It’s an impossible shot.  Conceptionally.

I know. 

The camera pans the room while I stand in the center. Coinciding first and second person point of view.  See me. See what I see.  See me see you.

I see you.

How do you do it?

The trick is to spin the room and not the camera.

I spin the room. This fake sound-effect of a record skipping plays from the phone of some guy with a popped-collar, gut spilling over belt.  Hair buzzed.  Sun-burnt skin in the winter, fall.  The sound is the message alert on his smart phone.  The gadget is smarter than he is. He plays it for a girl who is passed out in the adjacent loveseat. Her shoes, a pair of Chucks, are still on her feet.  His bros, similarly dressed, all clap and laugh in appreciation. Another girl begins to write on her face with permanent marker.

And ok I’m a little drunk by this point I guess, though the feeling is marginal at best. A different kind of numb.  I send a hand into the back pocket of my jeans.  Touch the flask. It kept me warm, on the walk over through early November air.

Altered states: fourth wall breaks.

So, whatever is in the next room doesn’t scare me.  I mean, how can it?  The unfamiliarity of the whole scene makes me lose my mind and this is just my first impression. I’ve only been here for a couple of minutes. Maybe less.

Do I enter with a joke?

Is my entrance a joke, itself?  Enough.