Rare Birds by LS Johnson

Author:LS Johnson [Johnson, L.S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Traversing Z Press via Indie Author Project

When we show up to the party we park the Caddy way down the road and leave our jackets behind, folding them up carefully and putting them back into the red suitcase. We like our jackets too much to risk ruining them and there will be ruining tonight.

Instead we put on cheap t-shirts and our special skintight pants that are as tricky as chastity belts. We do our eyes dark and our lips red. In the dim light of the streetlamp our little mirrors reflect back five bloody-mouthed skulls.

We sing the song of approval, our harmonies spot-on; we sing of long ago lakes and rivers and oceans and our reflections in those waters, hollow-eyed and bloody-mouthed, and how the lapping of the waves was also the rhythm of the gods’ approval.

“As if they could keep us trapped in those rocks,” we say. “As if.”

“Someone has to sing, I don’t see anyone else doing it.”

“Someone has to test their mettle.” The word mettle makes us smile like cats.

“It’s why Hades made us, after all.”

“One Big Mac for Big H, coming up!” We fall about giggling again.

We walk up the drive to the party, our arms filled with bags. We’ve come prepared: we’ve got hard liquor and weed and long pretzel sticks we can suck on, we’ve got our tight pants with their trick openings and our bad-girl smiles, and we’re ready to get this party started. Because these parties are never like the movies, there’s never shoulder-to-shoulder dancing and making out; instead there’s cliques huddled in corners sipping flat beer and smoking pin-thin joints and that just won’t do, that won’t do at all. We like dancing, we like groping and kissing, we like sweat and lust and nervousness all at once, we like a build-up so that when the time comes, all of that energy gets transmuted into a spine-cracking terror that makes all the humours gush forth and tastes like heaven.

Everything else is just gravy.

Inside we turn that music up. We start dancing with ourselves while we sneak off and spike a few bottles of soda in the fridge; we light up and smoke a little and we dance to our rhythm which is the rhythm of pop songs. “You don’t get this stuck in a rock,” we tell each other, and we sing out our agreement in time with the music. Sure enough, others start dancing with us, we’re moving furniture out of the way and there’s more smoke in the air and bodies are sliding around us and now we’re feeling it, that rush of anticipation. We can see eyes watching us and we can feel bodies moving towards us and we twist and shimmy in time with the music closer closer closer.

We are pulled aside by another boy-man who starts dancing close and we sing yes.

We are stumbling up the stairs with damp lips on our lips and strong hands on our hips and we open our mouths to theirs and into the beery chasm of their throats we sing yes.

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