I Hope I Did This Even A Little Bit Right (Study in Impressionism) by Taiina Ayala

The last set of a musical performance in a small but packed venue, extremely late at night

She stood in the audience and looked. Looked at the lights coming from above her, above them. They were so blinding she began to see dots, floating from left to right, right to left, and everywhere in between. Dots of different colors, not just the shrieking magenta shade of the light. Dots of mustard, crimson, turquoise, indigo, lime. But they weren’t exactly dots. "Dots" implies that they were circular. These lights were more specks: Shapeless, undefined. Even their colors weren’t constant. One would turn from an orange to black in an instant. They overwhelmed her, so she tried to concentrate on something else; Stay still, let her eyes return to their normal state. Only she couldn’t concentrate because she couldn’t stay still. She herself was standing in one spot but the bodies of others moved her like a strong current. She felt a clammy pressure on her arm. On both arms. On her back, on her stomach. It was a small space filled with lots of people. It was late, and her eyelids suddenly felt the weight of bowling balls. "What time was it?" she asked herself. By the smell of alcohol coming from peoples’ open, singing mouths, it was late. Or early. Early in the morning. Now that she had adjusted to the constant sticky pressure on her arms and learned not to look up, she focused on the music. The bass’ vibrations were low and rhythmic, like a heart beat. She pressed her hand to her own chest, feeling her own rhythm. It was different. She looked up at the lead singer’s face. Wet, droplets appeared, formed, from the border of his forehead and made their way down his facial features. She heard a shake in his voice and looked back up at a feature she seemed to miss while following the path of his sweat: his eyes. It looked as though they were also sweating. Feeling an uncomfortable confusion, she turned her head to look at the faces of those who closely surrounded her. And what she found created a feeling in her gut that surprised her even more than the singer’s sweating eyes. For what seemed to have no reason at all, bumps arose from every inch of her body. Her spine to her fingers, her toes to her head.