Party In The Streets

I looked up to the sky as I was positioned awkwardly on the ground, knees soiled but full of vigor. The confetti came showering down and the figures in my field of vision were blurry and bursting with color. To my left, there were trumpeters and people playing music from their handhelds, and to my right silhouettes of energetic people prancing around in delirious unpredictable ways. Even the air smelled of apple cinnamon vape smoke and clouds of partially legalized ganja. I dont know why i had not found this place sooner. Upon first glance it was a magical place only rivaled by Disney world and possibly Heaven. It was a party in the streets. It without a doubt had everything you could want. The euphoria of social melting, the edge of youthful rebellion, and there were even small deposits of artistic creativity fueled by the drug of oppressed emotion. It was nothing like i had ever seen before.

But as my eyesight sharpened just the slightest bit, i began to render the true world around me. Crowds of restless mercenaries trampled every bit of tar in the distance. There were people with large dwarfing signs that read thises and thats and whatevers in between. There were even dogs off leashes struggling desperately to find their owners through the thick of “progress.” And as my eyes sharpened once more, I saw eerie things in the distance. In the far back of the crowd I noticed a few people smiling while passing about a thermos of questionable liquids. A night out on the town it must have been. In the far back to my right there was an equally perplexing nucleus of young coeds posing for the perfect instagram shot in between fighting world domination and planning for dinner after the fight. How comfortable were they. It was even rubbing off on me. In that moment i could have rolled out a comforter and lulled myself to sleep. So much was going on, but none of it felt the slightest bit uncomfortable. None of it was even remotely piercing.

And at the front of this ever moving crowd down the anonymous main street was the head honcho. He was the undeniable leader of this ship. He was something of a modern day Che. But he didn’t seem to be pressing on toward any hills filled with dedicated snipers and forests riddled with land mines. Instead he stood there with a pair of Beats headphones lodged deep into his ears holding a vanilla latte yelling at the opposition to the rhythm of his most prized rap group. The audio might have even been the lyrics had i gotten close enough, but i was too lost in the fog.

But maybe the most fascinating sight was that of the policing force. It was as if a game of tag had been instated with invisible memos floating in the wind. Why were they running? Were these persons in blue and black suits that were equipped with real guns not enough to take down this unruly crowd of people who sought simply a vacation from their real life? Were they that scary? Or maybe it wasn’t that of a scare. Maybe it was a lost cause. Maybe there was nothing really there.

I finally had the opportunity to truly regain my balance around the moving crowd, as i navigated away from the depths of it all to find myself lonely on a surprisingly unoccupied sidewalk. it was weird watching from the outside. things seemed to materialize in a much clearer way. I looked over to a man who was walking in the direction opposite of progress and he seemed to be unmoved by it. He lit up his fag, looked back the crowd and laughed. I stopped him, as I had to question him. His slight grin seemed to contain so much knowledge with little effort.

“Do you not support the cause old chap?”

With a quick chuckle and another less than dramatic drag he responded, “What cause?”

Clearly he was either blind or so dangerously sociopathic that his internal empathetic algorithm was way out of whack. I felt the need to press further.

“Sir, but what of the people? What is so clearly right in front your eyes? Do you have no care about their fight? Or are you unaffected?”

“Listen kid, I see notin. I see a bunch of people too bored to stay at home, but not excited enough to actually do something.”

“What? Could it be that you are missing something great? This might rival the March on Washington. You wouldn’t want to miss out on that, would you?”

“For the last time kid, I see nottin there. My wife and I will probably join them for some afternoon cardio next week. Lord knows I need it. And maybe if i’m in pain I can press them for some pot, but cause? Cause? This isn’t the 60’s. There’s no cause in the streets. Just a party.”

And then he walked away. Disgruntled at his clear discounting of this momentous occasion, I broke into an all out sprint the other way. I had to catch up to my people. I had to rejoin the cause. Because what if I didn’t. I was always told that if you aren’t part of the solution than you are part of the problem. No way in hell was i going to be labeled the deterrent. But the guy did make me slightly uncomfortable. He made me think of a far off possibility that maybe my blindness was a thing. And as I left and righted down the street back to my banner men, I thought, what if I was part of a wrong “solution?”