Midnight Musings

Written & Submitted by Michael Bromberg;

I sit in a regular high school party, (guy to girl ratio is 5 to 1; the only alcohol is Miller Lite) wondering how many beers it will take to get on the same level (dancing with shirts off) as my peers. Suddenly, an inebriated, lovingly delicate, seemingly earnest female some father is probably bragging about at this very moment comes and sits next me.

“You wanna know something?” She asks with doe eyes and a slurred voice.
“I guess” I respond, relieved that something will keep me occupied for at least a little while.
“Love, in all its glory, is essentially just a crush that worked out. There’s no such thing as a soul mate, or love at first sight, or any of that crap. We don’t love a person. We love the feeling of worth they give us.” At this point she starts getting riled up. “And parties, like this one, are just collective stomping grounds for singles to try and fill the void of an empty Saturday night. Try to name (almost daring me) a person at this party that wouldn’t rather be with someone else.”

(Looking back, I’m not really sure how the points she made were correlated, but I guess when you’re drunk everything seems to be connected.) At this point, there is a lull in the conversation, for I don’t know what to say, and she seems embarrassed about her digression to a complete stranger. Finally, I lean in, and with a quiet, attempting to be comforting voice, ask “So why do you come to these?”

With a blank, sober, deer in the headlights look, she responds, “Because there is always hope. Hope that at some point, something good, something real, might happen. Hope that one of my crushes will be reciprocated. I mean, isn’t that why we keep going on everyday? Because of the hope.”

I guess it is.

Written & Submitted by Michael Bromberg.