The Ride

Even as the city spoke to them in seductive and festive whispers, Sam and Becky were still bored, stuck in the middle of the carnival stream of lights and excitement. The airy hoard ignored them for the better parts of drunken convalescences and glitter. Sam and Becky did not have a cent to their names. They walked along the streets, staring at the industrial whorls around them. The warm rush of exhaustion and absolution passed by. Sam kicked an empty can that landed on the road. It was instantly flattened by cars and flung right back in their direction.

"Be careful, Sam," Becky whispered fearfully but feeling a new sense of excitement because dangerous things were better than the nihility of their lives.

Sam ventured further into the miasma of city lights and lustful shops of expensive things that glowed and shimmered in the brightly lit windows. Becky followed.

"Oh, I would die for that dress" she moaned.

"Don't be silly babes, no one wears things like that anymore. They're just for display, to trick people like us into wanting something that we would have absolutely no use for."

"But what if we were to attend an exquisite event. A ball!"

Sam scoffed. "Those don't exist either. Mere fabrications of society."

"I'm sure they are happening somewhere tonight," Becky sadly whispered.

"If you find an event worth the trouble of that there dress, I will buy you a dozen of them. No, a hundred."

"Oh, Sam, I know for a fact I can find such an occasion to wear them tonight. What will you be going as?"

"Myself." He blinked.

"I mean to wear! Would you want to borrow one of my dozen seraphim dresses?" she squealed breathlessly, pulling at his arm.

He jerked away, "Don't be dumb. Of course not. What ideas do you even have in that their head of yours?"

"Then what will you wear?" she said, forming an angry expression.

Sam sighed, and they continued walking along the luminous streets, passed a mass assembly of flamboyant restaurants and side venues. Music played at every corner, and a conglomeration of businesspeople was aligned in every bar, telling fantastical tales to their spouses and co-workers. Sam and Becky passed these places without being noticed. They were a doleful and ignored part of the scenery, trash. They were as invisible as the ephemeral flicker of party lights. They felt the delinquent rush of their hearts, and their attitudes were of stone and demand.

Sam had quit working over two months ago, now relying on error and demand from his parents. He had made Becky lose her job because of his negligence. Shortly after, she had moved into his apartment, wondering how long all of this would last. "We're running on fumes now, babes. We're running on fumes," Sam would like to say.

Two months passed in dregs, and nostalgia wasn't what it used to be.

Sam pulled Becky into a glamorous restaurant, and she was momentarily spun with confusion and mild anxiety. They helped themselves to a table by the balustrade, near an aquarium of coral and bright, glimmering sea fish.

"Sam, what are we doing?" Becky whispered.

"Stop whispering. I can barely hear you anymore. Can't you see the place is jumping! And no one is even paying us the least bit of attention. See how we fit right in? So just cool your little boots."

Just then, a colorful waiter appeared, seemingly, out of the thin and magical air, handing them two giant menus. Sam made an almost incoherent demand for some drink that Becky had never heard of. The waiter was skeptical at first but smiled nonetheless.

"Yes sir. Good choice. Be back in a jiff, sir," he said, walking away seedily.

"Who's Jiff?" Sam blinked tiredly.

"Sam, what are you doing?" Becky screamed. She started playing with her hair, something she always did when she got angry or nervous.

"What? You must speak up, babes."

Across from them was an entire business meeting in the middle of a heated discussion on templates and success and such. Money, money, money. Green howls, red-shot eyes, and wisdom teeth eloped across the succulent table. At that same table, Becky spotted a gourmet of lobster amongst other expensive pleasantries. She was instantly hungry.

She finally spoke up and said," We should order that," and pointed to the table across from them.

"That platter is probably worth an arm and a leg. I like your style, kid," Same spoke benevolently.

Becky blushed, messing with her hair again.

The waiter appeared with a monumental bottle of wine and two just as monumental glasses. He opened the bottle of wine for them.

"Would you like to start with any appetizers? We have the best ca—"

Sam jumped in and said, "We would like two plates of lobster, please," pointing to the table across from them. The waiter gave them a queer look and smiled sadly.

"That would take about thirty minutes to fully and properly prepare, we can offer a large possibility of appetizers for the wait," and mechanically mentioned a plethora of small dishes.

"Yeah, sure, those sound good. Goodman," Sam mimicked the people of the Ritz, tossing a languid hand in the air to brush off the insignificant fly of the wait. The waiter smiled again and disappeared through the hoopla.

"Sam, this is insane. What exactly are we doing?"

"We're drinking this very shitty and expensive whatever-it-is-called, and we're going to eat the lobster you ordered."

"I didn't order anything!" she cried, but with the start of a smile.

"Drink up, babes."

They clinked glasses and drank the wine joyously. Sam poured them another round. They used the mold of the bright scene to sculpt themselves with a false sense of courage, turning their habitual lifestyles into something atypical and independent.

Before they knew it, a giant heap of steaming red lobster was placed before them.

"If there is anything, anything else that you need, please do not be hesitated to call," and the waiter waltzed away, ostensibly, to the manager of the establishment. They communicated quickly, looking secretly at the young, mysterious guest, and disappeared into the kitchen. Sam noticed but didn't think it was in his best interest to tell Becky.

Instead, he said, "Dig in, babes. We are champions tonight."

"I still don't know how we are planning to afford all of this," she said while digging deep into the luscious juice of meat.

"I wish you were wearing one of those seraphim dresses right now," Sam said desirously.

They ate the food in odd sums of sloppy caliber, laughing and toasting their drinks solicitously. Soon, people started to notice them, figuring they were just some rich kids from the Heights, and smiled at them, reminiscing about their youthful encounters of love and how the world never seemed to exist under the aegis of passion and beloved eyes.

The waiter made a few more attempts to get them anything, coming to the same conclusion as the other guests.

"More wine please," Becky said boldly. Sam winked at her.

She said, "Oh, Sam, we need to start coming up with some sort of plan. We can't keep doing this. I just know, sooner or later, it will all come catching up to us, and we will be faced with the hard truth." Becky got very existential and reflective whenever she drank, and this wine may have been better than she had expected. Sam closed his eyes, full from the lobster and drink, and he only heard of her soft, flowery voice, barely a thing but a whisper—he couldn't seem to make any sense of it.

Then, he sprung up and said that he was going to use the john. Becky wanted to come too, but fearfully, she knew what this meant. It was time to go. They would leave one at a time, ditching the check, the glamour, and the rapid conflagration of this illusion.

"Get ready. You know the drill," he said and left.

She stayed for a while, slowly finishing her wine, finishing the very last bites of her lobster, for she did not know when they would be able to eat like this again. She slowly, wobbly, got to her feet and hooked her purse across her chest. As she made it to turn, she realized that she was face-to-face with the waiter, and behind him, the maniacal presence of the manager.

"Is there a problem?" the waiter announced sheepishly.

"Oh! No, no problem. I think the lobster may have upset my stomach. I'm just going to the little girls' room."

"Where is your husband? Presuming he is your husband," he said with an ugly tone.

"Excuse me?" she said with a sudden flash of anger, and at that moment she was not the soft-spoken, shy flower girl. She felt strong and confident. She stared at the waiter for a lengthy amount of time before the manager stepped in.

"I-I'm extremely sorry. You must forgive Edgardo here. He's new. Well, you see, we were just wondering if the two of you were planning on paying for that there meal?"

She scoffed. "Of course we are! He's probably still in the restroom. The lobster must have upset his stomach as well! I think the food was undercooked!" She crossed her little arms and looked directly at the manager. At Edgardo. People were starting to look. The manager noticed this too and stepped aside.

"I'm extremely sorry," he said again. "I will have a word with the chef and see. You can go and use the restroom, ma'am."

"I think I will. And I will be back in a jiff," she said.

She went into the restroom and sat in a stall. She opened her purse to put on more make-up. She was enjoying herself. Maybe she could convince the manager that they had been poisoned by the food. They may get off without having to pay, and if they had to pay, they could always start a scene. But she realized she would have to explain her husband's whereabouts. Edgardo was bound to check the men's restroom, and he'd discover that Sam was long gone.

Becky was running on fumes herself, it seemed.

"Damn it, Sam," she muttered to herself. Sam was a constant problem in Becky's life lately. She did love him dearly (they were high school sweethearts for God's sake!), but she felt like nothing was happening between the two of them. Nothing was happening between their infinitesimal lives. Sam was independent and ideally set on a nomadic way of thinking, relying on the strings of happenstance and disregard to shape their lives. They would haggle and hustle, hiding in tempting dark corners of contingency. And thus, in the epitome of dejection, here they were.

The world held so much promise and excitement, and they were not allowed to have any of it.

She got up to the sink and washed her hands. She noticed a small window near the back of the restroom. The window was poorly constructed, for, upon a languorous touch, it flew open with ease. It was also big enough to squeeze through, for Becky was a tiny girl, at that.

And out the window, she went.

She ran for a short while, not knowing where to go. She did not seem to care. She kept running—everything around her became a blur of lights, fading laughter, and carnival roars of spinning howls. She did not stop until her lungs were on fire, constricting her entire body, then she threw up all the lobster and wine in one great flush. Becky sat dizzily on the sidewalk, trying to catch her breath. Her stomach felt like it had been on a roller coaster ride. Her life, lately, had been one great roller coaster ride, with added disappointment. The ride did not seem to end, only climbing those tragic tracks over and over again, and dropping in a blast of speed and dissociation. This was her life, endlessly. She got up, feeling a little better, and ran once again into the luminous uncertainties of the next ride.