Shades of blue and purple light reflected off the disco ball, and a raindrop pattern splattered across Linda’s face, drenching her in iridescent hues. She threw down her vodka soda with purpose and high-fived other patrons as she moved through the crowd and onto the dance floor.
"Screw it!" she proclaimed as she spun in thoughtless abandon around the center of the floor, defying her thirty-three years.
BOOM, BOOM, BOOM.
Linda's cell phone rang all night in her car's console. Her mother's warnings of the approaching storm went to voicemail while Linda drank and danced, saturating her worries in beats and booze in hopes she’d forget.
BOOM, BOOM, BOOM.
Loud booms reverberated off the club’s walls, and the spastic bass chugged along, growing louder and faster, like a stampede of horses or a speeding train while Linda’s troubles sloshed around in her brain, and she continued spinning until a vortex opened up on the dancefloor and sucked out Linda’s burdens one after another. First, the backseat of an old Chevy Impala flew out of her head, a ripped prom dress and torn panties got yanked from her ear, and a sticky sweat-stained men’s undershirt shot out from her pocket.
BOOM, BOOM, BOOM
Unphased, Linda danced and spun until finally, she threw back her head and let out a high-pitched wail that would stay with the club's nearby patrons for a while, like the resounding cries from Hendrix's guitar strings or the cries of pulled heartstrings lingering years after one regretful night. Buried pleas of 'I can't,' 'please,' and 'stop' let loose, pushed-down wielded accusations like 'sinful' and 'whore' released from her lungs until, finally, a two-minute memory of innocence with its ten tiny fingers and toes surrendered from her gut.
BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM.
Cold, wet pellets whipped against Linda's cheeks as she twirled across the room and tucked herself under a booth against the wall, watching the disco ball and her worries spin into the iridescent-colored funnel cloud above.
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