On my way home this evening, I came across Elevation by U2 on a local station. Sensing another memory rush, I switched station where there was a song presumably about rape. I switched back to the original frequency, and found myself elsewhen.

Fall 2001, three weeks post 9/11, swaying back and forth in front of Seth’s PC, listening to our pre-party playlist. (Shoot me from a gun) The room is dim, lit with haphazardly strung white Christmas lights, hanging loosely above the futon and over the pair of desks Seth shared with Will. (Going down, excavation) In my hand is a can of Sprite complemented with a generous, philanthropic, amount of Smirnoff Raspberry vodka. (You make me feel like I could fly) Tonight is the Frisbee Progressive and I will not be unprepared. I’m alone, the other four making their own preparations. I think briefly of whom I’ll direct my attention towards later, then longingly of the expansive darkness outside the 12th story window a few feet away, continuous with the dimness of the room. (Lift me up out from these blues). I take a deep draught from the can and sway a bit further, still getting used to the concept of intoxication, briefly and guiltily savoring the feeling of abandon. (Digging up my soul, now).

As the song ends I pull out the hazy recollections of later that night and the subsequent dozen weekends of brain-cell slaughter, when the intention was not pleasure, or rather, not a kind of pleasure I could explain succinctly*. Deep sigh, then home for a beer.

*I think there’s a good description in Dostoyevsk’s The Underground Man