You Know the Feeling

If I were in bed staring up into the dark, I would have tossed and turned, mind spinning. But I wasn't. I was in the middle of a pack of intoxicated festivarians, dancing to a trippy tranced-out bluegrass band on the dewy grass under the moon.

Next to me, me mom danced barefoot and next to her, a man passed a joint and took a sloppy gulp of beer out of a plastic cup. To my other side, my friend Peter danced and feigned interest in everything around him as conversation fodder with the teenage girl in front of him. After everything he said, she laughed and flipped her hair back and forth as her head turned from the stage to him and back to the stage.

They danced as close to each other as possible without actually touching. They hovered cautiously along the line between flirtation and platonic indifference, staying safe from exposure. Despite their tunnel-vision one-track minds, it wasn't clear to me whether or not they were just warm bodies to each other, used to alleviate their boredom by playing this little game. They thought, Im sure, that their separate mini romances (having very little to do with the actual guts and brains of the little dream case along side them) were well hidden but, just being aware of it, I could feel every tingle their own bodies must have felt with each flush of warmth and accidental brushing of hands.
And I wished there was someone pushing through the crowd in my direction whose hand tingled as it touched my back, sending waves of chilly heat out from the spot, catching my breath as he looked back, said excuse me and smiled, letting a line fall into the water, disturbing the surface stillness, waiting for a tug.