Fiction: Alkaloid

By Brenden Layte

 

Within five minutes of walking through the door, all she wanted was fresh air and a cigarette. She didn’t really smoke anymore, but she had a new pack because she didn’t really go out anymore, either. Was this really even going out, though? The original plan was to catch up with her best friend—who she suspected didn’t think of her that way anymore—at the dive bar that they used to hang out at with the Elvis bust lamp and rotted back deck and pool table with a break like a golf green, and then maybe catch a band in the dingy venue upstairs. Now she was in this condo with all white walls and stainless-steel appliances instead, feigning interest in a story she’d stumbled into about someone’s cousin’s toddler, feeling about four years older than she wanted to, and really craving one of the cigarettes. Maybe it was just the ten minutes of being alone with one.

Her friend pulled her away and introduced her to the hosts, a couple, which didn’t stop the guy’s gaze from lingering longer than it really needed to while he subsequently showed her and her friend around. He mentioned a roof deck as they walked by a tucked away door, but said it was off limits. Apparently someone had dropped an empty bottle of champagne from it a few months earlier and the neighbors had complained. After the tour, she pulled her friend aside and tried to make a plan to bail and go to the bar sooner rather than later, but her friend just said that the party would be fun, she just had to get comfortable, that they could go to the bar whenever, some other time even, and really the guy that had showed them around was fine and everything else would be fine, too. 

And it was, mostly. There was lots of food. There were bottles of expensive wine, whisky, gin, and vodka, and a fridge full of the craft beers you find at those bars with $20 cocktails and graffiti in the bathroom as an affectation. She already couldn’t remember most of the songs that had played in the 20 minutes since they’d arrived. It was the kind of party where people would be happy they went but not really remember. And not because things got out of hand. It was all just fine and fine can be kind of a drag if you were hoping for something else.

Her friend wandered off toward the hosts again, so she gave up on leaving and poured a glass of gin with some ice and settled into a corner. She scanned the room and gave the couple next to her a noncommittal smile, which was enough for them to start a conversation. The woman worked at one of the consulting firms downtown and her boyfriend was a staffer for an up-and-coming local politician. He spent a few minutes talking over his girlfriend and then talking over her and then talking over everyone around them while she kept thinking that his employer was just going to disappoint everyone eventually. Except him, maybe, as long as he got to go along for the ride. 

She felt a twinge of pain and realized she was digging her fingernails into her palm. She never knew what to do with her hands. When the staffer stopped to gather his thoughts about the city’s controversial depending on who you talked to redevelopment plan, she excused herself to refill her drink. She scanned the room again and saw that her friend was still talking to the hosts, so she started chatting with the two people closest to the booze table. They both somehow survived from freelance work—one graphic design and the other writing. They seemed to want to be there about as much as she did, but they were old friends of the hosts. She could actually see herself being friends with them. But really, parties were kind of over for her. She’d never loved them, but there was an energy she respected, even enjoyed, about the good ones. Or at least used to. She wasn’t sure anymore. Especially ones like this—part school dance, part networking event. 

It hadn’t even been an hour, but she couldn’t be inside anymore. She excused herself and looked around and saw her friend, now engrossed in a conversation with some people who had just walked in. She turned and snuck down the hallway. By the time she went through the door to the roof deck, she was already palming her lighter and a cigarette. 

The air was cool and had the faint aroma of magnolias. She’d always loved how nights smelled like flowers but still had a chill this time of year. The few clouds in the sky glowed as they slowly moved past the full moon. Ignoring what the host had said about being up there made her anxious, so she started fiddling with the cigarette and trying to figure out what muffled song had just started playing inside. Really, though, if he didn’t want people up here, he shouldn’t have let anyone know a roof deck even existed. She put the cigarette in her mouth and lit it, finally feeling the smoke in her lungs, the buzz that followed, the relief she’d been searching for. 

She inhaled again and a sensation surged through her, radiating out from her chest and down through her legs, a force pushing her against the roof’s soft, rubber tiles. She panicked for a moment, but then felt an overpowering lightness, a tug on her extremities, the hair on the back of her neck and her arms gently pulling up. She felt an overwhelming desire to join the magnolia scent and cigarette smoke and become part of the April breeze. She brought her hand up and slowly took another drag, the smoke entering her lungs and the sensation emanating from her chest again, stronger now. A warmth engulfed her as her feet slowly lifted off the roof, a feeling like nothing would ever be fine again, but instead of fear now, she felt relief, like floating off slowly into the moon-coated clouds would be the most calming thing she’d ever done. Like now that she was confronted with it, all she wanted out of the night was to be lifted up by something. Like it was all she wanted at all. As she rose into the sky, she felt herself being bathed in the moon’s light, her body growing lighter, parts of her slipping away, flowing into the night sky, becoming something new, the cigarette dropping to the ground, the music below growing silent.

 

 

 

 

 

Brenden Layte is a writer, linguist, and editor of educational materials. His work has previously appeared in places like X-R-A-Y, Lost Balloon, and Pithead Chapel. He also won The Forge Literary Magazine’s 2021 Flash Fiction Contest. Brenden is on Bluesky at @brenden.bsky.social and X at @b_layted.