Alien Murmuration - Chapter 16 - 1991 (Part 1)

Suddenly the lights flicked on, and everyone is cheering and clapping. I stand stock still and stare around me. An ocean of wide unblinking eyes and smiling contourted mouths. Then, in an instant the spell is broken, the crowd seamlessly fracture into a thousand individual pieces it seems to land with a bump. I am mesmerised . . . my whole life has been defined by my fear of people. A fear that has been built on a very genuine lack of understanding. I had seen crowds on the TV and they had terrified me. Not in an out-there, something in the netherworld sense but in a very real, physical kind of fear. I had made Dad stop going to football because I couldn’t cope with the crowds and the noise. Here though. Now though.

The funny thing is I know should be feeling panic . . .tense and unmanageable panic. I could even feel my muscle memory tensing up as I look out at everyone. The difference is there is no fear or panic . . . no worries. . . no anxiety. All I feel is love, love for these people . . . these total strangers. I smile as I consider the idea that these may well be some of the same people who had caused me so much distress at football, at the shopping centre, the supermarket. Pretty much everywhere.

Soon we were flowing out of the club. Orderly and smooth like a streams flowing into a river and then out to the ocean. I have hold of Katie’s hand as she leads me out to the main corridor the breeze from outside whisks through and tickles the sweat in my hair. She turns to me and smiles. I think I smile back but the rush pushing through my body caught me by surprise and throws me off balance. Someone behind me catches me and holds me there. I turn and smile and try to say thank you. The couple behind me smile back and I start to rush again. I hear Katie say “thank you” to them as she wraps her arm around me and holds me close. “Someone is having a good night” I hear someone laugh behind me.

We step out into the crisp cold night air, the cooling breeze hits me like a cotton wool train. I feel it hitting more sweat patches and wrapping itself around me. It feels amazing, like the universe has provided exactly what I am requiring at that moment. It feels like everything is exactly how it should be.

As the others join us we gather together excitedly discussing the high points of the music and the rest of the night . . . so far.

Instinctively I turn as I see something out of the corner of my eye and turn to see Manny bounding over to us holding his arm up in triumph, a piece of paper in his hand.

“Positive Sounds people” he was jumping and smiling excitedly “Positive Sounds down at Shoreham Harbour”

Confused, I wonder what he is talking about, but how could I refuse when he is so enthusiastic?

“Let’s get a couple of taxis and get down there!”

Next thing I know we are pulling up behind Shoreham Power Station. I drift off into memories of coming along here for a walk with my parents and grandparents. Dad's parents lived nearby in Fishersgate. I used to love walking over the lock gates through the harbour and down to the beach. Crossing the lock always felt like the entrance to some secret magical world. Here I was sitting in the taxi, holding Katie’s hand, with the tension of the muscle memory. It felt just like all those years before.

As I open the taxi door and get out into the cold night air,  It hits me again. Unsteadily on my feet, I step up onto the beach. There are people everywhere. The music is so loud. It is much harder and faster than the music at the Zap. I look around as Katie nestles into me smiling gazing out over the crowd “look at that . . .  amazing”. I feel her words mingling with the insistent bass as it wobbles over the pounding drum track. I can’t help but move in time.

There are so many different types of people here. Much more varied than the club. There are dreadlocked crusties with their bandanas and bare chests dancing alongside the more serious hardcore ravers, baggy jeans and bright coloured tops, they are adorned with whistles and an array of strange objects including baby’s dummies. Then there are the football crowd dressed in brightly coloured sports labels, a nod back to the casuals of the 80’s. I must admit to thinking these guys look really cool . . .  dangerous but really cool. We turn up with the other clubbers from town. Dressed more conservatively in their hushed tones and less ostentatious designer gear. Finally, there is our crowd, the indie kids, striped t-shirts and beads, borrowing a little from here and a little from there. Although really weren’t we all doing that?

I stop at the top of the pebbled hill at the back of the beach. Its all too much for me. The pounding bass drum propping up the sawing, metallic slices of sound that grind and tear at my ears. I just can’t see a way into this throbbing throng of people. It is just chaos. I miss the stairs at the Zap, somewhere to feel safe but still part of it. I feel my eyes open wider, wide with wonder and confusion.

I go to sit down.

“Don’t gouch out man!” Manny smiles as he leans over me, taking my arm and pulling me back. He shakes his head and smiles “you’ll never get back up again, you’ve got to get up and dance”. He looks deep into my eyes and sees me, he has an annoying habit of doing this . . .  and being right. Locked in a look he understands, I understand and we make a plan.

“Let’s just dance around the edge. Get our bearings”

As I stand, I let a smooth jet of air out of my lips. I know that it is going to be okay. This is going to be amazing. I reach out to Manny with my hand and ask him to lead me, lead me on my journey. Hallelujah, I scream in my head. I start to laugh, it’s all a bit cultish for my liking but ultimately, I am sold, hook line and sinker.

“What is this music?” I smile and shout to Manny “it is different to the club music. Where have all the piano and vocals gone?”

Rod turns to me and smiles, nodding his head knowingly in time to the chaos we are walking towards. I can see a light haze around him that makes him look somewhat angelic like an aaahhhhhhh moment. “This is techno mate . . . acid . . . hardcore. This is the extreme. It is what its all about. Let it take you away. Fly away on the groove moo.” I laugh a little but do as he says and start to dance on the pebbles. They make me feel like I am dancing on shifting sponges. It is a weird sensation but once I get used to it, it feels amazing.

As I dance I look at my fellow party goers. Pony tails, long hair, bucket hats. So many different people, even . . .  well even me. No hint of trouble, no hatred, no upset. Just love, love and more love. I never knew people could be like this, I never knew the world could be like this. As I keep dancing I can feel the music in me, I can feel it rushing through me, a part of me. Dragging and linking me to everyone else. I had never felt music like this before . . .  more than that. I had never felt anything like this before. People have always told me that I never felt anything at all. This is bullshit though, often I feel things so strong that the only thing I can do is to hold myself still, so I don’t lose it.

I have always known that I am different.

My parents have always told me that I was different.

I had told myself that I was different.

My experiences had told me that I was different.

Every single step I have ever taken has told me that I was different.

An alien, a visitor, an unwelcome visitor.

Set apart.

Dad had talked to me about ‘training’, ‘practising’ and ‘learning’ to fit in. It was like somehow, I was supposed to squish my awkward alien persona into one of society's little boxes. People like me did our best and became accountants, mad scientists or eccentric oddballs on the fringes of society. We had all been working away to chip away at my sharp uncomfortable edges, shaping me to fit in the box.

I stop and look around.

It takes the world a little time to realise and fall into place. I feel it spinning around me until slowly we reconnect and find our equilibrium. A wave of confusion hits me and sends me staggering back. It was like getting caught by the waves of the sea when I was little. The top of the wave knocks me over while the sand beneath my feet drags me the other way. Suddenly I feel like a little kid again. Playing in the sand with dad. I remember those amazing times when the sea cleared a patch of pebbles to reveal a patch of sand. Those summer days when we timed it right and laid claim to one of those patches. Dad used to say it was our island, just us, connected to the world. Everything was limitless. We were standing on the edge of the English Channel but it felt like we could step across the water and find ourselves anywhere. The Caribbean, Australia or the pacific islands. One of those beaches you see in magazines. I am not sure where they are, but they always have a horizontal palm tree in them.

I shake my head in frustration. I can’t remember what I was thinking about, it really felt important. I am feeling upset . . .  or angry . . . I am not sure. Something though is lurking beneath this warm veneer of ecstasy.

Turning slowly, I start to walk down the beach smiling as I notice a patch of bare sand. ‘Why is that making me happy?’ I wonder as I allow myself to be drawn to it. I walk slowly and stumble and slide a little on the shifting stones of Shoreham Beach.

“Stands on shifting stones” I sing to myself to the tune of Waterfall.  I laugh gently to myself at my mistaken lyric. Perhaps that was originally the lyric? Maybe he was on the beach when he wrote it. One of their videos was on a beach I think . . . Fools gold?. So is Across the Sands “bumped off an impressive romance” I sing to myself “scattered all across the sands”.  Shifting sands, must have more sand on the beaches around Manchester.

I am not that far away but the music feels like it has left me somewhat. I can still feel the insistent four-to-the-floor drum but it has released me from its all-consuming grip. I look out across the water and although I can feel a solid lump in my chest, I smile.

“What do you think dad?” I say out loud to my own surprise. “There is a great big world out there dad” I parrot his words back to him and smile again. He always told me this, but I don’t think I ever believed him. The first time he told me, I was really little and I I don’t think I thought past my world of me, him and mum, the beach, Brighton and school. When I was older though I got fascinated by the places I found in books and magazines. But these were abstract, unreal. Not somewhere I could ever visit. I never understood what he meant about stepping across. I was stuck in my world of mum and  . . .   and then dad went and ...

I reach up to brush a tear away and laugh ‘you don’t feel anything. You are the alien robot.’ I reach down to touch the sand, picking up a handful and letting it run through my fingers. It doesn’t really as its too wet. I laugh at my thoughts of a Sunkist island beach. Slowly I turn around and look back at the party. It was deep into the night and everywhere around our lights and music was dark. ‘I am part of that!’ I smile at the feeling. Then it disappears ‘I was part of that’ I look down and then back to the party. It all looks so far away now. I am cut adrift. The music that earlier in the night was drawing me in is now pushing me away, forming a force field around everyone else. It sucked everything back.

Like a negative.

It sucked all the colour out of me.

I was lost.

I was Alien again. Trapped on the island I shared with dad. I was alone though. “Dad?” I whispered, too afraid to speak too loudly. Someone might find me here. Here . . . back outside the sweetshop with my hands pressed against the glass. Was it a sweet shop or was it one of the birthday parties I was never invited to?

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Part 2 Here - https://www.abctales.com/story/vincent-burgess/alien-murmuration-chapter...