SORDID

The quickened heartbeat and tingling fingertips from her third black coffee opened the day at its seams. The café’s light-bulbs burned brighter, the jazz-electronica soundtrack pulsating to her internal drum; possibilities glistened in every corner. It felt like that first cresting euphoria in a dim nightclub, sweating limbs shining under spotlights and the sudden lurch beyond now, to forever, to wherever. Glorious, synthetic minutes, where the night escapes its sordid blueprint, paced out between the sticky dance floor and cramped toilet cubicle, passing around a rolled up fiver and hitting flush to disguise another sharp inhalation.