A Letter From The Pit

Firstly, I know that the last story I posted here was also a sort of conversation with a therapist. I guess I'm just posting what I like of mine, and I happen to like both of the stories I have written that have therapists in them. My next post will be completely different.

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A Letter From The Pit

To: customer(at)talktoacounsellor.co.uk

From: SteveyB90(at)gmail.com

Subject: Becoming Less Sane

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Dear Nameless Counsellor,

If you actually ask people where they feel most at home, very few will say with their families. Well, at least if I am like most people, but that's debatable.

Like a country clubber, I like my home because it is exclusive. Every sane person on the planet is scared of my home.

--

The music is too loud not to be doing permanent damage to my hearing. Well, at least in my left ear. Most of the sound getting to my right ear is being dampened by my brain. When the music dies down for a moment, the vampire standing on stage in his suspenders is parting this sea like Moses, and I position myself for when the waves break onto each other. I try to get to the crest of the wave closest to me.

“Come on!” this modern day messiah screams, “We want this to be at least 20ft!”

And it was at least 20ft feet. And it was good.

“One, two, one two three four! Grahhhhh!” And his scream ignites what is no longer a crowd but instead two torrents of energy towards each other with such force that the floor shakes when the two sides collide. Punching and kicking and body-slamming with a grace not unlike a ballet. Warlike and soothing at the same time. I hit a boy about half my size in the face. As I consider congratulating him later, I notice that he has already kicked me in the chest with a flawless roundhouse. He didn't need congratulations; he wasn't new. From that roundhouse I'm knocked to my left into a spinning man who's fists both propel me into the the main dog pile.

Wait.

I'm guessing there are three people on top of me when I realize I can't breath and my heart starts skipping beats.

Praying for help for about twenty seconds. If I were a better person, I would be praying for the layers below me. But everybody in the room is here for the same reasons that I am, so they'll get us all out eventually.

I get up and its back in the fun again, but first I smile and mouth a “thanks” to the no longer spinning man who pulled me out. Hands and legs and bodies fly from every direction. Just miss getting hit by a familiar face being sling-shotted by his friends.

Another minute or so in the thick of it and I need to catch my breath, so I crash through the girls playing a sort of red rover game along the walls of the pit (laughing at their fear as I break past) and squeeze my way into the crowd to join the choir. After two songs of rest in the crowd where it can be harder to breath than in the dog pile, I make it up to the third row of bodies.

Jesus walked on water. Today our saviors walk on their followers. The suspendered vampire climbs to the top of the barrier. The front row of bodies knows what to do. They put up their hands. He takes a step. And another. One more. Half of his right foot is on my shoulder. I'm screaming the lyrics along with him. It might be a tear running down my cheek, but I'll never know because it could just as easily be my sweat or his. The vampire heads back to his rightful place. I head back to mine. The fight.

Addendum a few months later:

I don't know it at that moment of course, but later in the night I'll break a university student's nose. A month later he'll bruise one of my ribs. Soon, we'll be concert buddies.

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When I word-vomited that glimpse into the mosh pit onto my diary, I loved the pit. I still do. I could jump into a pit, get smashed up and come home smiling. If I didn't have at least a few bruises, I didn't come home smiling.

I've been feeling pretty normal and mundane lately. Happy and well adjusted and with a good social life. It feels pretty good, but I'm worried.

Recently I went to another concert. Something in the pit went wrong. There was a little asian boy being sling-shotted across the crowd past a windmilling guy with 100 pounds on me. “What if their arms hit my face?” Was my first thought. “Wasn't that the point?” Was my next.

So I stayed with the red rover girls for that night and I've stayed with them every night since.

I pray for breakdowns. My return to just-less-than-sanity.

I know this is a strange question, but how do I go back to before mundane?

From,

Steve