The last orgy.

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“Our fear is no longer a fear of death but of change and mutilation.”

— Sven Holm

“I think, as a species, we have a desire to believe that we’re living at the climax of the story. It’s a kind of narcissism. We want to believe that we’re uniquely important, that we’re living at the end of history, that now, after all these millennia of false alarms, now is finally the worst that it’s ever been, that finally we have reached the end of the world.”

— Emily St. John Mandel

As the third morning dawns, the crowd are still going strong in the bar. Their numbers have actually swelled, all of them oblivious to what was coming. Well, almost all of them.

The noise inside is relentless, a cacophony. Speaker systems and screens blare thousands of different types of sound: every musical genre you can think of (and more besides), adverts, programmes, speeches, sound effects, and amidst it all, screams. The walls and floor shook from the continuous and ever increasing drone.

“Stick the usual in there,” bellows the fat man, as he places his glass on the bar, his eyes lingering on the barmaid.

The barmaid grimaces before, with great effort, sculpting a smile on to her face. “Cyanide with piss?” she says.

“Excuse me?” shouts the fat man, leaning over the bar and straining to hear above the music and general cacophony. His cheeks are ruddied and glistening, chin slightly damp with saliva.

“Gin and tonic?” says the barmaid.

“Perfect!” says the fat man with a wink. The fat man doesn’t actually look all that fat. Not on the outside.

She fixes his drink and places it on the counter, collecting the fresh notes that the fat man has dropped there. The fat man gives her another glassy-eyed leer and wanders back into the throng before she can offer him change.

The barmaid turns to the old guy sitting at the end of the bar. He’s sat facing the wall opposite, the door to his left, the pulsing throng of the bar further to his right.

“How are you doing, John?” asks the barmaid.

John stares at the wall. At least he seems to, his eyes are obscured by dark glasses. Long strands of white hair dangle from beneath his woolly hat.

The old man pauses and lifts a gnarled hand to scratch his beard as if thinking about the question. “I’m alive,” he says.

“Can I get you anything?”

“Nope,” says the old man, tapping the rim of his clay cup where a strange steam rises gently from within.

Further into the belly of the bar, bodies thrash around in a viscous frenzy. Spittle, sweat, liquor, poison and more have coagulated into a greasy gum on the floor. It stuck first to shoes, then splattered higher up around socks, calves, sometimes as high as the knee, where it has burned skin.

Across the dancefloor (which is almost the whole space), groups of hollow-eyed, hairless men are in a frantic unison, marching at a hundred beats per minute. Their silk neckties swing across their dress shirts, which are sodden with sweat. Their discarded suit jackets and gilets are now a mere mush on the floor, becoming part of the foul slush on the floor.

An acrid smell surrounds them as the soles of their feet burn; none of them knows how to stop. None of them knows this dance.

Snaking between these groups are columns of plastic women, on an endless circuit of the floor, their mobile devices held in front of them, capturing them, capturing the scene, capturing it all, every moment, always. They strut in agony, but their perfect smiles never waver, their brilliant teeth always dazzling.

The fat man is heading for the back of the bar. For right at the back of the strangely cavernous space, there are small booths, separated by velvet ropes and curtains so that the inhabitants can only be seen in glimpses. Behind those booths are others that can’t be seen at all, cocoons embedded in the walls.

Every now and then, in the front booths, hands can be seen moving. Plump, fleshy, tanned hands, glinting with adornments. They move in secret and furtive gestures, exchanging things, grabbing things, shaking things.

People enter the booths periodically, sometimes summoned, sometimes choosing to enter with impossibly white smiles. None of them ever leaves again.

The fat man hovers around the outside of the booths with other fat men who also don’t look all that fat. They drink, and snort, and chuckle, not one of them telling the truth.

Some of the fat men lean against iron cages that are scattered around the dance floor. The women crouching inside these cages come in all varieties. Some are very young, some are very old. The ones who have been there longest look dishevelled, their clothes tattered and filthy. The newer ones scream and clutch at the bars; the older ones are mostly silent. They have given up. Instead, they simply watch and point.

The dancing continues everywhere, somehow it never lessens, always intensifies. How can it get more frantic? Yet it does, a frenzy of violent movement, so fast, so blurred that it becomes hard to distinguish the individual people. Moisture flies off their bodies and instantly sizzles in the air. Sweat - no, not just sweat, but the very water and liquid from their organs. A few spray only blood.

Food is constantly brought to the floor. Automated machines anticipate needs and glide around with cartons of semi-organic matter, some of which is devoured and the rest is dropped to the floor, where it joins the thickening toxic sludge. Faces are smeared with this food, the fuel consumed as quickly as possible. The eaters shit where they stand, blissfully unaware of their befouling.

From within a deep crack in the wall, a child in rags scampers out to gather some of these scraps of food. She stuffs discarded crusts into her filthy vest, along with shreds of meat, half-eaten dishes, takeaway cups of various shakes and sweet drinks. One or two of the fat men aim a kick at her, but mostly no one notices. The girl rapidly retreats to the dark hole where several pairs of hungry eyes await her.

The screens continue to blare, excruciatingly loud now. Some people bleed from their ears but do not notice, or notice but do not care. The sound is worth the pain. The sound is needed. The sound is vital to them.

Amongst them all, somehow untouched, wander a man and a woman. They walk separately and silently, their paths never crossing as they weave through the chaos and melee all around. Their bodies are naked and unadorned, their hair long and pristine white.

Their feet squelch in the mulch underfoot but remain untouched by the poisonous waste. As they make their infinite and careful strides, their gazes fall on no one in particular, their eyes cast downwards and ahead. They weep. Endlessly, they weep.

Outside the bar, there is a howling wind. It has been growing louder, wailing like a banshee, a typhoon hurling the elements at the outside of the bar, but no one can hear it.

Or can they? John smiles to himself as another ferocious gust batters the front of the bar. Is that a crack in the window he sees? Some dust and debris fall in front of the old man’s face, landing in his lap. His grin becomes a small chuckle, not of amusement but resignation.

One of the hairless marching men bursts into flames. He screams as his shoes and trousers first catch fire, the conflagration fuelled by the booze and oily coagulant on his clothes, and spreading instantaneously to his torso, engulfing his head. His mouth gapes open in a now silent scream, yet his march continues, keeping time with the others as flames devour his body.

And still they keep dancing.

The door to the bar suddenly swings open. Gusts of wind rush in from the deep darkness outside. From the gloom, a tall woman, Amazonian in stature, steps in, shaking rain off her coat. Each drop is a different colour, a kaleidoscopic shower.

She surveys the scene in front of her for a few seconds. John nods towards her. And then she speaks.

“You have to get out,” she says, her voice deep and firm, arising as if from a canyon.

No-one notices. She repeats herself. “You have to get out.”

Still, there is no reaction. The woman takes a heavier breath - and then bellows, her voice a banshee.

“YOU HAVE TO GET OUT - NOOOOOOWW.”

The dancing, the noise, the frenzy continues. Not a single person turns in her direction. Except the barmaid who looks quizzically in her direction, and John, who meets her gaze.

“You?” says the tall woman to John.

He shakes his head sadly and taps the rim of his cup. The woman looks once more at the mass of the bar and then turns on her heel. As she opens the door, animals from around the bar rush out into the howling tempest: dogs, cats, mice, rats, birds. A few snakes slither out in a hurry. And then the door slams shut again.

The fat man returns to the bar for another drink. The party is undisturbed. The party goes on. The party must go on.

Outside, a vast and unfeeling void awaits, indifferent to the bar and the patrons. It just waits.

I’m a leadership coach, consultant and facilitator living in Berlin.

Contact me to: 

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[main image, ‘Deep’ by Mario Sanchez Nevado]