While I was waiting in line outside of the venue a group walked past with brightly colored hair. There was a guy with blue hair and blue sunglasses and a girl wearing black who had green hair. I think there was probably a girl with blonde hair and dark clothing too but there was definitely a girl with red hair. She wore a red shirt with a car logo or something on it and had boots with black denim shorts. She sat on a planter across from me and lit a cigarette. She sat away from her companions, positioned to face from them slightly and averting her gaze. She held the cigarette perpendicular between her ring and middle fingers and when she went to take a drag her hand covered her mouth while her eyes slunk to the sidewalk, slunk away, betraying some sort of existential shame that only I could glean. It wasn't dread or contempt. I tried to catch her gaze but she wouldn't look at me. I wondered what laid beyond those pearly white gates, just a little more gray than the others.
When the show started I was swept up in a whirlwind of movement and energy. The crush of bodies was so bad I clawed myself to the further edges where the labor of a breath was more forgiving, grateful to feel this air touching mine. I felt mesmerized by the band in front of me, how important these people were, but the crowd was so novel I couldn't help but feel enamored by them too, a dual spectacle. At some point I felt her scarlet burn and we pressed together with her hair in my own, briefly intertwined, briefly between in our existence. But her presence was not long despite my vying and on the turn she would intently walk away from me into the crowd. I felt betrayed at her sudden departure, however much I could acknowledge my ill logic. If she was a little younger, if I was a little older, if this and that and if perhaps she knew what I knew. A new flame altogether gone, a crimson plume, like all those breathes we took. What it is to know someone. But she was sly and sad and after that night I was too. It was bittersweet.