High Functioning

Chester left, determined to bring him a beer in fifteen minutes, and check out the progress. Edward didn’t need it, he was riding high on his drug of choice: pretending Chester’s stuff was his, and playing with it by himself.

As he walked up the stairs he found himself moving slowly, repelled from ahead and behind. He thought about sitting down, covering his ears and closing his eyes, just for five minutes. He could breathe, hear himself think, and recharge for the party’s final kick. It couldn’t be that much longer, they’d already lost Gunner. The others wouldn’t be too far behind. Strengthened by the horizon in his sights, he made it the rest of the way up the stairs.

The laughing still hit him in the face like a frying pan as he stepped into the hallway, and it felt ten degrees warmer. He looked into the living room, everyone was on their phones but still yelling, flipping their phones around to show each other something. Whatever competition they were having, Chester wasn’t interested. It didn’t seem like Hal was either, he had sunken further into his chair, staring at that same window. Chester kept walking down the hall.

Ernie wasn’t into whatever was going on in the living room either, he was in the kitchen, standing in front of the open refrigerator, not moving. Chester assumed he was looking for a specific drink, but he was standing a little too still, and for too long. Chester stepped towards him, about to yell, when another peal of laughter forced him toward the wall, and toward the stairs. He wondered if Ernie was just standing in front of the fridge to escape the heat, and had and idea. He kept walking up the stairs to the third floor.

The door to his bedroom was closed, and he thought he heard murmuring behind it. This must be where Gunner had gone, and with him Shannon. They were making themselves right at home too. It was looking like a long night if he had to wait for Gunner to wake up and leave before he could get into his own bed. He turned into his office, and walked up the spiral staircase and onto the roof deck.

It was cool on the roof, and almost silent. The dull roar and subtle vibration from accelerating cars wasn’t carrying four stories up in the cool air. Chester leaned over the brick wall to look down at the street. The lamp next to his entrance glowed a warm, flickering orange, and while he couldn’t see into them, the front windows glowed with a much colder white. The lights were like the sounds downstairs, they mingled and competed with one another, pushing an otherwise pristine night into disharmony. If they all just winked off, or half of them anyway, no one would notice.

He closed his eyes and felt the breeze on his ears. He couldn’t hear the air go by, but he could hear the skitter of the leaves it carried along the sidewalk below. The brick damped the sounds of the party so much it took almost a minute before he noticed them again. The noise started quiet and shapeless, but slowly started taking on form as he unhappily sharpened his focus on it. He picked out two different tones, without any of the rhythm or repetition of music, but with a pattern between the tones that suggested a conversation.

Chester was sure it was a pointless conversation, they all had been so far. He wondered what they would do at a party if he duct-taped their mouths shut. Keeping his eyes closed, he savored the thought, then packed it away, planning to unwrap it in a few hours, when he was in tucked in bed, after everyone left his house and took their unholy racket with them.

He opened his eyes, looking out at the street and the city that just would not shut up and let him think. He wondered which one would come find him, and why. He didn’t have to wonder at the answer for long: when one of them needed something. They weren’t going to check on him, they were going to want his booze, or his money, or help operating one of his toys, or worse, his attention and validation. They could have his booze and toys, but they’d never impress him again. He was disappointed in himself that they ever did.

He kept looking at the city, deciding he wouldn’t turn around even when he heard the door open and one of his friends stepped out. He’d wait until they asked him what he was doing out there, maybe even how he was. He started going through the group, trying to guess which one of them would figure it out, what character deficits would get in each of their ways, but he stopped, and sighed. He realized he would hear them first, yelling his name. They were all too lazy to not try that first, and he heard literally everything they said.

No one was calling for him yet. His eyes weren’t drawn to the sparkling city in front of him, but to another townhouse, across the way, with all it’s lights off. He imagined walking through the darkened room, hearing nothing but his breathing and his footsteps, no one knowing where he was or how to reach him.

Behind him, footsteps and breathing inched closer, totally unnoticed. Chester had no sense he wasn’t alone until he felt his legs being lifted. Overcome by the baser instincts of surprise, then panic as he lurched forward over the wall, Chester didn’t have time to think, only act. He swung his arms back, first in confusion, second to make contact with his attacker, then third, to grab the wall and stop his momentum. He missed on all three. It wasn’t until his feet cleared the wall, and the warm glow of the entrance lamp started getting rapidly closer, that he had a rational thought.

He was going to die.

It was a shame. He had been doing so well.