The lights in the nightclub come on and the dancers melt down into the chequered floor. A woman with green hair and a clipboard comes up to me and asks for my name. I don’t tell her, and she writes something down.
“What are you writing?”
She looks at me and says: “Would you like to see your best moments from tonight?”
“No.”
The nightclub darkens. A holographic image of me at the bar appears. I am being chatted up by a man and I’m blushing, but when a prettier girl walks past us, he is gone.
Another: I am drinking on my own at one of those little bar tables.
Now I am dancing energetically. People are looking at me. They laugh when I slip onto the floor.
Nothing comes out of holographic me when I have my head over the toilet, but that’s only because they haven’t figured out how to show bodily fluids. A girl holds my hair back – I think she is my friend. She rubs my back and says “oh dear.”
I am looking for my friend but she has left me; holographic me wonders around the dancefloor, turning her head from left to right. After a few moments, I stop.
The bartender won’t serve me, I remember this part. I recall the rage – I just wanted another fucking shot. My arms lull over the side and I disappear. The lights come back on.
“I thought you said these were my best bits?” I say to the green haired woman.
“They are.” She smiles.
I snatch a holographic drink that remains on the bar, but it vanishes when I touch it, along with my hand. Using my other arm, I take the clipboard from the woman and smack her over the head with it. She falls to the floor and disappears too. A pool of purple tinted blood is left behind where her head should be.
Mariah is a writer living in London, mainly writing weird short stories with a particular love of flash fiction. She also reviews books, preferring anything strange and unusual, translated fiction, and short story collections.