In Search of Naughtiness

The best part of the night is bound to happen right after you were supposed to leave. The room, until now, has been littered with half-sentences and silences. The wiser guests have gone home. Counters are dreary with half-drunk drinks. Then suddenly something lifts. You find you are full of news and views—enough to go around, and, by gosh, you are funny! Where was this flair an hour ago? The space distills into a light-hearted madness; into a manageable size of dregs, stragglers, and strangers, now suspended in discussion, now free-flowing in dance. Bodies latch onto each other, cross, unlatch, fly free, and join again in clumps, somewhere between a kaleidoscope vision and the movement of cells under a microscope. Now and only now the best part of the night appears, full of stars.