As I slowly but eagerly opened the door to the party, the sound of people who had been drinking too much and were up too late assaulted my ears, providing a stark contrast to the quiet atmosphere I had previously enjoyed out on the front porch. Almost instantaneously, I was yanked into the lively scene in the adjacent room. The frenzied atmosphere in the living room featured guests cramped much like sardines in a fishing net. The room, flooded with many teenagers, seemed diminutive and cramped. A dark red carpet covered the entire room, conspicuously compromised by the hundreds of feet it had supported. When I made a complete turn and saw each corner of the room, I realized the room had ample space: it was actually the huge mass of teenagers that masked the room’s capaciousness. Moreover, as I continued to scrutinize my surroundings, I noticed that the shade of blue covering the walls added to the rectangular shaped room's darkness, which had already lost its light to dusk long before. An ornate glass chandelier hovered over the enthusiastic guests, but its lights never turned on, acting as if it were a disapproving mother who had failed to discipline her culpable children. In fact, the only light came from the cellphones, which granted a momentary rest for the typically sporadic and lively guests. A table situated in the middle of the room held an array of snacks arranged in a tightly packed line. The snacks, however, were not often eaten because the table was hidden, and the guests were more interested in joining any one of the many meaningless conversations.

The guests wore jeans and shirts that were somewhere between casual and dressy. Some wore suit pants and ties, but they stood out, much to their own embarrassment. Although most were appropriately dressed, most also failed to act politely, disregarding what would have been considered acceptable behavior. In fact, most were indifferent to others, and set on a goal thought nothing of elbowing through the densely clustered groups of wannabes of one sort or the other. In one such instance, someone bumped into another guest so aggressively that the victim fell to the ground. Soon after, he got up and chided his aggressor. It felt like a basketball game in which a flagrant foul was committed, but there was no ref to call the error and mollify the situation. Then, the victim pushed the aggressor, who fell back a little. Soon enough, a fight broke out between these two unruly adversaries. One of them, the apparent loser, walked out of the room, and then out the door, obviously feeling embarrassed. Before long, everyone acted as though nothing had happened, and the masses took over once more.
The room smelled hot and swampy because even the cooling system could not dissipate the competing scents of colognes, perfumes, hair gels, lotions…none of which could mask the raw smell of teenagers. It was so hard to breathe and so little air was present that even the exhale of the next person was welcomed. The exit felt a million miles away. In just minutes, I had drifted from the mouth of the room to its heart without purposely moving a step. Although I could not make out faces, my eyes could detect infinite silhouettes fluttering around the room like energetic butterflies in open grassland. However, some were more reserved. A couple I had spotted by the snacks table, seemed to talk to just one another.

After I barely made it out of the crowded room and out on the porch, I was elated to be back in the quiet where I had begun my journey, still untouched by the masses. When I looked out to the curb, I spotted the loser in the earlier fight. He was crying. I wondered if he was crying because he was embarrassed or because he too was happy to have escaped the suffocating atmosphere inside the house. I wanted to believe it was for the latter reason.