“Why the fuck am I here” the young man thought as he carefully put his ID back into his double-fold wallet and walked downstairs into the club. His friends following closely behind, had much more energy than him, excited to finally let loose after a long week of work. The man, on the other hand, had a draining week, needed to be up early the next day, but somehow found himself out and about in Manhattan – contrary to the promise he had made himself when the night begun.

As one does when you enter a drinking establishment, the man stood on his toes to survey the scene. He found an eclectic, but expected, crowd: a group of obnoxious, overly inebriated finance boys in vests, wholly convinced that this was the dopest bar in the city (mostly because they were there); a bunch of characters who had ventured in from Bushwick, and perhaps even further out of the city, dressed for a chill night, but even to the untrained eye could see that there was a gram of shrooms and molly between the three of them; the girl group from Chelsea who had ventured east of Broadway for the first time in three months in search of the “grunge” in the lower east side with a rotating watch over their Canada Goose jackets; and finally the single old man at the bar muttering to himself that this place used to actually be grunge.

As the boys huddled inside, the man’s immediate thought “I’m too fucking sober for this” led him and the group to the bar. 2 pickle-back shots and a G&T later, the music (2010 Drake over a deafening speaker) and the crowd started to seem that much more amenable. The man led the charge into the dance floor and the boys secured a table. The vibes were good.

And then he saw her.

Across the dance floor, the shards of light from the disco ball reflected off of her red sequined dress. She was a mirage, she was a phantom, she was beautiful. The way she moved cut through the air like butter, her hair flowed like smoke in the stuffy bar air. But it was her dress, ruby red, and sequined like Dorothy’s heels that took his breath away. The rest of the bar slowly fell away until it was just her.

“I have to go talk to her” the voice inside his head kept saying. So he stood up, told his friends he was going to go talk to that girl and headed over. Their eyes met over the heads of the crowd – she smiled and her eyes sparkled as though asking him to come say hello. He waded his way through the middle of the dance floor, making his way towards her. He was about to reach her when a familiar arm grabbed her shoulder and dragged her up the stairs and into the cold NYC air.

“Dammit!” he cursed as he turned around and headed back to the boys, still at the table engrossed in their conversation. He made a quick pit-stop at the bar to pick up another G&T to help smooth the disappointment over.

But he knew he’d forever be chasing those red sequins.