Brooklyn Night Bazaar

The muggy air hinted at a storm soon as we neared the nondescript warehouse. I hardly remembered the night before - flashes of rain and soft hash chocolate wrapped in golden tinfoil.

Nick came up from Chicago to see the band; he stayed with friends in Bushwick. We met up with him after taking the F train to party with the gays. An entire city powered by molly and Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. It was day three of a five-day adventure.

At 7 pm, an unmarked door propped open by next year’s new edition sneakers & a pair of fingerless gloves ushered us inside, handing us goggles and hooded rain ponchos streaked with paint.

Flashes of light from the arcade illuminated the bags under his eyes. Glow-in-the-dark arrows pointed us to a room partitioned by upright-standing mattresses covered in clear plastic, tarp laid out on the floor. Under the black light, a ping pong game was underway, people taking turns playing table tennis with paint balls.

Splattered with neon, we moved through the crowd and reached the stalls selling voodoo dolls and dreamcatchers. In the corner, two mimes throwing invisible darts at a large poster of Obama holding a blunt, the words “Inhale to the Chief” scrawled in graffiti underneath. A wall of noise from the stage as the band started soundcheck & Nick disappeared. I walked to edge of the building where patches of manicured grass erupted through the concrete featuring literal wallflowers. A teeth-chattering rooftop bonfire ended the evening. I can’t recall sleeping at all as pink and yellow

filled the sky.

Mariam Ahmed is a poet currently pursuing her MFA in poetry at San Diego State University. She writes micropoetry and dabbles in abstract surrealism.