Sweep Dreams

jounce (jouns)
verb tr., intr.
To bounce along.
noun
A jolting movement.

At 1:35 this morning, our neighbor Noah arrived home from an evening of drinking full glasses of Coca-Cola and improvising himself into every conversation. He'd had quite the night indeed--nearly overwhelmed with furious and accurate pop culture discussions, listful Old School impersonations performed in conversational-yet-oblivious homage, and a general longing for that exact quote from that one scene in the last episode of something trendy. Yes, another successful post-Second City class. Another three hours drowned in faux-Irish pubfare, complete with distilled laughter, a nervous haze of smoke, and a damn good song from the Hold Steady.

These people are my friends and they listen to me.

But when Noah arrived home at 1:35 this morning he realized, quite suddenly, through the muddled sugar-craze of nine Coca-Colas, that no one else was there. He did not take the bar with him, his classmates did not follow his lead back to Bucktown. Noah knew, once again, he would be alone in his room, alone in his kitchen, alone on his couch, alone all night long. And he was very, very, very awake.

So he marched in defiance, soldiered his way across every inch of the apartment, seizing control of his lonely body. He tossed his shoes, he moved his bed, he adjusted a table, he turned on the oven, he started his Mac, he moved he walked he tripped and made another noise noise noise noise noise--

And we pounded on the ceiling with a broom to stop him. To stop him please. Stop him. Please.

And it worked.

For five and a half hours.

Until he could hold it back no more, at 7:15 this morning, and, again, marched across his wood paneled floor, energized with the desperate need to distract himself from loneliness.