The world is crashing down around you. The pillars that kept your skies as high as your dreams would reach are crumbling and with it, the last amount of peace that you took for granted. The ground is shaking. The thunder is rumbling. The world around you shows all the signs that it’s coming to an end. It’s deafening. The mouths of your friends and loved ones are moving but the words just aren’t audible. The darkness of uncertainty and fear is quickly consuming the warmth and light that your loved ones provide. It’s getting dark and cold, the deafening sound of silence after a heavy night of snow makes this all seem so eerily quiet. Confusion takes over. Doubt dangles hope in front of you like a carrot. The prospect of misery looms within the darkness, taunting you that your displacement could happen at any second now. There is no time here. There’s the constant torture of glimpses into different futures of what could happen and what will happen. Time doesn’t live here. Yet, it’s the thing I want most. How many times have I heard the pleading to unknown forces for just five more minutes with this person. Yet, here I am, experiencing the same cries and lament that ate away at some of my trusted companions. Never understanding or grasping the tremendous weight that’s slowly squeezing the life out of you with every labored breath. It isn’t hope I seek out. It’s the pleading for more time. The anger that comes with the confusion. The hot coals are stoked within, angry as to why this is just so fucking unfair and cruel. Life waits for nobody. It kicks you in the balls after it had coffee not because it felt like it, but it simply just does as it moves on and reminds you that there aren’t sides to this game. Falling tears like robust waves of emotion have a strange way of crippling you, disabling everything normal about you. Yet, the world spins, TV shows are made, people live. You’re reminded that the world around you isn’t consumed by darkness. It isn’t fear and terror that reign supreme. It’s just a brutal, heartbreaking lesson that time is fair and undefeated.

Just a few days ago at work, I was sitting at my desk wondering why my array formulas on Microsoft Excel weren’t working. This is a common, prevalent problem that many people come across both in school and at work. Personally, I’m about as skilled in Microsoft Excel as Donald Trump is to foreign policy. After half an hour, I gripped a few handfuls of hair out of sheer frustration and forced myself up to walk around outside to clear my head.

I grabbed my hoodie and at that exact moment, the network router which sits to the left of my desk began to make a droning noise. On most days, this noise is easily drowned out and just becomes part of the background along with the hum from the fluorescent lights. There’s also the new key FOB which makes unlocking doors in our office sound like we’re in a federal penitentiary and the yelling of Eastern European immigrants as they leave the passport specialist office next door. But the noise stood out, it was loud and it made me wince a little.

As I made my way to the front, one of my co-workers greeted me and passed me by in a hurry. It turned out she forgot her wallet at her desk and that her friends were waiting for her outside to eat lunch. I smiled as she ran by and was about to make a quirky joke about how fast she was until I saw flashes of red in front of me. Not the “flashes of red” which usually indicate rage and anger on an astronomical level, but actual flashes of red.

The red paint that dons the underside of those curvy shoes worn by the beautiful women that adorn them on weekend nights are granted confidence, admiration and possibly a little envy depending on the kind of shoe. Some are matte while some shine brightly from the addition of stones. Some boast spikes that cover the surface of the shoe and some are made plain to keep things simple. Pumps, flats, wedges and platforms are all just shoes to me, but a pair of Christian Louboutins are a pair of Christian Louboutins.

Each and every time I see those distinct, red-lacquered under soles I am transported back to a Friday night several years ago. Nothing in particular stood out about the night, there were no special celebrations, extended holidays or three-day weekends, just a regular Friday night that people wanted to use to unwind after a long week of work. But on this Friday someone lost an eyeball. I’ll get to that in just a second.

About three to five minutes before someone lost an eyeball, I had received a call on a radio about a drunk man inside who was becoming more aggressive and hostile after politely being asked to leave. We explained to him that he was too intoxicated, that he would no longer be served for the rest of the night and that it was in his best interests to go home for the night. There’s only so much diplomacy and being tactful can carry you before your words lose weight while your fists grow heavy. In this guy’s case, the negotiations had come to an end and an ultimatum issued: Leave on your own or get forcibly removed by us. Eighty percent of the time the latter is chosen which is immediately followed by regret.

By this time, I had unhooked the purple velvet ropes around the chrome stanchions which lead up to the main door. After peering into the darkness of the dance floor for a bit, the muffled sounds of a struggle could be heard in between certain parts of an E-40 song as silhouettes danced and took shape near the main door. Once the man was removed from the dance floor and brought outside, he was shoved into the parking lot where he began cussing and name dropping some more.

Motherfucker! Do you know who I am? I’ll have your fuckin’ job in the palm of one hand while the other squeezes your nut sack while you beg not to be fired. You hear all that?!

This is pretty common banter among assholes who have used their bronze pass friendship for diamond club level exclusives. The owner of the nightclub must’ve been introduced to this asshole who used his brief, nineteen seconds of friendship as free game to do as he pleases. Always with the name dropping, the questions of their identity, wealth and power.

The fuck you lookin’ at?

He’s drunk I remind myself, just drunk. Inebriated to the point where his stockpile of spiteful comments only revolve around one’s socio-economic status, sexual preferences and the measurement of their penis. And it was at that exact moment he had made eye contact with me while his body language began to signal off all the internal ringers, alarms, bells and whistles.

Danger Will Robinson! Danger! 

I immediately took notice of his hands. Where were they? What were they doing. Only his right hand balled up into a fist. I should circle around and work the other side to avoid that. I took a step back just moments as he lunged at me, barely grazing the left side of my face. I planted my feet, grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and shoved him away from me.

A few other bouncers and myself watched him pick himself up off the ground. I felt the hair rise off the back of my neck and noticed that the hand that tracks the seconds on the clock began to move slower. This adrenaline flow, this hormone intended to give you a short, intense burst of energy during times of stress began to fill my body. The same hormone which aids you in your subconscious decision of whether to fight or take flight in dire situations. Then I heard a faint voice coming from within the nightclub growing louder and louder by the millisecond.

Leave my boyfriend alone or I’ll kill you!

Now, I still consider myself lucky to this day because if I had not turned around to see this small woman running toward me, there would’ve been a good chance that I would’ve been in need of something much more advanced than Lasik. I jumped back as she busted through the main door entryway with something in hand, something sharp.

These cream-colored, suede Louboutin pumps boasted a thin, 4 1/2” cylindrical piece of steel which connected the heel of the shoe to the floor. Although never intended to be a weapon, the young woman wielded her left pump with her right hand as she swung wildly. Nobody wanted to be caught up in the wild, chaotic moment of a girl swinging her steel stiletto around, we simply didn’t get paid enough to deal with shit like that. That is, until her efforts of landing a painful blow on one of us quickly came to an end.

Now, only once during my eight years of working security in nightclubs have I seen someone immediately stop fighting, after initiating the fight. After the young woman’s first wild swing went wide, she connected the second time around with the end of her stiletto which made them both scream in horror. I looked around to see who she connected with only to see her boyfriend, the same asshole that was talking a massive heap of shit to me with his right eyeball visibly “popped” out from the eye socket.

Oh my god! I can’t feel my eye? I CAN’T SEE OUT OF MY RIGHT EYE! Is it bad?! IS IT BAD?!

I pulled my phone out and called for emergency services. I failed horribly at giving them the proper address.

“YES I NEED AN E.M.T. OR PARAMEDIC TO MARKET STREET. MARKET. YES. M AS IN……MEGATRON. NO I DON’T KNOW THE FUCKING NATO PHOENETIC ALPHABET, M FOR MEGATRON. MARKET STREET! HURRY! THIS MAN’S RIGHT EYE BALL IS OUT OF HIS SKULL.”

Come to think of it now, that was probably a pretty normal 911 call.

There was no need to add insult to injury. We allowed the guy to lay down in the parking lot with his right eyeball still partially attached while his girlfriend kept screaming and apologizing. We left her alone not because we were afraid of being stabbed in the eye with a pair of Louboutins (which we took away), but because we wanted no part of that massive clusterfuck they saw as a relationship when the police showed up. What was unwise on the girl’s part was sticking around for the cops to show up only to have the officers realize she just committed a felony. They got him onto a gurney and into the back of an ambulance as it headed south for the hospital. She was placed in cuffs and thrown into the back of a squad car heading north, most likely to county for the weekend.

Anyways, I got back to my seat at the office and noticed that the droning from the network router was still going on. I still noticed the loud buzzing noise made from my co-workers FOB keys when unlocking the cell block doors which led to our lobby. I could even hear the elderly people yelling in Slavic languages about the lack of elevators in our building. I thought about my co-workers Louboutins and those red under soles one more time before everything simply became background noise once again. Microsoft Excel might be boring and mundane, but at least it never accidentally stabbed me in the eye.