L’unione fa la forza – ENG

Get ready for a journey into the nightlife of the losers, and listen to the soundtrack of this story as you read!

There are three kinds of nights out: decent, disappointing, and epic. Once you turn eighteen, nightlife stops being a great way to rebel against the wishes of adults and becomes an integral part of your social life.

Managing the night, the exhaustion, the crowded spaces, and understanding one’s role during the evening—these are all skills that must be developed quickly. From one moment to the next, you are no longer a spectator, but an integral part of the boys and girls walking along the dirty sidewalks, with the fog mingling with the smoke from their cigarettes—a caravan of nomads without camels, but with beat-up bicycles and veils of cheap perfume. While pairs or, at most, trios of adventurers are like the wind—nimble and fresh—groups of four or more people are like walls. They take up the entire sidewalk: the peripheral members walk on the street while gravitating around the core, the hub of the conversation managed by the charismatic central figures.

Being the epicenter of a group, joyfully shouldering the responsibility of managing the organization for everyone else… What endless boredom! In a world where dancing, going out, and letting loose is a form of struggle, of rebellion against constant work pressure—dominated by “personal fulfillment” and LinkedIn notifications—they decide to work even where the only thing that matters is the relationship with freedom. You’re boring, groups! We’re sick of your internal infatuations, your crumbling dynamics, and your community ego. Clear the dance floor, let us outsiders breathe.

Bea and I are really pumped tonight: like every weekend, she—a country mouse—makes the trek from the isolated Dutch village where she works as an au-pair to see me, a “big city” rat who’s studying here. Our Saturday routine is always the same: grab her rental bike, browse through clothes at flea markets and thrift stores, bicker, and then laugh: the chronology of those born under the sign of Pisces. In the evening, once we get home, I get ready to go to work as a waitress. For the past six months, Saturday and Friday nights have only existed after 11:30 p.m.; four hours of dishes, forced smiles, and an unfamiliar sweetish smell. As soon as I finish work, my legs feel as heavy as logs; the only thing keeping me going is the knowledge that soon, finally, I’ll be dancing.

I get home and Bea is ready, looking gorgeous. At twenty you’re always running late: the dawn of adulthood is so faint and stifled that it feels like the death of a sunset. Only now, as we set off for the club, while my fishnet stockings get caught on the seat, do I see a soft light moving from streetlamp to streetlamp. In the thick fog, we follow our imaginary dawn, the promise that for a few hours nothing will matter more than us. 

“Bea, if you don’t move, I’ll strangle you!” I yell, trying to drown out the icy wind, the flat tires, and the creaking pedals. I don’t think she can hear me; her dark bangs flutter in the wind.

“I’m coming. For God’s sake, Arianna, calm down!”

As I was saying, there are three kinds of nights. Some reveal themselves right away, from the very start. Others are suddenly ruined: a toothless bald guy vomits on you, or the DJ starts playing reggaeton. Our night begins in a whirlwind, with everyone rushing around, smudged mascara, and taking turns using the huge, empty bathroom (my famous “communist bathroom”). We enter by climbing the narrow staircases into the usual spot: a self-managed community center in an abandoned factory. Five euros for admission, and the massive youth center hall welcomes the faithful with its side aisles overflowing, colourful sweaters and psychedelic lights all over the place.

I smell cannabis and men lying in the dark. I found out what scabies is last year—those tiny little bugs that live in fabrics and crawl onto human skin after prolonged contact. So, in public places with poor hygiene, I don’t sit down: dancing is enough for me. I’m as afraid of scabies as I am of pregnancy: the idea of a stranger’s bodily invasion—let alone a thinking one—gives me the chills. Hygiene has nothing to do with it… a while back, I left a mandarin orange in my room for two months, waiting for its metamorphosis. But my body is mine, period. I have no intention of hosting little animals or tiny humans.

And yet, right now I wish I were pregnant just to have a little more space around me. The dance floor is too crowded: people are pushing us. Or rather, the guys are pushing and the girls are standing still. I want to move, if only to get away from a couple of people I hate. 

Some nights are disappointing, and this one has all the hallmarks of one. I want to leave, walk over the heads of all the people towering over me, rip out the stinky hair of the girl in front of me, and use it to clean the caked-on ceiling. My ex is nearby: a psychopathic stalker and the group of friends who made excuses for him. Oh my God, groups… One of them stops me and asks how I’m doing. He comments on my Instagram stories, my posts. He’s a rare species of Napolitan Iguana, one of those with a really long tongue. They charm you with their primitive looks while they steal your wallet, hissing softly. He’s drunk, standing next to his girlfriend. He stares at my fishnet stockings while she smiles awkwardly. I hate looking at a woman and thinking: poor thing.

It’s time to get off the rock. It’s time to swim away from the iguana, away from the mussel-women and the men as slimy as seaweed. I force Bea to run, to climb onto the stage behind the DJ.

“Ari, I don’t feel up to it. There are sixty people in front of us; everyone can see us from there,” Bea doesn’t want to go up. She stops behind the step. I’m scared too; I feel the itchy anxiety of first dates rising. I take her hand, smile: she doesn’t need to know how I really feel.

“We need to do this, Bea. If we don’t go up, nothing will change.”

Maybe I’m selfish, every now and then. I only think about my own pleasure, about my existence as the center of everything. But right now, as we dance, we fill the entire space. We can breathe in the fresh air; the music carries us. I’m out in front of everyone: two gorgeous guys by my side, and I feel Bea as my backbone behind me, hidden from view by the crowd and therefore happier. My ex is staring at me from below the stage, looking mean. I despise his anger; I avoid his glances, the puffs of smoke he spits in my direction. From high on the stage, I crush him with the tip of my vintage cowboy boots and twist my foot to extinguish the flame of envy he’s ignited.

Maastricht is the cage – and I’m growing.