• The bottles lay across the small countertop and spilled into the sink, their stiff forms tossed against each other, thrown together like so much paper from Christmas morning. Empty, they’re a transparent pile of trash. The overhead lights reflect off their clear and shiny skin while the colorful labels create a rainbow that rivals the local liquor stores aisles. A bar juts up from the counter like a cliff overlooking mass shipwrecks. A ceiling fan hovers over the scene like a UFO, it’s humming a gently drone in the small kitchen area. The table lamps and overhead lights cast a soft glow around the room, gently illuminating the shadows and chasing them away. Crumpled napkins with bright colors across them are piled in the open top trash can, each one revealing just enough to allow a person to guess they say: “Happy 21st”.

    Over the bar and between the empty plastic cups, the human remnants of last night’s party can be seen. Their bodies curled up and sprawled across the sofa and chairs. A few eyes are closed as if to capture the glory of the night before in a perpetual film reel inside the eyelids. The TV plays silently in the corner, a wordless picture of commercialism. A quiet game of rummy occupies a pair in the corner on a side table. The table’s previous adornment of a cheap Horus resin statue lies on the floor under their feet. The trash bag, half-full from clean up rests against the coffee table, it’s empty half, limp and saggy over its bulging bottom. Distended like the stomach of a cartoon animal, the outlines of plates and plastic cups can be seen cutting an abstract design through it’s obsidian color.

    One of the room occupants stirs, and stretches pulling himself up from his self imposed slouch on the sofa and glances around the room. A bowl of peanuts lays on its side on the coffee table, spilling its contents out like an alluvial fan, covering the bottom of one lone, plastic martini glass. A slender hand, attached to an equally feminine body reaches down and picks the glass up by the stem, stuffing it into the trash bag, before throwing a wadded up napkin at the sofa’s occupant.