It’s Hard To Be A DJ

He woke up with a start. The music was on, softly purring out of the speaker in the corner. The latest demo, 125 beats per minute, not House, but not really Techno either, mixed yesterday with that crazy Finnish DJ who came out of nowhere holding the tray with the Tequila shots. Turning his head around requires too much of an effort, so he can’t figure out the time. Surely it is not too late. Some light is tentatively pouring in through the half open blinds, but no traffic noises can be heard from the street below. Plus the headache is still there, gnawing at him and cutting short any presumption of logical thinking.

As the music goes through the samples part, fragments of memories from the previous night start returning. The party. The crowd jumping wildly. The great music he played. The girl with the blue dress and mismatching shoes, dancing in front of his booth for hours. The bottle of water with that funny taste. Where did all that happen anyway? And how did I come back home? At least the pack of cigarettes is right there, he thinks as he lights one up and smokes it patiently, sending rings of smoke to the ceiling and oblivious to the ash that drops to the floor.

As the music is now picking up speed, and with his brain still stuck in first gear, he makes an attempt to get up, only to be rewarded with a wave of nausea running through his body. Ten minutes later and changing the technique to a crawl at a sensible pace, he manages to roll himself into the shower and lets the cold water wake him up. All the time he can hear the beat tensing up to the grand ending, when suddenly the music stops.

So he picks himself up from the shower, rummages through the wardrobe until he finds some clean boxers, some cool jeans, the hoody and the new green shoes and gets dressed. Another click on play and his laptop goes back to the chill out sounds more suitable for the hour. Fixing the hairstyle takes another couple of minutes. He picks up his phone and checks his messages. One of them catches his attention: “Same place, same time, I’ll try to match the shoes?”. So it wasn’t a complete failure, after all…

He checks the time: 23:00. Not so bad, he only has to start playing at the club at midnight. So he has time for a quick drink with that agent who wants to take him to Miami next summer. He looks around his hotel room and considers the mess. It doesn’t really matter, another three days and he’ll be gone to Ibiza. Or was it Barcelona?