They are throwing themselves at each other on purpose, and it is the most tender thing I have seen in weeks.
Look at them: a churning knot of bodies down front, sweat-slick, shirts gone translucent, hair plastered flat. A boy goes down and four hands I do not know grab his arm, his collar, the waistband of his jeans, and haul him upright before his knees even find the sticky floor. He never sees their faces. He never thanks them. He just plunges back in, laughing, and does the same for the next stranger who falls.
They are so warm. I can tell without touching, and I would give anything to be certain, to feel one shoulder slam into mine and knock the air out of me. To be bruised. Tomorrow one of them will find a purple bloom on his ribs and complain about it, and he will not understand what he is holding, a small aching map of the night he was surrounded by people who caught him.
The music is too loud to hear anyone speak, so they have stopped bothering. They lean their heads together and shout nonsense that gets swallowed whole. They pour water over each other's heads. They mouth the words in unison, hundreds of throats making the same shape, all of them briefly one animal, breathing.
None of them will remember this in detail. It will blur into every other night, filed under fine, under fun, under we went to that show. They cannot know how rare it is, a room where falling down is the point and the whole crowd is arranged to lift you.
Fall again, sweethearts. Someone is always reaching.
Stay down there in the heat as long as they let you.