“You know,” your host begins, waving his drink around to make his point, “when you think about it, life is a lot like Lego.”
There is, understandably, a confused silence.
“Life,” he is saying, “Is a series of moments. That’s all it comes down to: one big thing made out of millions of small things. Like Lego, they’re not much on their own, but the combinations are infinite and have the power to become more than the sum of their parts. The right moment at the right time can make a revolutionary into a hero, make a disaster into a triumph. Some of them are personal, affecting only one life. Some bridge the gap between people. And they just keep coming, building on one another, one after the next, connecting what went before to what’s about to come.”
He looks at the assembled guests, his eyes finally settling on yours with a piercing stare. “You can shape them sometimes, exert a little influence over them from time to time, but they get to shape you all the time. When you think about it we’re not the sculptors, we’re the work of art in progress.”
There are polite smiles all round at this digression. After all, he’s buying the drinks and footing the bill for the food.
“I might as well open the proceedings with my own OMG moments. After all it’s a poor host that asks his guests to do something he’s not willing to do himself. The first big OMG moment I can think of is a personal one. I was nearly seventeen when my brothers were born. That’s a big age gap. I had grown up and spent all of my life as an only child, and now all of a sudden I was one of three.” The host’s gaze turns inward. “The day after the birth, I went up to see my mum and had this tiny, squirmy person put into my hands. It was my brother Nathan, and he could fit in my hands when I put them together. He didn’t understand a single thing, and his world began and ended, at that moment, with my hands. I’ve never forgotten that moment, and I doubt I will for as long as I live.
“However my next,” he goes on, grabbing a drink from a passing tray, “is nowhere near as pleasant. I would have to nominate a movie moment for my number two, and that is the scene in Alien where John Hurt falls victim to the alien chestburster. Rumour has it that they didn’t tell the cast what was happening that day, so they would be able to record honest shock reactions. To this day I can’t watch Alien without getting a shiver as that moment approaches. Something so mundane like having a meal has never quite been the same again.”
You shiver at your own reaction to that moment.
“My third isn’t really all that much of an OMG moment to other people, but it affected me so deeply when I first read it. It’s then end of “1984”. I know it sounds stupid, but I always expected some small, tiny bit of resistance to survive within Winston. Some small, tiny element of resistance, I thought, would surely survive within him. Except that it doesn’t. I read that book when I was young, naïve and expected happy endings almost as a matter of course. It was quite a shock to run across a book that didn’t provide me with that.”
Your host smiles, a little embarrassed. “What can I say? When you’re young you’re overly optimistic. And if anyone’s going to hammer that out of you it’s Orwell.” The group laugh at this and your host accepts some mild ribbing with good grace.
“Speaking of the silliness of youth, my fourth moment is a small, mundane one. It starts with me ripping open a nondescript blue envelope and seeing my name, a few typed numbers, and an amount of money listed at the very bottom. It was my first ever payslip for my first ever week’s work in my first ever job, and I felt as rich as all hell. I also felt, for the first time in my life, like a proper grown up adult.” He pauses. “Of course if I had known what a drag being a grownup could be I might not have been so cheerful, but like I said, I was young, I was stupid.”
The host pauses for a moment. “Finally, I would need to go for another quiet moment. I had just bought my own home, a flat in town, and spent the whole day with my family moving my stuff in. Boxes were everywhere, and the only things I had out were a kettle, some mugs and one plate. I closed the door behind them all when they left and for the first time in my life, I was standing alone in my own home. I owned it, it was mine, and I was in it. My hands actually started shaking as I made the tea for myself. I was home. I was a homeowner. This was where I could bring my better half if I wanted, this is where I could make a life for myself. I know it sounds boring to you all, but it really hadn’t hit me until that point that I had taken a major step forward in my life.”
Your host breaks into a grin. “Of course these are the ones that come to mind, but there are more than I can ever remember with a drink in my hand. Some are personal, some would need so much explanation that I would be here half the night just setting up the punchline. The first time I told my better half “I love you” and heard her say it back. Laughing so hard I thought I wasn’t ever going to stop. Playing my first video game. Getting my first ever promotion. Passing my driving test. Saying goodbye to my grandpa the last time I ever saw him alive. Looking down from a bridge in Canada and realising that all that was between me and the ground was an elastic rope. On and on they go…just like Lego I suppose.”
A smile. “And I think I have kept you all talking long enough. Excuse me for a moment.”
With that your host departs and the night continues on. You enjoy the food, the drinks, the expansive, almost cavernous surroundings, and the interesting circular pattern on every wall. A few hours later he reappears, and offers to drop you off home. A little the worse for wear for the drinks, you think he is going to get his car, but just then you hear a strange wheezing, groaning sound filling the room. Your host grins and opens the door for you.
Steeling yourself for the cold air outside, you step through the doors only to find yourself…in…your own living room. You spin around to ask your host what just happened, but he’s gone, the doors are gone and all you can hear is that wheezing sound again, fading away into nothing.
Now that’s a party.