The year bleeds out — 1999, ragged and hurried,
a thousand eyes fixed on the clock,
but not Sascha’s.
He has arrived for something timeless:
to judge, to measure what Miami calls sacred.
It’s an insult, a brawl against the pure,
silent lines of De Stijl’s ordered form,
or the disciplined force of German Expressionism’s bloodline.
This isn’t art, he scoffs;
it’s madness, a flamboyant rebellion of color and shape.
A taxi door slams shut,
a hum punctuating arrival.
Sascha stands on Ocean Drive.
Colors riot, spilling over curbs,
licking at the edges of his restraint.
Through the crowd—
spandex, sequins,
glistening skin,
he pushes forward, jaw tight.
They celebrate sacred geometry
as a carnival of flesh,
a strobe-lit parody
of Mondrian, Kandinsky.
Ahead, the Miami Design Preservation League looms,
its crisp facade betrayed by revelry.
This should be a shrine, he thinks,
but it’s a vanity fair.
Then—a pause.
A club on his left sits dark. No lines, no bass
thundering through its ribs. Just a signless door, ajar.
It shouldn’t be quiet tonight. Not here.
The club is a hollow shell,
darkness pooled where light should be.
Sascha steps inside,
his shoes loud against the stillness.
No bassline hums, no bodies sway—
just a stage, empty as an unsaid word.
“Where is everyone?” he mutters,
fingers brushing his chin
as if the answer lived there.
