Drummers

“At midnight the place went absolutely to hell, as though every guest—there must have been more than two hundred then, or else all were in the club cellar—had decided simply to throw back his head and holler at the top of his lungs for several hours. The orchestra played on, but without audible effect, and people danced brokenly to no music. For a while someone was kissing me, and I proposed to whoever it was that we fling our glasses into the fireplace, as one should. “There isn’t any fireplace.” “Well, into the noise, then.” “You can’t hit noise, silly.” “Regardez,” I said, and threw mine at the drummer.”

John Barth, The Floating Opera (1956).