A tragedy of excess, obsession, and the American Dream.
Darkness swathes the West Egg lawn, heavy and silent. A solitary figure stands at the edge of the dock, his hand trembling as he reaches out toward the black water. He is grasping for something he cannot hold. He believed in the green light.
Across the mist-covered bay, a single emerald spark blinks at the end of a pier. It pulses rhythmically, hypnotic and unreachable in the night. It is the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.
Champagne towers shatter under the weight of jazz and excess. Flappers spin in a blur of sequins and smoke while a yellow Rolls Royce cuts through the dark. All of New York drinks his wine, but no one knows Jay Gatsby.
The cottage smells of damp lilacs and nervous sweat. Outside, rain lashes the windows; inside, Gatsby stands pale as a ghost. He stares at the woman he built an empire for. Five years of waiting boil down to this silence.
Silk shirts in coral, apple-green, and violet drift through the air like expensive confetti. Daisy buries her face in the soft heaps, sobbing stormily. "It makes me sad because I've never seen such—such beautiful shirts before."
The Plaza suite is a stifling yellow oven. Sweat beads on Tom’s aggressive brow as he slams the table, ice melting rapidly between them. "I suppose you’ve got to make your house into a pigsty in order to have any friends."
Gatsby’s eyes burn with desperate intensity. He needs to erase the last five years entirely, to make the past pure again. He leans in, voice trembling. "Just tell him the truth—that you never loved him."
Daisy’s mask of gaiety fractures. She looks from her husband to her lover, helpless and terrified. The words tear out of her, shattering Gatsby's illusion. "I did love him once—but I loved you too."
Twilight falls over the ash heaps. A yellow "death car" screams through the dusk, a blur of chrome and terror. A sickening thud echoes against the billboard eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg. The car does not stop.
Gatsby stands vigil in the moonlight, his pink suit stained with dust. Through the window, Tom and Daisy sit over cold chicken, conspiring in safety. He waits for a signal that will never come.
Autumn leaves drift onto the blue surface of the pool. Gatsby floats on an air mattress, staring up at a sky he can no longer own. The phone on the deck remains silent. The holocaust is complete.
A sharp crack echoes across the lawn, silencing the birds. The water turns a slow, swirling red around the spinning mattress. He paid a high price for living too long with a single dream.
Tom and Daisy retreat into the fog, luggage packed, backs turned. They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money and vast carelessness. They do not look back.
The lights are out for good. Weeds claw through the cracks of the once-pristine driveway. Wind blows trash across the dark lawn where the music used to play. The party is over.
The green light is barely visible now, small and distant in the dark. So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
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