There’s a party goin’ on and you’re invited!

But first, you must choose a color in order to be admitted into the gymnasium, which is divided into two sections. Left is for blue, and right is for red. That’s it. No purple, black, white, yellow, green, etc. Although you are free to dress in whatever color or style best suits your taste, you are required to wear a blue or red headset, which will dictate the genre of music you hear and the kind of images that appear on the screens above the basketball hoop.

The people wearing blue headphones appear lively, animated. They are quite diverse in their choice of dance garb. Some, despite being conspicuously Caucasian, have clad themselves in West African style Agbada or Dashiki, or in Indian Saree. It is quite mystical. While dancing, their white faces and limbs seem to take on a Casper-the-Ghost aura, disappearing amid the colorful garments in which they have disguised themselves. Conversely, a group of dark skinned folks are sporting the uniforms of their county fair championship cornhole team.

It is certainly a mixed bag here in the blue tent. The LGBTQ community has shown up with especially daring costumes, including the Secretary or War wearing a tutu, and a leather-clad Tinkerbell with high boots and a snakeskin whip. A group of environmentalists has brought their own tree, upon which they perform group hugs.

Isolated in one corner of the blue side is a group of wide-eyed individuals restlessly pacing back and forth. Periodically, one steps forward and raises his black-gloved fist as a gesture of defiance. They all wear T-shirts with different versions of the President who, in various prone postures, is the recipient of very unpleasant carnal retribution.

Another group consists of a dozen people dressed in the same outfits, like peasants. They have made themselves alike in other ways. The shorter ones wear lifts in their shoes while the taller ones bend their knees as they stand and walk. Hence, they all are the same height! All wear glasses, whether they need them or not, and they carry a dictionary that has only a hundred words, thus ensuring that no one is more informed or articulate than another. They are equal in every way.

Amid this roiling sea of humanity, there are also individuals, like flotsam after a shipwreck, who seem lost or uncertain as they flit from one group to the next, never seeming to fit in. Finally, there are folks who don’t speak any English, yet are aware of the blue generosity and have come to help themselves to all the free stuff.

Beneath projected Utopian images of unity and happiness, the clans of blue headset people shimmy and shake and collide while cussing at each other and complaining about the music that ranges from blues to electronic disco. It is a spectacle indeed!

The red headset people are easier to describe. Almost all are fair skinned. The men in the select seat area (a floating transparent, impenetrable bubble) wear dark suits. They have either dyed their hair or purchased silver-orange toupees costing upwards of $8,000. To remind everyone of the real masculinity lurking under those pressed suits, they have brought with them an entourage of tattooed, leather clad motorcycle enthusiasts – patriots who were wrongly convicted by the government and who have used their compensation money to buy new motorcycles and weaponry superior to baseball bats and flagpoles. Standing guard at the half court line is a platoon of MMA athletes and professional wrestlers in speedos.

The women are stunning, their faces aglow like sweet glossy frosting on a cake. Their hair pieces are designed by some of the world’s most exotic zookeepers, and their dresses are tailor made to prop up their most prominent features. They are walking, breathing slot machines that take gold or bit coins exclusively.

Cordoned off in the back corner near the restrooms and beer keg is a group of regular folks in their best pair of jeans who remember the rallies of ’24. Some are so in awe of the wrestlers and MMA dudes that they break through the cordones to try and get a selfie with one of them, happy to pay the price of getting their face flattened and limbs pretzeled. Others, more ambitious and cultured in the art of finance, gaze at the bubble in awe and envy.

The red music plays for all of them, and their bodies move in various dance styles that might be dubbed the flying bugs around my head swat, the restless knee jerk, or the stomp the roach strut. All this to the music of Millie Vanillie and Kid Rock as the screen conveys images of a golden reflecting pool and an orange-headed Jesus.

So choose your color and get your ticket before it’s sold out!

Pete Howard, author of “Rosebud Dreamworld,” lives in Dunkirk.