An Experiment

Today’s posting is all about catching up. It’s been an extremely hectic week what with the dog attacking my mother and our dog, subsequent visits to the doctor and vet, school holidays, Jack’s birthday, Jack’s birthday party, Andy being ill, Andy laying floors in three bedrooms and the upheaval associated with that and the usual stress and strains of everyday life. Added to that, I found my Sussex Saturday quite hard going so I’ve not really felt like writing since. But I’m back. And I’m feeling a little experimental. I’ve missed writing responses to five prompts from Sarah Salway so I’m going to try and combine all of them in one AND try to keep it to three hundred words. Here goes ....

He wasn’t the worst looking man in the room. Second worst, maybe; the other one had already collapsed in the corner, snoring. The glitter ball rotating from the ceiling in the Working Men’s Club was throwing out blobs of silver, purple and gold but its axis reflected a beam of white light vertically down onto the top of the man’s head beneath. He too was gyrating, arms like windmill sails, revealing sweat patches under his arms, framed by the sleevelessness of his tank top. A procession of young girls sidled away, giggling behind their hands. The object of Sheila’s musings was temporarily alone in his space; a lull in the music as one track faded and a new one began and his reliance on a floor-filler to follow was looking likely to be met. It was ‘Stairway to Heaven’; too old for most in the room but the DJ always played at the end of the evening. No one would meet the man’s gaze, the bare floor surrounding him grew like the ripples from a pebble thrown into a pond. Only one person didn’t retreat. Sheila walked over to him. The outer circle of onlookers tightened. He had no escape.

‘Don’t worry, darling. Just hold on tight and you’re in for the ride of your life.’

He said nothing.

‘D’you know, when I was sixteen, I wanted the dream house, the tall dark, handsome man and two kids. Things never quite turn out how you think though do they?’

Still he said nothing. He was speechless as she took his hands and rested them on her hips after she’d wriggled up and sat atop her walking frame.

‘You’re never too old to be a rock chick.’

The caretaker was beginning to stack the chairs but the audience wasn’t going anywhere.