After the ball
By Simon Barget
- 495 reads
Devastation. We walked with our heads bowed in case they were watching. We didn’t want to say it, didn’t want to make song or dance. We couldn’t explain if we tried and who wanted to listen. We couldn’t explain our grief to ourselves, we couldn’t make sense of it. Who cared and least of all us. Who wanted to go into it? Where to go, what depths now to plummet. The city was eerie, like a bomb had gone off in it. Like everyone had left or had wanted to leave. We were bogged down in our grief, left bereft and confused. All we’d wanted was to feel joy, all we’d wanted was to be happy. To unhex ourselves, untwist the knots in our cavities. To be able to breathe and shout and jump about in the street. After the ball there was no solace, just the steady burr of some distant traffic. What now, what next? Seemed to be nothing. Only more gaps to fill, more and more gaps. Why always filling the gaps, why couldn’t we settle in them? After the ball nothing to show for our efforts, save our jangled nerves, our eyes wide with shock. Rabbits trapped in the headlights. Always some distant traffic, all I could hear now. The cats were all sleeping, the dogs were laid out. The rattle of the manhole cover as the bus trundled over it. There was pain all the way in my feet, my toes were tingling. It was unfamiliar but known. My brain foggy, my ears faintly ringing. I couldn’t think; I was dead to myself. I went round and round but settled on nothing. Went out and paced up and down the street. All we’d wanted was the illusion of something, to feel we were ok.
The traffic is picking up now, the dogs waking up.
The clouds are breaking.
Wipe the sleep from your eyes, friend.
There are more gaps to fill, more work to be done.
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