Open Writing

It happened only a short time ago. Dark and out of focus it may be, but the memory remains in my mind almost as though it happened somewhere beyond the edge of what we choose to call reality. If you have a minute or two, perhaps I could tell you about it?

After walking up and down an unlit wide upstairs passage, seeking the right door, I espied someone who had preceded me up the stairs and walked towards a corner in which I hadn't realised there was a concealed entrance. I followed her in. When my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could see about 50 elderly people seated in rows of seats that were ranked in tiers. As far as I was aware, they could not see me. They appeared to be waiting. Quietly waiting.

It was then that I saw what the person I had followed was doing — she was handing out plates of food to these silent old people. I scanned their shaded faces in that darkling place, as well as I could, but the person I really sought was not visible. I had previously been told that she was not there, but one can always hope.

Let us take a step back to what had happened prior to this. Downstairs, a few people were walking or standing in the foyer. The sole source of light seemed to be daylight coming through the large glass doors. I spoke to the nearest person, telling her that I was looking for a friend who might be somewhere on the premises. In an unsmiling response, I was asked to reveal the name of my friend. To preserve anonymity and protect the innocent, let's say it was Emm.

Nobody here by that name, I was told. What is her surname? I told her. Is she part of our group, I was asked — the Heatherington Bowls Club. (I have again changed the name, in order not to betray any privileged information.) I was puzzled. Emm doesn't belong to the Heatherington Bowls Club. Had I looked upstairs? And it was thus that I mounted the wide stairs and found the corridor of doors, and then the tiered ranks of septuagenarians and octogenarians quietly waiting to be fed.

Perhaps, at this point, we should take another step backward in time. About half an hour earlier, perhaps more, there had been a violent storm. The sort of storm when you expect to see a tree, in whole or part, crash down on somebody's roof. It was my roof that worried me. I was surrounded by the multiple sounds of a myriad branches, twigs and leaves scraping, scratching, scrubbing on the tiles above me and the walls around me. Rain swept almost horizontally along the street. Thank goodness I was indoors.

When the chaos subsided, I drove to the local shops. The traffic lights on the corner weren't working. Perhaps a fallen tree had somewhere disrupted the power system. At the shopping centre, all the shops were in darkness. No electricity. Automatic sliding doors would not automatically slide. Shop-keepers had to open them by hand in order to tell customers that their cash tills weren't working so no business could be done. A sad reminder of how much we rely on electricity nowadays.

I was able to buy the morning newspaper because I had the exact amount of money in small change. It became a manual transaction, not requiring the drawer of the till to be opened electrically so that a note could be put in and change taken out. Just like old times.

It was then that I thought of Emm. So now, putting aside the exaggeration, dark drama and purple prose, here is the other part of the story. It was quite straightforward, actually. She was in a group from a local club for elderly folk. They were at the small cinema in our local shopping centre, for one of those convivial bus outings that elderlies enjoy. The arrangement is that they make a block booking which includes a sandwich lunch, with tea or coffee, when the film has finished.

Emm was due to come to my place when the film and the sandwich lunch were over. Because all the power was off, in the shopping centre, it occurred to me that plans would have to be changed.

It's true that I eventually groped my way into the pretty well unlit cinema and I couldn't see her anywhere. It's also true that she turned up at my place, as planned, at more of less the arranged time an hour or two later. She had been in that group. What Heatherington Bowls Club had to do with it all, we couldn't work out. The film projector had stopped before the film had finished, so their sandwiches were served before the power came on again and then they could watch the rest of the film. That's all. Nothing more complex than that.

But I couldn't resist writing backwards as a mysterious melodrama spiced up with a sprinkling of purple prose, could I? For a writer, nothing is "ordinary".

© Copyright Brian Barratt 2010, 2011

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