He emerged into the smoke bitten air, more
than glad to greet clocking off with a charge
of slim white sticks saluting the sky.
The dragons with diamond eyes glittered, as he
appeared and he knew he was the news in town.
He pulled his collar up to his ears and, eyes down,
made the march through a rustle of women –
all ears for an utterance of shame – he was
the villain of the piece, this they knew for sure.
They had their powder rooms to retire to
and bitch, where could he put his piece forward
with a snifter of Scotch? He grinned to think
of his comrades talking of their hard treatments
and banishments at the hands of their proud
womenfolk, interrupting commentary on boxed
ears and knife fights of the street. Still, when he
shunted open the door at the Goat & Nightgown,
he could see, if he hadn’t felt it by now, it was a night
for hard drinking. He’d had a recce at Smelter’s
Corner at lunch, where you went for tradition
when your life was in the gutter but the slap-faced
dames who made perch from Accounts, shrieking
like banshee dancers put him off. He threw his black
felt trilby on the bar with relief, ‘The usual, Jim,’ he said.
This would be the dame’s last chance, he’d given
her several, and if she bottled out this time, evinced
another excuse to stay in this rat-hole, dung-heap town,
with the nodding dogs for yes-men and their hollow
-eyed stooges, no horse or ambition, he’d not stay
to be run out by hoodlums and their molls, no fear,
but he’d be buckled for dust in the morning.
Sarah is a surrealist, poet-playwright, based in Scotland. She has degrees in creative subjects from Leeds, UEA and Birmingham U’s, life was more structured in academia. On the outside it’s more surreal. But what is real? Aren’t we all constructions? Enjoy the journey.