We sat at the top of a brownstone, a windowless attic given over to one of the weekly meetups for writing. The room had rows of brown varnished stiff-backed chairs that faced the lectern at the front. And the lectern was mostly used by the organizers so I didn’t read that night but some others did.
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The audience, as well as the readings, were very gay. At the end, the main man whose eyes leaked with yellow pus explained that Amazon had a scheme where you could get a publication done for free. I thought it might apply only to the audience who was there.
Once the crowd had gotten up from their chairs and dispersed, I asked him again what he meant, as I hadn’t properly understood it the first time. I stood at the top of the bannister listening to him while Siobhan continued on down the spiral staircase.
He looked up at me while his one eye leaked. The eye was a little crusty from the pus.
The man opened a book bought from Amazon and he dog-eared the page that had his sample LGBTQ stories on them.
“Thanks,” I said and then, with the book, I chased Siobhan down the stairs and out into the street.
Outside it was a black night and getting back home wasn’t easy.
We’d missed the train and so instead Siobhan and I walked along the tracks until we had to step away to let a cargo train pass by. We walked through an alley with orange brick walls and a piece of brick fell towards me from the top of the alley wall. I caught the brick as it fell and I held onto it. It might be useful, I thought.
Then we crossed a disused yard, stepping over some mesh wire fencing and some rubbish strewn on the ground until we reached the next yard. Joan shrieked as a large grey rat came near her.
I yelled at the rat and the rat scurried away, but then another smaller rat with a thin nose and long whispers scurried closer to her foot. I kicked at that one too but it refused to leave. Instead, one of the talons of its claws stuck in the toe of my shoe when I kicked at it again.
Photo by Julius Massius via WikiMedia Commons.
