The Operation

He was sweating and sweating real bad. He lifted a cigarette from an unseen pocket and placed it in his lips. It hung there waiting for the match. He always used matches, never a light, it seemed amazing that people still used those simple wooden things; it reminded me of a long forgotten movie star, striking his boot to ignite the red Sulphur head – the man with no name. The figure exhaled and extinguished the match on this tongue.

This man gave me the fear, and my head began to hurt from thought – his mood didn’t fit the music and the punters give him a wide berth as though his presence yielded a fiery boundary, burned into the tacky boards that throbbed beneath our feet. The figure looked over and began to walk in my direction, his gaze unrelenting and without recognition. His boots graced the dance floor for the first and only time that night, the base pumping an old white label, vibrating the air, the lights catching his angular face. Eye sockets, dark pockets, shrewd ice green eyes points of fire shot with intensity.

Between the gaps of the main players throwing gifts on the dance floor, I involuntarily stepped forward towards the oncoming stranger as though I should come at his bidding as flame out of fire. I realized my mistake too late as I’d unwittingly distinguished myself from the paying guests – the dancers, the prancers, the divas and the jivers; my colourful camouflage now useless, defunct.

Big Al and Baggo stepped out of the shadows looking tetchy and disturbed. They’d sensed my thoughts and felt the need to protect. Thank god for their inhuman sense of danger.

Another step closer!

Eye contact with both doormen – red alert!

Another twirl closer!

Big Al blundered forward with black strands of limp wet hair jabbing his glassy eyeballs, heavy puffed hands jostling a way through the heaving crowd.

Another jive closer!

Baggo stuck fast, some greasy lipped tart trying it on for some future free entry.

Damn it.

The stranger was close and I caught a glimmer of black metal lit by a stray blue strobe. No – not here, not in the club! How did a weapon get through the detector?

It wasn’t possible.

Darkness! Screams then shuffles, restlessness, stillness, then nothing.

* * * *

click here to read more

if you would like to leave feedback, please use the form below.