Night Out | Short Story

Eight bells, and stepping out of taxis, the sharpeners, the cashpoint visits, nervous chittering and you look fabs, and backslaps, bouncing on the balls of their feet as they wait for some straggler.

Nine, and the rush of warm air from the pub, the I’ll get us a tables, and this one’s on mes, and at the table it’s coats on the backs of chairs and seat swapping and the tacky surfaces, the beer mats flipped and everyone finding their places in conversations.

By ten the latecomers have arrived with embarrassed excuses and never mind you’re here nows, the finding of extra chairs and sorry is anybody sitting here, the tray of shuddering shot glasses that someone’s ordered on the sly, the this is how it started last time, the bonhomie a little less forced.

Eleven and the peak, where early lamentations of don’t talk about work are sunk because there are precious few other shared experiences and the trips to the toilets more frequent now, the journeys to the bar less memorable and more crowded, elbows juddering the drinks trays and sorry mates and the bar staff with thousand-yard stares as spittle-flecked orders are yelled into ears.

Midnight and the lull, the breakwater between the all-nighters and the parents, the tired and the footsore, the game and the party-poopers, and the bartenders are weary now with damp rags thrown over shoulders, the groups easing off into twos and threes now, the coherence going and the dancing really starting, the shall we go on somewhere?

One and the dawn of a new day and old grievances long-nursed and hidden deep are brought to the surface by booze and tiredness and the reindeer antlers are still on as the mascara runs, the fingers jabbing and the booze breath pluming in the night air, the just leave its and the he’s not worth its and the drunken stalks home into the darkness, righteous anger burning hot against the chill.

Two and the weaving taxi rank, the bottle fragments crunching against the frost and the chancers trying to get in cabs not ordered for them, the beggars wary of the drunks, tired now and those struggling are held up in the queue, swaddled in coats from the swaggering heroes who don’t feel the cold and anyway she’s a bird ain’t she, and the rapprochements and the I didn’t mean its, the it’s been a long day that’s alls, the vomitings into the roads and the hoping that the taxi driver hasn’t seen and he’s fine mate, really he’s fine just tired.

Three and the silence after the evening pulses, every sound magnified in the stark street from the shutters being pulled down by the weary pub owners to the polystyrene chip boxes clattering up the pavement and the wind keening through the overstuffed bins, even the shuffles of the huddled in the doorways the muffled rub of wet cardboard and bin bag and mouldered duvet, and before long but not soon enough the silent creep of the bone-chill through the black pavements, the yawning dark reigning before a timid dawn.

*Thanks for reading, folks. Image courtesy of Freebie. My recent short stories include ‘Cleanliness is Next…‘ and ‘PLANET 4662/1183J/983!/11C‘.

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Matthew Richardson is a writer of short stories. His work has featured in Gold Dust magazine, Literally Stories, Close to the Bone, McStorytellers, Penny Shorts, Soft Cartel, Whatever Keeps the Lights On, Flashback Fiction, Cafelit, Best MicroFiction 2021, Writer’s Egg, Idle Ink, The Wild Word, and Shooter magazine. He is a doctoral student at the University of Dundee, a lucky husband, and a proud father. He blogs at www.matthewjrichardson.com.