Competition Nineteen Highly Commended: Dancing At The Galway Oyster Festival by Karen Arnold
In five minutes time, you will sigh heavily and offer me an unasked for opinion on the current leader of the Labour Party. I will put my hand on your leg without looking up from my book, knowing you will soon be lost in the pages of your newspaper again. By the end of my chapter, your shadow has become long. I know your back will be aching.
In one hour’s time, we will stand in the kitchen. I will peel potatoes and you will feed our half-blind dog, coaxing him with bits of cheese. We will both pretend he is still young. I will shuffle through Spotify playlists to find the singer our granddaughter talks about all the time. The kitchen will smell of roasting chicken and an Irish voice will rise through it like woodsmoke. You will say it reminds you of the singer from the oyster festival.
In two hours’, time, we will still be laughing as you throw facts about oysters at me until I beg you to stop. You will remind me that when he did this, that time in the pub in Galway, I threatened to tip Guinness over his head if he did not shut up. I will remind you that the evening ended in dancing, and we will dance again in the dark kitchen, swaying to the broken-hearted, elemental voice.
In three hours’ time, we will go to bed. Neither of us will say it, but both of us will think about how quiet the house is. We will make allowances for stiff hips and sore backs and find pleasure in our moving together. Memories of younger bodies will keep us company.
Tomorrow morning, your newspaper will remain unopened on the kitchen table, but I do not know that yet.
Karen Arnold is a writer and child psychotherapist. She came to writing later in life, but is busy making up for lost time. She is fascinated by the way we use narratives and storytelling to make sense of our human experience. She won the Mslexia prize for flash fiction in 2022 and was placed second in the Oxford Flash Fiction competition in 2023 She has work in The Waxed Lemon, The Martello, and Roi Faineant amongst others.
Photo by Charlotte Coneybeer on Unsplash
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