I sit in this corner most afternoons – weekdays – I always have a bottle of Newcastle Brown. I don’t really like beer but it’s a place to go now I’m retired.
I could stop at home; I can pay the gas bill, but there’s nothing to do. And you have to get out don’t you.
I never go to Wetherspoons’, they’re too big and noisy and people are drunk by one in the afternoon. This place suits me fine. An old-fashioned pub where they’ll talk to you or leave you alone whatever you like.
It’ll be different in the summer. I’ll go over the park and watch the cricket. They have a bandstand too.
I’m looking at this feller by the bar. I know him, but I just can’t place him. He’s in his fifties, wearing creased polyester trousers and one of those windcheaters we used to wear in the sixties but are back in fashion. They say short-shorts for men are coming back. Not that I’ve noticed. The girls have been wearing them forever but the boys prefer those Nike sport shorts. The feller, I think I might have seen him in Aldi, behind the till.
I promised myself I’d paint the back bedroom when I retired. It’s been needing doing for years. I’ll get round to it yet, there’s no rush. Nobody – apart from the lad who put in my Smart meter – has been in my house since Joyce passed.
The Aldi feller’s just leaving, maybe his shift’s starting.
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Words: Richard Rooney
Illustration: A.I.
Flash Fiction 250
Flash Fiction 250 