Friday, 11 February 2011

Blank Canvas (Part 2 of 2)

"Oh, for fuck's sake."
"Hm?"
"I've just jumped in the water. I told you to do a backflip!"

Joel hands the iPod back to Cliffey, and unhappily awaits destruction. They are sitting in a bus shelter near the station, waiting for the arrival of the silver chariot that will take them home.

"I'm worried they'll get lost."
"Don't be. They'll get here. They just might be...late."
"What, like 1am?"
"Yeah. On Friday morning."

The show was phenomenally entertaining, littered with TV theme medleys and talking Jack O' Lanterns and between-song sketches and even an Outkast cover. Joel is pleased to have been able to shout "ICE COLD!" at someone in the course of his gig-going, even if it was decidedly not AndrĂ© 3000.

But in spite of this, they were glad to get out. Sin City was, predictably enough, packed to the rafters, and there was a bit of a squeeze when it came time to leave. Ten or fifteen minutes had passed in there without any movement whatsoever; Cliffey spent it pinned against the merch desk, all the while dodging the audience members who hadn't bought their The Blanks hotpants beforehand.

Joel passed the time by playing Which Famous Football Stadium Disaster Would The Eventual Inevitable Chaos Most Resemble? Given the crush, he reasoned, it would probably be Hillsborough, but hey! Maybe the band would come back on for a second encore and we'd end up with an Ibrox.

But fortunately they made it out alive, and having ignored the not-so-orderly queue to get back in - everybody wanted to meet Ted from Scrubs - they had ended up here, on the bus stop.

A young man asks if they are also waiting for the 4A; they are not. He skulks off into the night.

And before they know it, another game of Worms is over, and they're in the car, on the way home. Tom is driving.

"I can't believe you got me to come to Swansea."

Joel smirks.

"Well excuse me for only paying you £25. Next time I won't bother."

Sarah is smiling in the backseat, and their housemate Pete has come along too. They exchange tales of their evenings, how good the gig was, how they bumped into Sam, how that didn't really come to anything, and everything looks like it will be okay because nobody has to spend the night in Swansea.

THE END

No comments:

Post a Comment