A Rare Social Event.

I went to a bonfire and fireworks event at the village pub tonight. It’s a long time since I’ve seen a bonfire. It’s a long time since I’ve seen fireworks. It’s a long time since I had a pint of classic English ale in a proper English pub. It’s a long time since I socialised at all.

Except, of course, I didn’t socialise. I didn’t know a single person there and none of them knew me. The only person I spoke to was the barmaid to order a pint, and to correct her when she gave me the wrong change. And all the attractive women had husbands and children in tow. Is there something slightly sad about all this? No. I’m used to it. It’s a world I chose to create for myself, so I would have no right to complain even if I wanted to, which I don’t.

What I did was what I always do when I’m out among people and amusements. I observed. The trails and showers of coloured lights, the noises, and the fragments of burning ash in the sky all provoked appropriate metaphors. The ash, for example, was a flock of fireflies. The people suggested no metaphors as such, but they did make me feel uneasy. I looked at their eyes as the bonfire burned fiercely, and felt a dulling sense of horror at the thought that a mere four hundred years ago another group of villagers might well have been standing there, thrilling to the sickening sound of a supposed witch’s screams. It wasn’t a nice feeling, and it suggested one of the reasons why I tend not to socialise. Is this what makes people driven to write, I wonder?

I did occasionally feel that it would be nice to have someone for company, but it would have needed to be someone special. One name did spring to mind, but she was probably asleep at the time and wouldn’t have wanted to be there anyway. Just as well, I suppose.

The half mile walk home along the unlit country lane was cold; the temperature is down around freezing tonight. As I quickened my pace among the blackness beneath the trees, I recalled that nothing except sex, romance and rugby ever excited me. Where other people squeal, and say ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ a lot, I have always stood apart and observed. It’s the way I’ve always been made, and I can’t see it changing now.