‘He’s been on too long.’
He hasn’t. He’s got three minutes. ‘Give him a break … it’s his first time.’
‘What if we miss him?’
I can see the door. And I know there’s no back door. And I know he went in. ‘He’ll come out soon.’
‘Yeah, but what if we’ve be on by then?’
‘Then he’ll miss us, won’t he?’
Harry’s such a worrier. Didn’t used to be. Can’t blame him for it. And there’s no point blaming him for it either. Marriages end. Parents split up. One brother takes it. The other doesn’t. Still, you get some lyrics out of it. Every cloud and all that.
‘He’d probably screw us over anyway.’
I haven’t got in me to respond. I’m really good at it though. I cut through the suspicion. Then the doubt. We end up somewhere that takes us back to where we are now: sitting on the ground on one of the busiest streets in London, waiting our turn to perform a twenty minute set to passers-by and a man who may or may not come out of his office at some point during those twenty minutes, pause because he likes what he hears, linger, and then linger longer till the set ends and he can come up to this and ask us the question that I want to hear more than any other question: Are you signed with anyone?
‘He’s gone over … I’m telling you.’
Harry was right. He had gone over. ‘Patience … we’re okay … he’s still in his …’
The light in the top floor office across the street went out.
‘Did you see that?’
I did see that. ‘Come on … I’m moving this kid.’
The light on the next floor down went out. The next would be the ground.
‘Hurry up.’
‘You don’t want to give him a break now, do you?’
The final light went out. ‘No I fucking don’t.’
‘But it’s first time?’
‘Don’t care … stupid prick needs to move … come on!’
This fictional short story was written for a 50 Day Project organised by the artist Amanda Billing. I get 45 minutes to an hour (not the project’s rules, it’s just about the time I have right now) to write a story, sometime between 4.30am and 5.30am. After that, the day is no longer mine.
N.B. The sketch image for this short story was created using AI (at best, I can draw a half-decent stick man). The words are all mine.
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