The Book Club
We all recieved the same letter, none of us had met previously but we all got the exact same letter inviting us to The Book Club, we were all lonely and isolated in different ways but the result was similar – we all jumped at the chance of something gentle that wasn’t a pub or club and would not cost a fortune like night classes would besides we had nearly all tried the evening classes or day classes for that matter and never did any lasting friendship occur. It was like we only existed in that space and the fiends we made never invited us to anything or made any attempt to keep the relationship alive.
Those of us that had attempted follow ups by being the initiator had found active hostility or brutal rebuttal.
Yes a book club appealed to all of us, and so we all came, every single one of use, clutching in fear and hope the exact same letter. And still no one knew who had sent it. The setting was a little weird and it should have warned us all that we needed to get out of there but we were so desperate, so in need of each other and there was no threat from each other and so was sat in the old victorian building with flapping sheet plastic at the windows and not enough dust for where we were.
The books were all arranged on the chairs, in neat little circles all precise and the way we liked them and so we sat and wondered what the place had been and who our benefactor was. Lighting and tea were provided by a admittedly annoying generator chugging away in another room and so we sat and we began to read, many of us knew full well that this was not how book clubs worked. no not at all and yet we stayed in the companionship reading and dinking tea and there was coffee for those who drank coffee and juice for those who did not do hot drinks and even biscuits.
In some ways it was a heaven to the hell we, each and everyone of us had been living and so we stayed and stayed and the night wore on and we just huddled closer together until we were nestled in blankets and on cushions that someone had found. And sometimes we chatted and… we never wanted that night to end, never wanted to leave that wondrous moment of the Book Club inaugural meeting.
And we didn’t, because the gas game whilst we dosed and dripped us into unconsciousness and for a minority even death. Then they stripped us and put us in the old sausage blender, some of us sadly awoke during this process and even with the pain they went through we still do not know who invited us to the Book Club and so we are all still here, still in this building huddled, no longer alone at least I suppose.
Posted: Sunday, October 7th, 2018 @ 10:31 am
Categories: Flash Fiction.
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