The Ballad of Nothing Then

Nothing going on in a bookshop aside from people walking by and books calling from the shelves to be taken away like puppies from the shelter. Pick me, pick me.

Then a scream and I turn to see someone tumble from the balcony and plummet to the floor below. He didn’t scream as he fell. She did that. The woman above him. The one with her arms extended as if in the act of pushing.

Nothing for me to do because, y’know, people flock to that kinda thing like flies and at least one of them is bound to be helpful, so I carried on reading the novel I’d picked up from a table display because, well, why not?

Then, about a couple of minutes later, I hear footsteps behind me: clomp, clomp, clomp. Big boots, heavy tread and so I put my finger on the page to keep my place and turn towards the sound. It’s the woman who’d had her arms extended. Except they’re not held out how. One of them is at her side but the other is pointing at me and there’s a finger at the end and it’s beckoning towards me.

Nothing is going to make me want to stand up and walk towards pusher-girl so I smile and point to my book, give her a wry smile and a shake of the head and swivel in my seat back towards the front and away from her. After all, this is a bookshop, not a place to be pushed off a balcony to a more-or-less certain death.

Then she reaches my side, sits down beside me and peels off her top. Now I know that you’re thinking right now of a sweater or a t-shirt or maybe some kind of easily removable blouse and that she’s naked underneath apart from a really nice, albeit rather skimpy bra, but that’s not what I mean.

Nothing, and I mean nothing prepares a guy for the sight of a woman taking off the top of her head. I mean, sure, you’ll have seen those movies where cowboys are scalped or Hannibal the Cannibal plays with someone’s exposed brain whilst having dinner with him, but none of that happens in a bookshop in downtown LA on an otherwise normal Thursday afternoon, right?

Then in that case, you’ll be relieved to hear that she just pulled her T-shirt off over her head. She wasn’t wearing that flimsy lingerie I alluded to earlier. In fact, she was wearing nothing but her skin. She was pretty too. Yeah, let your imagination run riot at this point; I dare you!

Nothing could stop a guy from paying attention to a scene like that as it unfolded before him. Nothing, that is, apart from his wife returning from her shopping and asking ‘What yuh writing, hun?’

Then, in the time-honoured tradition of husband-wife dynamics, I said ‘Nothing, dear,’ and put away my imagination, saved my file, slipped my phone back into my pocket and stood.

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Just a quick note about what you’ve just presumably read: I wrote it, for the most part, in a bookshop in LA on the 2nd of November 2023 whilst waiting for my wife to finish shopping. Most of it is the product of my idle mind.

The structure of the piece is good, bad, good, bad. To explain: the paragraphs starting with ‘nothing’ are good or normal things and those starting with ‘then’ describe bad or horrific events. I wanted to see if I could take my readers on an emotional rollercoaster ride.

My wife did arrive as the (imaginary) woman began to strip, thus saving all our blushes. My wife’s good like that. I did then put the phone away and subsequently only finished this piece now, whilst sitting in a Library in York.

The reason I’m finishing it now (aside from the fact that I was interrupted then) is that I’m working through my Draft folder. It had reached fifty-one partially completed items, which was waaay too much. When I publish this it’ll take me down to forty-eight items. Expect more odd stuff soon.