Saturday Night

“I never thought I'd be sitting alone in my room wondering what to do on a Saturday night?” 

“I would never have thought it either.” 

“I guess it must be me, raise my eyebrow, think che.”

“After all this time and all that's come before this point.” 

“You are supposed to deny it.”

“Oh, am I, okay.”

“You know, when I think about it. Wow! Life catches up eventually, hey?”

“Yeah, apparently it does.”

“I guess, I should head out and see who I can see? Fuck for a friend, that’s how I’ve always made them, pretty much.”

“That's how you make friends, hey?”

“That's how most of my other friendships started. I just haven't been going out enough. Must break this hermity stage, it gets in the way.”

“That’s what ‘they’ would say.” He made parenthesis in the air with his fingers.

“Saturday night's alright, ‘they’ say.” He made parenthesis in the air with his hands. “Saturday night is alright.”

“The great hope, Saturday night.”

“Good thing I like being ‘with’ me. Some people can’t, you know, can’t abide themselves.” 

“I’ve never understood why?” 

“How else do you get intelligent conversation for the night?”

“I’ve always said that.”

They both laughed.

“Pass us the remote?”

“I thought you were going out to fuck a friend?”

“Yeah. Nah. I’m not sure I’ve got it like I used to.”

“I can’t believe what I am hearing.”

“Believe it, buddy, I think I’d rather just stay home and watch teev.”

“I never thought this day would come.”

“Me neither.”

“But here we are.”

“Not twenty anymore.”

“Oh, you poor old man.”

“It’s true.”

“Come on…”

“Don’t you see it, when you go out, there is this whole new layer of kids under us.”

“Yeah, I see it.”

“All doing what we used to do.”

“Yeah, I know, it’s, it’s…”

“Creepy is too stronger word, but it’s not natural, it should be us…”

“It was us.”

“And if it’s not us now, I’d rather just stay home.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. Seriously. I don’t want to see that.”

“See, that?”

“All that hope for the future. All that sunny forever.”

“We used to have that.”

“Yeah, we used to have that. What happened to that?”

“What happened to that?”

“I’ll tell you what happened to that. The truth, that’s what happened to that.”

“The truth?”

“That life ain’t all of that. Life isn’t all happy ever after.”

“It’s hard work.”

“It’s a shit load of hard work.”

“Who’d have thought at 30 something?”

Silence fell between them.

“Pass us the remote.”

He picked up the remote and tossed it over. “But Saturday night?”

The TV made a clunk sound as it started up. “I’ve got some frozen dinners in the freezer and some beers in the fridge, it’s the best I can do? Are you interested?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“There’s pot in the box on the coffee table.”

“I’ll roll.”

“I’ll put the food in the oven.

There was silence as they each got busy with their respective jobs.

“Chicken and apricot, or beef and black bean?”

“Do you remember the snow pea diet?”

“Ah yes, the snow pea diet.”

“You’d snort speed, old school, for three days, Thursday to Sunday, and on the fourth day you’d fill up with a snow pea...”

"And go to work."

"And go to work." 

“Those were the days.”

“Good times.”

“Apricot bullshit, or black bean crap?”

“I’ll take the black bean crap, thanks, I reckon I’m sweet enough.”

“That leaves the apricot bullshit for me.

“I feel sick already.”

“Have you rolled that joint yet?”

“Does the Pope shit in the Vatican?” Is a frog’s arse watertight? Is a pigs pussy pork?

“Huh?”

“Voila.” He held up a perfectly rolled joint.

“Well, don’t stand on fucken ceremony, light the fucker up.”

He put the joint in his mouth and flicked the lighter several times, he dipped the end of the joint into the flame.

“Is the food on?”

“Heating as we speak.”

“Die Hard is on.”

“I love that movie.”

He handed him the joint.

“Saturday night in.”

“How did we used to do it?”

“Back then.”

“Yeah. Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.”

“Sunday too. How much fun was it?”

He handed him back the joint.”

“Not sure how good I was on Friday. How did I get away with it.”

“Not sure how good I was on Tuesday. Some weeks I could barely communicate.”

He handed the joint back.

“How much fun was it.”

“What happened to those days?”

“What happened to those days?”

“Yeah, we never thought they’d end.”

“My friend…”

“Isn’t that a song?”

“Yeah, but they did.”

“Passed into the ether…”

“Like everything should.”

“Does.”

“Will.”

“And nobody notices…”

“Until it is too late.”

“Until it is too fucken late.”

They both looked at each other.

The evening hummed, like the world was contented with itself.

“Roll us another joint, I’ll go check on the food.”