Act normal or go away. The man said. It was 2pm. It was 12pm. Then, 3pm. A man off set tut-tutted the oxford comma. There was no off set, this was live action. Real. There were lights, though. Cameras. Klieg lights, named after Paul Kleeg. Paul Kleeg was well known, friendly, but people never saw his name in print. He did not invent the lights, he sold them. Before that, they did not have a name- they were just lights.
“This is an aside,” someone said. And they were right, it was.
“What is this?” asked another person. I didn’t know how to answer that. That phrase… I DID know how to answer a question, I did not know with what to respond to this question. Language is a tangled mess. I wasn’t sure if it was structurally sound. That is, is there a sort of molecular structure to words, metaphorically speaking?
“This is an aside,” someone said. It was. I heard someone shift in their seat. a Nervous shift. The air was hyper with anxiety, not electric, but like jazz. Dread. What was this? What is this supposed to be?
“What is this supposed to be?”
No response.
A cough- a cough not in response, this cough would have occurred anyway. The feet of a chair sliding. The feeling of heat waves. Dread.