Diskhead

A semi-fictional micro scene

I stand outside the doors. This is how intense my life has become. It is Saturday night, around about “party time”. I have spent the day volunteering at a festival. Ushering, fetching this or that. On my feet for most of the day.

Now, at “party time”, I am outside a brand new building, ushering special guests into the after-party. “Are you here for the festival?” I ask them with a big, welcoming smile. “In through the doors, across the foyer, and to the left. Take the elevator up to Level 5. Thank you, have a nice night.”

I step close to a weird arty-farty pillar; of a type that I am convinced does nothing of any structural importance. At its base is a pattern of those small, round metal anti-slip disks they sometimes lay down so people don’t trip. I’m not sure why they are there and not everywhere else. The ground is made from the same rock everywhere, rendering every centimetre equally dangerous in regard to slippage.

Now, if you wanted to be arty-farty – there’s something you could do. Cover this post-modern monstrosity with these little fuckers and see what THAT looks like.

As I move my foot, something shifts. I look down. It’s one of the metal disks. I haven’t loosened it, it’s just off.

I pick up the disk and straighten as another guest arrives. “Part of the festival party? Great. In through the doors, across the foyer, and to the left. Take the elevator up to Level 5.”

It is an interesting feeling, volunteering to help other people go to a party you are not invited to. I’ve never cared much for parties and, if I’m honest, had they invited me to come to this one, I would have politely said no. They did offer me an oyster with bacon on top, which I refused respectfully. The serfs on “Downton Abbey” would be so impressed with my adherence to the rules of service. The servants should never eat with their betters or from their betters’ plates.

Nice to be “on the list”, though, for some reason that escapes me, even if you would not intend to go.

I look down. There’s another disk off. I pick it up, run it in circles around my hand with the other one, like one of those weird little stress ball pairs.

“Here for the festival? Okay then, just in through the doors, across the foyer, and to the left. Take the elevator up to Level 5. Have a nice night!”

The more I look at the ground, the more loose disks I can see. There are quite a few of them. I start to pick them up.

This is a brand-new building.

Some apprentice is getting fired on Monday morning.

What sort of glue did they use? It’s crap, whatever it is.

“Hello, everyone. How did your session go? That’s great! Hope you’ve had a great time. Here for the party?”

I have a small handful now. I keep looking in between guests. I can’t believe this. The little bastards are everywhere.

I pick up so many that I can’t hold them anymore. I take them inside and drop them off on a little tiered dais inside the doors. Safest there. I don’t want to leave them outside to be kicked away or lost. Still salvageable, at this stage, even if they are in a stupid place for no apparent reason.

Maybe they thought that water would run down the pillar and cause the ground there to become particularly hazardous?

Or… Hang on… are these little disks for blind people? So their canes can hit the pattern and help them avoid colliding with the stupid post. That is probably it, now that I think about it. I can see it, and I still can’t work out why it’s there. Some poor, blind person would never even know what hit them. “A post? What’s a fucking post doing there?” they would ask, and quite rightly so.

I come back outside and study the lines of the pattern from every angle, looking for any disks out of place.

Now it’s shitting me. They are everywhere. Two more trips inside. By this stage, the arriving guests are an annoyance to my mission.

“Hello. Inside, through the foyer, left to the elevators, up to Level 5.”

I’m beginning to feel like maybe I shouldn’t have started this. If it keeps going, there’ll be more disks inside than out. I must have picked up at least fifty, maybe a hundred. Every time I think I’m finished, I find another one. I check all four sides, manoeuvring around the pattern like a geometrical ninja, studying the lines and looking for an enemy out of place.

Two disks, slightly ajar, both moved from their original position. I couldn’t tell which one was the offender. They have re-stuck to the ground a little – I admit without shame that I did pull them free. They were not in the right spot or properly affixed to the surface to which they had been intended.

I must admit… It’s not looking like a very good pattern any more…

Yep.

In hindsight, I think that I should have left it alone…

Anyway.

I’ve never liked going to parties.

Thanks for reading!!

The pic was made with Bing AI Image Generator (GPT-4o): https://www.bing.com/images/create