Covent Garden at night, 2007
Bringing Out The Dead
I’m ringing the bell on the terrace overlooking Covent Garden when a man beside me chuckles
“Bring out your dead”
It’s not the first time I’ve heard that, but I smile dutifully anyway. The voice belongs to an old American, shorter than me, who has worn a baseball cap, thick glasses, a big white beard and a smile for the last week or so. He’s on holiday, and he’s been so warm and approachable in his visits that I couldn’t help but become a willing audience for his monologues.
“You know, I’ve been to a lot of operas and concerts and there’s one thing I ain’t ever heard: someone dropping their triangle. You and your bell got me thinking on it ___ In all of the hundreds of years and thousands of performances there have been it’s got to have happened, but I just ain’t heard it.”
I laugh, and, of course, there’s more.
“I wonder, in church, at weddings _________ why isn’t it that when the priest or the minister or whomever it is asks ‘Do you take this person yada yada yada’ nobody, not a one of the couple’s I’ve seen anyway, and I’ve seen a lot, you know? Hyuk! _________ Nobody turns to the priest to say ‘Hey, can I just take a minute to confer?’”
Again, I had to laugh. I also had a to admit that, No, I hadn’t seen that. But then I haven’t been to many weddings.
“Maybe not, but you will. I haven’t gotten to one for a while myself. _________ Been to a lot of funerals, no weddings though.”
There followed the saddest pause I have ever been party to.
“Tell you what, you keep an ear out for that triangle, deal?”
Deal.
© Matthew Sheret, 2008
