The mystery

The rest have left, their unspoken music still haunts the corners at the tops of the walls, catches then reverberates in the curves and hollows of the art glass shade and rattles the broken element in the fixture

And the taps are empty now, hoses hold only air, barrels still compressed and half full of belches and the quarrels of the slightly inebriated.

The others cleared off after one raised yet another opinion and that mother’s other baby (long since grown) found a bottle to break and swing and freckle the walls with, cloud the air with the last smoke they’d shared just outside the back door 5 minutes before

that nobody saw