Let The Ripples Take Me

I wasn’t sure what had happened. One moment I had been in the middle of a loud, cheerful party, full of celebration and cheerful talk, and then I’d been in the middle of a dark, crowded scramble for escape-from what and to where, nobody was quite sure. I felt as though I were liable to be trampled in the press, even though I was a tall, heavily-built person who should have been able to command the people around me in an anxious moment like this, if I hadn’t been so timid.

I heard a voice call out across the mob. It was Mark Ripple, a man who was much less of an imposing figure than I was, but it was his yard we were standing in, and he was just married, which I suppose gave him more standing.

“Now come on, folks, calm down! The lights have gone out, that’s not big deal. We were planning to douse the lights for a bit of celestial entertainment anyway!”

People did gradually stop shoving one another quite so riotously. From the angle his voice seemed to be coming from, I had a feeling that he was standing on a table. A moment later, Mark’s bridegroom, Teddy Walker, who was now a Ripple also, became visible, carrying a peculiar-looking penlight which had a plastic cup stuck onto it so that its light illuminated it, making it look like a candle burning inside a cup. He handed it up to his husband and reached into the box under his arm and turned on another one and handed it to a guest nearby and spoke to her softly. She took the light and moved away through the crowd.

Gradually, the light spread, and the party became softly lit instead of dark.

 

The Magic Eight-Ball says: Phttps://condofire.com/2019/12/11/poem-of-the-week-canoe-by-alison-luterman-via-poetry-mistress-alison-mcghee/