Party times

An art deco pub on a cold night, accessed by cobbled lanes of an area of London I know little of. I would have found and explored this by now if I'd still had my bike. Having tap-danced excitedly on the parquet in my new shoes before leaving the house, my nerves start to get the better of me on the journey out and, although I see lots of people I want to talk to, I keep to myself and sup pints until I'm drunk enough to chat. I love the cosy red-lit room and the general hint of Spiral Scratch to this new night, and I adore the preserved decor of the pub and the Christmassy party feeling going around, but I'm surprised to find that it's in the bathroom where I suddenly feel a wave of nostalgia for something I have never known but always imagined, away from the music and chatter and laughter that now comes alive in my head instead and seems to slow to a stop, like a moment frozen in time to a grainy film still or captured in a brown and peeled photograph that somehow feels familiar, like I'm inside it. I am picking up the frequency of a time gone by, a party that happened here in another era. Ghosts of bright beautiful young things laughing and chinking glasses, never stopping to think that this won't always be their time. I hear a group of people singing in the bar, and at first this is part of the hallucination. Then it stops, echoes for a moment around my head and these walls, and real sounds kick in while I remember where I am. I try to imagine what the people of that time would make of ours, and it dawns heavily on me that this won't last forever either, so I go to dance and appreciate the scene and this room filled with the the laughter of people I hope I will know forever.