You'll Be OK When They Find a Cure

You'll Be Ok When They Find a Cure.
By
Kim West

Flash is a willowy dancer.
He's Mr. Ripple.
And that music is drumming my spirit up and there is no way I can
remain seated.
He beckons to me.
His flying saucer eyes.
He grabs my hand and whisks me to my feet and from that minute I have
the twirling dervishes.
I'm not willow and ripple.
I'm spin and bounce and mosh and tangle and I bump the others as I
cover the dance floor in my wild footwork.
Just three and a half minutes.

And that's how it happened Your Honour.
Judge Dread, the one-legged gnarled judge regards me over the rim of
his crescent glasses and sighs.
"Mrs. West. You are a woman of 49.9999 years and you have crumbled
vertebrae. Do you have no decorum?"
"No Your Honour."
"You are not a boy. You are a middle aged woman."
"Yes Your Honour."
"Then why do you persist in this poetic entrancement?"
"What poetic entrancement Your Honour?"
"The illusion that despite the pain that you may bring upon yourself,
you can and will do what you like."
His summation is brief. The sentence is a week of back pain. I am led
away.

Now Flash is dancing on the table for Quinney's mum, like he's a
Sixties cage-dancer in a seedy disco bar. People point and burst into
laughter.
"Look there's Flash again."
I put my feet up on a chair and soak it all in as the back pain digs a
little.
Quinney is singing "So long my son" and we weep with him and Luke sings
"I don't wanna know 'bout evil." And we weep some more. These are
100\\\% friends. An excellent night is being had by all.

Then it happens. The sky turns toothpaste green and the clubhouse
begins to shudder. We clutch table legs, one another, our pints, the
walls, ourselves. The wind is getting up and whistles. The sky has
evolved into a Turner seascape. Any minute this will be too much and
someone will fall to the floor and scream
"Forgive Me!"
People grab their children and clutch them to their breasts.
The band falls apart.
"Don't leave me hanging on the telephone" disintegrates into
avant-garde splinters, as the young red tea shirted vocalist gracefully
faints into the arms of a fan.

Someone is walking over the field towards the clubhouse.
Someone tall and a long swinging stride.
Someone with head held high.
Someone glistening.
Someone with wonderfully substantial, yet constrained breasts.
Someone in a very tight silver lycra body suit.
The grass flattens before her in a respectful pathway.

The sky bubbles then settles again into late summer evening striations
and as the clubhouse stops shuddering we all gasp as Seven of Nine
walks right in.
"Anyone seen Flash?" she purrs, scanning for life forms. She's much
taller than I imagined. Her Borg implants glimmer. I've stopped
breathing and start to feel giddy. I remind myself to breath again.
She's my hero you know.
Flash is pushed forward by the crowd.
"Play Boogie Nights" she demands of the band.
Shaken but not stirred. Amazed but not phased, the band start to gather
the avant-garde splinters back into recognisable funky strands and as
Flash and Seven of Nine take the floor we form a circle around
them.
Flash is the willow dancer.
Seven tries out a range of John Travolta like sequences, before
settling into her own rippling.
We catch one another's' glances across the dance floor and a universal
smile starts to simmer. Now we relax with the strangeness of it all as
Flash rubs bums with Seven and the band notches up to turbo with Bat
out of Hell and Seven starts moshing. Her hair falls free of the
sculptured French pleat, her Borg implants buzz. Flash's eyes
sparkle.
"Come on you guys!" he yells in a war cry
"Get doing it!" and in one wave the floor is writhing with
moshers.
Sedately I retreat to my armchair and put my feet up again. After all
I'm nearly fifty now.
"Quite right Mrs. West. Quite right." Whispers Judge Dread in my
ear.

I smile.