Mira O’Brien / Berlin
Drinking beer “vom Fass” and throwing darts. They have terrible aim. Some miss the board altogether.
The field is frozen and surrounded by a barbed wire fence. Mounds like oversize anthills. A landfill.
A lace paper doily on my tray and fresh tulips at each table. Grog. The Ideal Pavilion is a refuge.
The dart players get worse. They are deteriorating.
The grass was not expecting to freeze. It is still bright green beneath the glassy ice.
A couple dances to an old disco song playing on the jukebox. The man announces that she was the disco queen in her day. The woman cries as they slowly dance.
The cacophony of blackbirds sounds like a baby’s gargle. Flying-landing-hovering: they rise and fall together. They have no use for the beckoning holes cut through the chain link fence.
A table of four white haired ladies drinks tea and whisky. They are feeding their tea biscuits to the little dog under the table.
The buildings are getting smaller. They are diminished with the distance of the field. Perspective.
Darts are bouncing off the wall inside the Ideal Pavilion.
