The room is black. Formless. It's still there, he can reach out and touch the bar and it’ll halt his fingers as any solid object would. But the absolute black gives the nauseating effect of being suspended in a void.
He sees the men, frozen in animation. Bright spectres, crossing where the catwalk is. He cannot see the guns in their hands, nor the bullets that hover in the air, but he can make out the absence of them, and the effect they will have. The people on the dance floor make a bright sea of light. Most are oblivious to the men above. Some have turned at the sound of shattering glass. It’s hard to read their expressions with their faces so bright, but terror is a loud emotion.
He takes off the headset. His partner stands smoking next to him. The catwalk bears no armed men. There is no one on the dance floor. There’s no broken glass, bullet holes, or blood.
‘Is it bad?’ asks his partner.
He nods.
‘How soon?’
‘Tonight,’ he says.
Paddy Dobson
14th July 2021