COUPLES ONLY

Wooden chairs folded and stacked in the corner. Tables once placed orderly in rows, now uneven in a disheveled chessboard pattern. Streamers hanging like Spanish moss from the ceiling.

In the middle of this mess, after all of their former classmates have gone home to husbands, wives and kids, Frank and Millie hold each other close and dance slowly to the tune that they both hum to themselves. In this run-down gymnasium, on the warped basketball court, while no one is watching, they get to dance the dance they never got to indulge in 20 years ago.

The janitor starts to sweep up the last of the confetti, colored paper tablecloths are thrown away and Frank and Millie both wish that this dance would never end.




-SLL