Egoland - Short Story By Roger Haydon

 

Egoland

Short Story

By Roger Haydon

Here they are, a few days before Christmas, five old university friends: Gavin, Megan, Celia, Martin and Trish. They’re lounging on soft cream coloured leather sofas in the living room of Martin’s architect designed sea view house of which he is so proud. They’re all aging as well as can be expected but clearly coming up to their use-by dates. At this stage of the evening they’re already well into the consumption of multiple glasses of fine wine and a number of shots and, in Martin’s case, a discreet line or two taken in the master bedroom. It’s a couple of years since their previous annual reminiscence get-together which they’ve implicitly agreed to forget. Then, it was to celebrate Celia becoming a junior minister in the government which occasioned some vivid arguments about politics, ambition, love and virtue.

The bitterness was also partly triggered by the strange truth game they sometimes play on these occasions. Devised by Martin long ago when he was a dread-locked philosophy undergraduate, it comprises a short sentence with gaps to be filled in. The rules are, as he explained, cruelly simple: don’t play it sober, down a shot, name someone in the present company, say they have just woken up (after a long sleep), then tell a truth about them that might not have gone away while they were asleep. Then down another shot. They are girding their loins to play it again shortly.

Before they start, they toast the farrago that constitutes Martin’s recent and very public divorce from the fragrant Angie and the hideously unfair (his words) settlement that the foul bitch (his words again) extracted from him. They also take a drink to celebrate Gavin’s apparently miraculous recovery from bowel cancer as well as the publication of Trish’s exceptionally filthy erotic novel, bound to become another best seller, so she says.

Megan reports that she has nothing much to celebrate beyond being a senior-in-years crew member in the oil state funded round-the-world “WindPower Wins” yacht race. The sleek high-tech boat she was on came in an honourable second and the celebrations were extravagant, Megan says with a private smile. Nobody mentions the marriages and miscarriages poor Celia has suffered over the years in the public eye. She’s here tonight, glamour personified and seeking sanctuary with her best friends, she says.

Martin tries to explain the game’s rules yet again and Megan, Trish and Celia say they feel patronised. Trish says for god’s sake it’s dead easy, you say: ‘When whoever it is awoke, the something or other was still there’ okay? Gavin says that’s right and he sniggers because of what he knows (carnally) about Angie. He says that, for example, it could be ‘When big man Martin with the big fine house awoke, the foul bitch Angie, who had depleted his huge manly bank balance, was still there”. Gavin ducks, a half empty bottle of rare single malt smashing against the bare brick wall behind him as they all (except for Martin) phone for taxis, put their coats on and prepare to leave in haste, wishing each other a happy Christmas and a grand New Year until the next time.

Roger Haydon was born in London and has lived in the North East of England for over 50 years. He retired in 2012 from working in healthcare and now writes flash fiction, short stories and the occasional poem and has been published online. He supports story writing workshops and countryside access for children and young adults and grows veggies and fruit on an allotment.