She sat across the bar from me. She skewered an olive with a cocktail stick, held it up so that the black flesh glinted in the red light above. She took it between her teeth and slid the stick out. She gaped her mouth and rolled the olive back onto her white molars so the world watching on could still see it right there in the back of her mouth and she chewed. I took a breath. A glistening eyeball popping in that cave. The pimento oozed onto her tongue and she slowly closed her mouth.
I thought about slowly walking over and punching her on those big red lips. I thought about buying her a drink but my drinks were being bought for me in the expensive little heaven. Her brown eyes were wide and absorbed everything in the room and in turn, those crystal balls drew in the attention. Her tanned neck convulsed. She quietly hiccupped and those big brown eyes got wider. She jerked violently and fell from her stool. Panic. Not just hers, the bar jolted upright and surged forward to help her. A hundred hands all over her. I laughed when I thought of a long line of men queuing to perform the Heimlich. She uttered a choking sound and went very red. Her back arched and she fell forward into the suited arms. She made noises like a sick pig but you had to listen carefully to hear them over the rising clamour surrounding her. ‘DOCTORS,’ ‘WATER,’ ‘GET HER INTO MY CAR!’ Others shouted ‘HELP’ and others just shouted.
An old blonde man tried to pick her up but he could not hold her while she convulsed and he dropped her hard onto her knees. Two other men doing nothing frowned at the blonde man as if to say he was not helping and he receded back into the advice-giving chorus who were still repeating their mantras. The barman had now turned up the lights and the music had stopped. Everyone’s eyes were adjusting and they had these squinty mole eyes. I sipped my whiskey as the room inhaled. All except the olive eater. She had stopped moving and was lying on the floor like a curled hair. Her face was still very red and her mouth was open in a contorted O. Her eyes had grown even wider, she looked like those grotesque young boys toys, with eyes that pop out of the head when you touch them.
I took an olive as the men with serious and determined faces in silly bright green jackets appeared. I took an olive and chewed.
