Vaporised Dreams
The chamber quartet starts playing Pachelbel's "Canon in D" and
everyone rises from their seats.
The ceremony is on a CBD rooftop terrace. There’s views for days over Melbourne
– Port Phillip Bay on one side and the Dandenong Ranges on the other. When
night falls and the overhead fairy lights illuminate, it will be magical.
For now, no one is looking at the views. All heads are turned toward the cute-as-a-button
flower girls dropping rose petals as they almost skip down the aisle. The
bride’s nieces, the girls look like little dolls in their white satin dresses
with a puff of tulle skirt, their stockinged feet encased in teeny tiny ballet
flats.
No one notices the slight hiss in the background.
Guests Tom and Anne are stuck in traffic in an Uber. They have run out of time
to make the ceremony. Anne is furious as Tom gave the wrong address to the Uber
driver, making them later than they already were after Tom decided to swap his
shoes at the last minute.
“Do you think the brown shoes or the black?,” he had asked Anne.
“I don’t care Tom. We’re going to be late.”
And they were.
The bridesmaids dressed in long, sage dresses walk slowly next. One by one with
beaming smiles, their hair sprinkled with white baby’s breath.
The musicians keep playing and no one notices the slight hiss in the
background.
Tom and Anne are sitting in stony silence in the Uber but they are nearly at
the wedding.
The bride appears at the end of the aisle, flanked by her proud parents. She
looks beautiful. Her groom waits for her at the other end of the aisle. They
lock eyes and both smile at each other as if no one else is there.
No one notices the slight hiss in the background.
Tom and Anne’s Uber pulls up at the wedding venue. They open the doors almost
before the car stops.
As they open the car doors, the slight hiss ignites and causes a huge blast.
The building is a fireball.
about the author
Leonie Jarrett lives in Melbourne, Australia with her Husband of more than three decades, two of her four adult children and her two Golden Retrievers. Leonie loves to tell stories.
