Feathers

5. Karaoke

Michael was right. Gretchen didn't believe him.

"You're fucking kidding me"

She looked towards Kobie for confirmation.

"It's true."

They walked past the empty shopfront on the corner of Beaumont Street and Tudor Street where a Gloria Jeans used to shelter depressed schoolkids waiting for the bus, spending their pocket money on iced caramel lattes.

"What did it feel like?"

Michael remembered the kiss first, the thrumming noise of the rain on the roof, and the rumble of thunder in the distance. Wet from the rain but warm from running. He could feel the heat of Kobie's body emanating from the passenger seat of the car. And the kiss itself, Kobie's breath on his cheek, her lips pressed against his. the saltiness of the beach on her skin. And then the blinding light and the pain like a fire tearing through his insides. Then the blackout, and waking up in the hospital.

"It could have been worse," Michael said, "the doctor couldn't tell us a lot. It's not exactly common. No one at John Hunter had dealt with a lightning strike before."

They walked past a homeless man slumped inside the doorway of the Westpac bank, smoking a cigarette. Michael had given up more than a year ago but he still craved nicotine when he saw someone else smoking. More than the nicotine, he craved the crackling ignition of the end of the cigarette when you first lit it, when you first breathed in.

"But you're okay right, no burns or anything?"

"We missed the majority of the shock," explained Kobie, "because we were in the car. We only got some of it that travelled through Michael's arm where he was leaning on the steering wheel and then through his body and into me a little."

"Whoa hold on there, you two love birds were doing it weren't you, in the car at the beach" Gretchen cackled with glee.

"No!" Kobie protested, and then said more quietly, her face reddening "We were just making out a little."

"That," said Gretchen "is one of the most fucking romantic things I've ever heard, hit by lightning while kissing and the electricity ran through both your bodies. That is some gothic romance novel shit that is. Either that or Frankenstein."

They hurried over the train tracks that crossed Beaumont street just as the warning lights started flashing and the bell jangling. The boom gates came down behind them. A burly security guard with his shirt tucked into his belted pants watched as they crossed the road and headed over to the door of the Hamilton Station Hotel.

After checking their IDs, The bouncer clicked a metal counter in his hand three times and checked the number.

They wished the bouncer a good night and walked past his considerable bulk into the tiled foyer of the Hamo. To the right, an open double doorway opened up into a large room with a bar on one side and a small stage on the other. The floor was covered from wall to wall in a dark green carpet, which felt somewhat crunchy underfoot. Michael shuddered at the thought of the ecosystem that was living inside it, evolved from the detritus of spilled beer, shed hair and chip crumbs.

A bored-looking girl with dark hair, a nose piercing and tattoos covering both her arms and chest sat in the corner of the bar on her phone.
Apart from two middle-aged men sitting on separate tables watching a football match broadcast on a projector screen behind the karaoke stage, the remaining few patrons were loungin in the small outside courtyard, sitting at or standing around four picnic benches. While technically an outside area the air looked less fresh than in the closed-off interior of the pub. Everyone outside was smoking, and you could see the air was thick with the smoke.