Autoalgia

Shona had hoped, when she stepped onto the now cool sand, backed by blackness and the shushing waves, to walk off the indigestion laying across her belly like an over zealous bra. It had been a good meal, but too oily and too late and though she longed for sleep, she knew she would not be laying down anytime soon. Not least because that hotel bed was making her back twinge and her sciatica flare.

Beside her, Bill was talking about getting new carpet for the lounge, now the dog was dead, but Shona was finding it increasingly hard to listen as the throb of music grew louder. Ahead, roving lights in red, yellow and white threw lithe, undulating bodies into silhouette, then swung on, letting them merge to a dark mass of energy, pulsing with the beat.

Shona paused, feeling the reverberations beneath her feet, remembering the feeling of being at once weightless and tethered as she had let herself be lifted by the swell of music, held in the thrall of the crowd, how she had danced until her feet hurt, and then danced on. She looked at Bill, hoping that he was remembering too, that reflected in his eyes she might glimpse the laughing girl she had been when they married. He was looking away, his attention caught by a couple entwined on the sand, and remembering the sweetness of yearning, an ache began to bloom at her solar plexus, mingling unpleasantly with her indigestion.