village hall · seventeen years · last danced new year's eve
sprung maple, glossed once a season for forty years, marked in the corner with the heel-prints of generations of new shoes. the band was always set up where the trestle table is now. the bar was always at the back.
the hall is used for parish council meetings once a quarter, and as a polling station every four or five years. the floor remains, but the floor is not used; the chairs are set out and removed, the speeches are made, no one steps onto the centre.
the mirror ball hangs from its hook, very slightly off vertical. the streamers from the last party were never taken down — they have lost their colour and become a different kind of fact. one shoe was left and never claimed.
field-note: turn off all the lights and stand in the middle. the floor still gives, very slightly, where the dancers used to land.