BALL BEARING

A ball-bearing about two inches in diameter came hurtling towards me just above the ground.
I tried to stop it with one of my feet outstretched but failed and I turned to see it caught by a man behind me and thrown back over me and the group of three men stood next to a concrete wall.
We watched the ball-bearing drop beyond the wall into the abyss and I wondered if it might hit someone walking below.
I sat down at a table where two men and a woman apparently unaware of the recent loss sat discussing how to explain postmodernism to underfives. Not one of them looked or addressed any comments to me.
I stood up and left.
By the time I got there the restaurant was crowded but although the lighting was low I saw him sat at a table in a corner talking to a woman.
Black jacket, polo-neck top, blond straight hair and a ginger goatee reminded me he’d once said, ‘if I grow a beard it grows ginger, so I don’t bother.’
I walked over to take a closer look but he didn’t notice, well anyway didn’t show that he had.
‘Maybe he doesn’t recognise me,’ I thought, ‘after all it’s fifteen years we last met and I’ve had a haircut since then.’