An Evening Concert - by Sasha

“Well, darling, are we ready to go to the concert yet?” asked Mr. Collingsworth.

“Dear, I told you not to rush me,” Mrs. Collingsworth called from the top of the grand marble staircase. She wore a sleek black dress and a scarf of silver fur, her dark hair in tight curls that framed her face. She held a mirror in one hand and a tube of bright red lipstick in the other, which she applied as she descended down the steps, her delicate silver heels clattering against the stone.

“I’m sorry, darling, but we’re already running short of time,” Mr. Collingsworth replied, checking an ornate pocket watch which he pulled out of the breast pocket of his elegant two-tailed jacket. “The driver has already arrived.”

Mrs. Collingsworth finished applying her makeup and set both down on an ebony side table. She picked up her silver clutch from the same table, careful not to break her perfectly painted nails. “It takes a lot of preparation to look this good,” she told her husband.

“And I dare say you look stunning, dear,” Mr. Collingsworth replied.

“Mr. Collingsworth! Mrs. Collingsworth! You’re going to be late!”

A scrawny young man burst through the ornate front doors, calling frantically for the couple.

“Oh, dear – Bradley, I thought I told you to wait outside,” Mr. Collingsworth chided.

Mrs. Collingsworth scoffed. “Bradley?” she said to her husband, outraged, and then in a more hushed tone that could still obviously be heard by the young chauffeur, “I thought I told you never to hire him again.”

“I know,” Mr. Collingsworth replied in the same tone, “but it is quite a busy concert tonight, darling, and there weren’t many options available –”

“Oh, Bradley promises to be a good driver today,” the young boy exclaimed, evidently unperturbed by the thinly veiled criticism. “He knows he made some wrong turns last time, but he has been practicing.”

“Practicing?” Mrs. Collingsworth exclaimed. “Oh dear, I don’t want to be in an automobile with a driver who needs practice.”

“Come now, it can’t be that bad,” Mr. Collingsworth promised distractedly, looking at his pocket watch again. “What was so bad about the first drive, anyway?”

Mrs. Collingsworth looked confused. “I can’t quite remember, dear, but it was awful.”

“Oh, nonsense,” said Mr. Collingsworth. “I’m sure it couldn’t have been that terrible.” With that, he took Mrs. Collingsworth’s arm and guided her gently out the door after a very excited chauffeur.

It was a very chilly February evening, with a few snowflakes drifting this way and that, and the air was so frigid Mr. and Mrs. Collingsworth could almost smell the cold. Mr. Collingsworth put his arm more firmly around his wife, who was not dressed for the weather, but nonetheless she shivered rigorously and let out a small, pitiful sneeze. “Oh, this weather is simply awful,” she complained.

Bradley, attempting to make sure he fulfilled his duties as a chauffeur to the best of his ability, ran to the car and graciously opened the door to the back seat. It would have been an excellent gesture if Mr. and Mrs. Collingsworth were not still several paces away, and as a result, the entire back seat was soaked by the falling snow before the couple even entered the vehicle. Mrs. Collingsworth shifted uncomfortably in place, but resorted to heaving an enormous and pointed sigh instead of expressing her disappointment in words.

“Do you need directions?” Mr. Collingsworth asked prudently as Bradley sat down behind the wheel.

“Oh, no, Mr. Collingsworth, Bradley knows the way. You don’t need to worry one bit. Perhaps some music might help you become more comfortable?” At this, the young chauffeur promptly hit a button at the front of the car and a boisterous melody began to resonate through the vehicle at a decibel level that was thoroughly unsuitable to delicate Mrs. Collingsworth. Bradley then started the car, and before Mr. or Mrs. Collingsworth could react, they were speeding out of their driveway and into the street.

Mrs. Collingsworth had only to give her husband an icy glare and the poor man tapped the back of Bradley’s seat. The boy nodded. “Good music, eh?” he said, bopping his head in time to the pulsing beat. He didn’t seem to hear Mr. Collingsworth when the middle aged man asked him to turn it off. Mrs. Collingsworth wanted to press her hands to her ears to block out the sound, but she felt that such an action would not only be inelegant but also an admission of defeat.

Suddenly, the popular music was interrupted by a jarring ringing sound. Mrs. Collingsworth jumped in her seat, but Bradley seemed unperturbed. He hit the radio button again and reached absentmindedly across the passenger seat to grab his cell phone, which he pressed to his ear. The sudden change in noise level was nearly as unsettling as the music had been itself.

“Soporfligoramapherin?” Bradley said into the cellular device, or at least something to that effect.

“Good gracious, what is the boy saying now?” Mrs. Collingsworth asked, finally breaking her silence out of the sheer strangeness of Bradley’s actions.

“Haranimorphogloseris,” the chauffeur continued, apparently deep in conversation.

“I don’t believe he is speaking English,” Mr. Collingsworth remarked. “I don’t believe he is speaking any language.”

Mrs. Collingsworth let out a sigh of disapproval. “I daresay he shouldn’t be using his cell phone while driving at any rate. Isn’t that dangerous?”

Mr. Collingsworth shrugged, checking the time again. “I do hope he knows where we’re going,” he said. “The concert starts in ten minutes.”

Bradley continued to babble into the phone for another few moments before disconnecting and tossing the device back on to the passenger seat. Just as the cell phone hit the leather, Bradley yanked the steering wheel to the left, and the entire car went careening down a side street that Mr. Collingsworth didn’t recognize.

“Hang on now, boy, where are you taking us?” Mr. Collingsworth exclaimed.

“Oh, it is no problem,” the chauffeur replied. “Bradley has been practicing. He is a good driver. He will get you to the concert on time.”

“Bradley, my boy, I do believe that the concert hall is that way,” Mr. Collingsworth pointed out.

“Oh, no, Mr. Collingsworth is mistaken,” Bradley assured him. “You want to go this way.”

“Ah… very well.”  Mr. Collingsworth had always been adverse to arguing, and was not about to start now.  Give it one more minute, though, and he’d show this young man to respect his elde – 

Car wheels screeched as Bradley slammed on the brakes, coming to a stop in the middle of a back alley.  Bradley hopped out of the car, leaving Mr. Collingsworth and Mrs. Collingsworth in confusion. The young man quickly disappeared down the street into the shadows of the nearby buildings.

“Hey, now, where are you going?” shouted Mr. Collingsworth quite uselessly into the night. “Come back here, boy!”

Mrs. Collingsworth opened her door and stepped out on to the snow covered concrete, her breath visible in the frigid air. She crossed her arms and glared at Mr. Collingsworth. One of her pincurls had come undone near her right eye, but she was so incensed that she didn’t even realize it.

“That boy is mad!” the woman exclaimed. “This is exactly what happened last time!”

Mr. Collingsworth, who was at the time already halfway down the alley, still screaming obscenities, turned back, defeated, to his wife. “I wouldn’t say this is exactly how it happened last time,” he pointed out, then trailed off. He found that he couldn’t actually remember how it had happened last time, only that both he and Mrs. Collingsworth had agreed that Bradley was the simply worst chauffeur they had ever had the fortune of meeting.

Mr. and Mrs. Collingsworth were rather at a loss. They were not dressed to trudge through the snow, and Mrs. Collingsworth certainly was not willing to walk anywhere in her three-inch heels. Instead, they stood at an impasse, equal parts mad at each other and at themselves. Mr. Collingsworth pulled out his pocketwatch one last time. “Well, we’re officially late for the concert,” he remarked. He looked at the sky, as if he would suddenly have a brilliant idea about how to save their evening.

“Say,” said Mrs. Collingsworth after a moment. “Do you notice a strange smell?”

“Yes, in fact, I do,” remarked Mr. Collingsworth. “It smells faintly of…”

“Eggs and bacon,” Mrs. Collingsworth finished.

“Yes,” Mr. Collingsworth agreed. “I don’t know why, but it seems strangely fitting, doesn’t it?”

“Quite.”

The smell seemed to be emanating from somewhere above Mr. and Mrs. Collingsworth’s heads. Mrs. Collingsworth looked up, to try to spot the source of the smell, only to notice a change in the gently fallen snow. The flakes, which had once glinted white and silver, now seemed to be a strange orange color.

“How bizarre,” Mr. Collingsworth remarked.

“Indeed,” said Mrs. Collingsworth. The aroma of breakfast foods and strange orange snow seemed to have a strange effect on the woman, and she felt herself getting drowsy. In a moment, she swayed on her feet and without warning, tumbled backwards into the snow. A thump to her right meant that Mr. Collingsworth had done the same.

The night sky above Mrs. Collingsworth changed from a dark, impenetrable black to a lighter, metallic grey, and just before Mrs. Collingsworth eyes’ closed, several figures bent into her field of view. She thought she recognized one of them – he looked strangely like a young man in a chauffeur’s cap, only his eyes were much larger than the average persons’. He looked at Mrs. Collingsworth and turned to his comrades.

“Flabberhoggencast,” he said. “Earthlings.”