And I was like, "Great!"
His face had been beaming all week. He had scored a date for Friday night and was telling anyone within earshot around the office. Even the dreary July weather couldn’t get him down. That was, until Friday came around.
He was in the kitchen with Asha and Brent, telling them about all the moves he was going to pull that night when he received a text message. It was from his date. Asha and Brent’s curiosity peaked as he stared at his phone, his face a billboard for confusion.
“What does it say?”
“She wants to cancel on tonight. She doesn’t want to come into the city in the rain.”
“What a cow!”
He looked disappointed for a second, but his face soon lit up with excitement again.
“But she’s invited me to a party at her place tonight. That’s cool, I love house parties.”
Asha and Brent looked at each other and their eyes spoke to each others’ in unison:
How can she be having a party tonight if she was meant to be having a date with him?
He seemed excited so neither of them questioned it and they all went back to their offices.
* * *
On Monday, he was back to his beaming self. He ran into Asha and Brent in the kitchen again.
“How was the party?”
“Pretty tops.”
He smiled coyly. Asha and Brent were bursting with curiosity.
“Well, spill the beans!”
“Yeah, what happened?”
He looked down toward his black, Kmart business shoes, softly cleared his throat, and then looked back up at his audience. He couldn’t contain his contentment any longer.
“Well. The party started at 7.30 so I must have arrived a few minutes after that. The party was with her friends. Three came all up.”
“Three?”
“Yeah, she has a small house. Anyway, so we just chilled out in the kitchen for a while and talked. Then later on someone suggested that we watch a movie. I thought that was a great idea, because then I’d get a chance to sit next to her on the couch. Quality cuddling time.”
“Movie? What did you watch?”
“Dark Crystal.”
“So this was during or after the party?”
“During. We put it on at about 8.30.”
“Hmmmph.”
Brent held his chin and nodded his head with a down-turned smile, masking his confusion with the exaggerated gestures of a detective considering the material facts of an important case.
“Were you guys drinking?”
His face lit up.
“No not at that stage. However we were on the couch for about half an hour when one of her friends suggested we make hot chocolate and I was like ‘Great!’, so I went and helped make them! It was such an awesome night!”
“…”
Asha and Brent stared at each blankly. He smiled at them, looking rather pleased with himself and then turned to leave.
“Wai… but… and…”
Asha didn’t know where to start and looked at Brent for help, but he merely shrugged his shoulders in defeat. Asha decided to just allowed the story to finish as he had left it and he left the kitchen, beaming with delight and looking for the next person to tell about his weekend “score”.
This is the Chronicles of Creepy Pants.
Stay tunes for Episode 14: Friday Night Fever
The Chronicles of Creepy Pants 
Ah, good dialogue technique, with context….who’s ‘point of view’ is it from?
I’m not sure how I came to the decision to write the dialogue this way. Tim Winton tends to write without “he said”, “she said”, which I have often found annoying. However, I guess I felt like this technique allowed the conversation to flow a bit better.
I also like the ambiguity of the conversation when there are more than two people contributing. It creates an “us” and “him” mentality for the reader.
As for the narrator – he/she is meant to be completely impartial. The idea is that the content is meant to speak for itself – that way everyone should have a slightly different reaction to what they think about each episode.