I dreamed I was in India, dancing on a beach in a codling heat, when I woke up, it was midnight and I was in Serbia. The days here are sunny but the nights are starting to chill. But I was fidgety so with no particular purpose I left home and meandered the streets of Belgrade. I saw a man with a parrot on his shoulder and I followed him into a courtyard strung with fairy lights. Tucked in a corner was a restaurant. 

Indoors it was packed with twenty-somethings, standing and drinking and smoking and energetically chattering, and at the back of the room a four piece band. Shy drummer, electric guitar, lady singer and a harmonica player with Bayou soul. They played covers, like Mustang Sally, which you’d be hard pressed not to hear on any given night in Key West. 

Between sets the musicians and I chatted. I asked them if it bothered them not only no one danced, no one even listened to them. If anything the patrons appeared to be trying to drown out the music.

“We’re used to it!” the harmonica player said, “This crowd are here to hook up.” Apparently the dance scene in Belgrade are Techno lovers popping Ketamine. So 90s! But I’m told everything gets to Serbia 20 years late.

I tapped my feet to the end of their gig, a concert for one, but I wanted to dance. Blame it on the water, but I don’t have the courage to dance alone. The dude with the parrot was in the crowd intently conversing with a girl wearing black-rimmed glasses. I took it as a silent nod from my last true love, the Green Parrot.

I walked home and fell back asleep, slipping into dreams of dancing in the sand on a hot night. Over morning coffee I couldn’t be sure what was what, had I gone anywhere? Am I going anywhere? East or West, what’s next?

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