Bar Scene

I sat at the bar staring at the drink in front of me. I was so tired of this city. Everywhere I went I was alone. It seemed impossible to make friends around here. Sure it had only been a few days, but I’m one to pride myself on being able to land on my feet no matter where I am. It seems this time I was going to have a few broken legs as well. Or was I already broken before I came here. I’m not so sure anymore.

I decided to play an old game I’d play when I got bored. Watching groups of people, I would write my own personal story for them. Like the hagridden man at the end of the bar, he looked to be in his late fifties. Three empty shot glasses sat beside him, each one a fallen soldier to his misery. By looking at him I decided that his good wife had died three years prior. No children between them. And this was their anniversary night. He would come here every year and add one more shot to drown away his sadness.

He has his wife’s dog to keep him company, a little beagle he never really liked, but it’s the only living thing connecting him to his passed wife. The dog would keep him up nights howling for his missing mistress, never really understanding why she would never be coming back home. And in this anguish they both found solace in each other.

Over in the corner, one couple was fighting at a table by the door. I imagined their conversation something like this:

“What do you mean, we’re breaking up?”

“Well dear.” He said this with a fair amount of venom and sarcasm, “You never really took the time to get to know me. And I think after all this time, I really did get to know who and what you truly are. What’s sad is that because of these two disparate reasons we are going to have the same conclusions. I don’t care that you won’t be part of my life because I do know what you are. And you won’t care that I won’t be part of yours because you have no idea what I am.”

She looked at him blankly, grabbed her drink and poured it over his head. I suppose that relationship truly was over. The only other person in the bar sat behind it, pulling out drinks. The bartender was in her late twenties and had jet-black hair. She had black ink tattoos all over her arms.

For the first time, I had no story to create for this person. I tried many scenarios in my head, but nothing would coalesce in my mind. I again felt tired of being here, in this city, without any friends or people to connect with. I found it was best to leave this bar now. Back into the streets I plodded, smelling the desperation in the air, I decided to head back to my place.

-V-

Glimpsing a Moment

The air was musty and light, it had just finished raining only moments before. The sun was finally finding small pathways through the dense clouds and speckling small parts of the ground around us. The air had cooled considerably due to the rains and a light fog could be seen in the trees in the distance. We were all sitting around a table silently waiting for someone to kick the conversation off, but no one seemed to want that honor.

“Strange weather we are having?” The person to the left of me finally ventured.

“Oh, I don’t know, seems to be par for the area,” I replied, “This time of year, one needs a jacket, an umbrella, shorts, pants, t-shirt, and long-sleeve shirt everywhere they go. The weather is a bit psychotic around here.”

“Yeah,” they responded back, “I hear it’s tornado season as well.”

I rolled my eyes and thought of all the high winds and loud sirens that would be ruining my spring days. It had already been a relatively extreme winter, and now it looked like we were heading into a spiteful spring. I have found that I’m easily weather affected and this was not looking good.

Quickly tiring of discussing the weather I explored other possibilities of conversation at the table and found myself drawn to the creature sitting across from me. She sat introverted with her eyes closely appraising her hands. She ran her index finger of her left hand around each digit on her right, slowly seeking up to each tip and down into each valley. When she would get to either her pinky or thumb, she would work back the way she had come. I found myself entranced by the movement; it looked soothing.

She looked up for the briefest of moments and our eyes connected. It must have been too much for her; she hastily averted her eyes back down to her hands. I found myself compelled to continue observing her. I wanted desperately to find something else to lay my attention on, but I couldn’t. She opened up her frame and looked back into my eyes, this time with more fervor. It may have only been for another short second, but we were locked into each other, time suspended.

Her eyes pleaded with me. They showed me depths I could only slightly understand, depths that have no words for describing, just a bunch feelings that make no sense together. I had an overwhelming sense of sadness impressed upon me. It was the kind of sadness you can only see in someone when you have known great loss.

She made an attempt at a smile, but her eyes betrayed her. It felt like looking into an infinite abyss, I could see my own sadness reflected back. I just stared wishing there was something I could do. Wishing we could really share our sadness and excise it somehow. She tried her smile again, but to no avail. In an instant the pause was lost, we both looked away and knew the moment would never come back. We knew that our sorrows would be our own to deal with.

-V-