I’ll go ahead and post this. It’s been through about seven revisions now and I don’t think it’s done, but I think it’s readable and ready for criticism and commentary. Both are highly encouraged. Sorry for the lack of indents, wordpress is not playing nice.
Bar
Neil sat at the bar sipping quietly. He would occasionally take a noiseless draw on his cigarette and silently exhale. Neil was trying to be a wallflower and succeeding quite well. He didn’t even stir the cubes in his glass; instead just stared down at them melting into the bourbon. To the average person, it may have seemed depressing, but Neil had been at it for over two years now and he’d gotten used to it. Neil was alone, quite alone, and he knew it.
He had tried at first. He had tried to be active and keep himself busy. He had tried finding someone, but it never worked out. So Neil did what losers do, he gave up. He started haunting bars at night, thinking of ideas for stories, occasionally writing a poem on a napkin, but he stopped looking around for someone, it was pretty much a lost cause.
But what Neil didn’t know was that someone else was still trying. He didn’t know at least until she walked up and introduced herself. Neil was staring down into his glass.
“Is that bourbon talking to you?”
He looked up, quite surprised and flustered
“Oh, um, no, it’s not” he said as if the question were serious. She laughed while crunching on an ice cube.
“Well then do you mind if I talk to you?”
She held the rim of her glass up to her smiling mouth. Neil just had to look away. He focused on his reflection in the bar mirror in front of him.
“Uh, sure”
She waited for him to make the first move, but Neil didn’t say anything beyond that.
“What’s your name?” she asked
“Neil”
His answers were short and mumbled
“Mine’s Bryn”
By now Bryn recognized Neil wouldn’t be easy to talk to, but she already half-guessed that from afar. She stuck with him though.
“I think I’ve seen you here quite a bit” she said
“Yeah, I come here a lot”
Bryn eyed the tumbler.
“Do you drink a lot?”
She recognized the question might’ve come too early.
“Some people think I have a problem”
Sip
“Do you think you have a problem?”
Sip
“I have lots of problems, but I don’t think drinking’s one of them”
He had intentionally answered as to start to scare her away, but it backfired and she smiled.
“And what problems do you have Neil?”
He leaned back and sighed through his teeth
“Well, it’s nothing I think I could explain to you in words, but if you got to know me, you’d figure them out soon enough.”
He remained staring at himself. He couldn’t look at her, Neil wasn’t that good at lying.
“So then how do I get to know you?”
Now Neil turned to look at her, his eyes locked onto hers. Neil thought she was pretty, but then again, flowers were pretty.
“Why do you want to get to know me?”
He was on the attack with this question. She took it seriously and stared at her feet while thinking and swaying a bit.
“I think you might be interesting”
She now locked onto his eyes. She was going to start to gain some ground.
“Serial killers are interesting,”
Neil’s eyes met his own again and Bryn struck her thinking pose
“I think you’d make a good friend”
A harsh, arrogant laugh shot out of Neil.
“Everyone wants fucking friends,” he mumbled then added, “I already have friends anyway.”
Now she was hurt, but not enough to walk away.
“I don’t”
Neil’s laughing stopped. He was hit with his own weapon, and was caught without a response. Flustered, he looked in all directions searching for some answer written on the walls.
“I wouldn’t make a good friend,” he said hurriedly. He was losing ground and she recognized this.
“Why do you say that?”
Neil took larger sips and continued to look around the room. She saw he was uncomfortable.
“Um, I’m just… I’m not someone people really want to know”
Bryn stared at Neil’s face confused and saddened by what he’d said
“You look broken”
Neil looked straight ahead and nodded while taking a sip
“I am,” he said with choked words
They were both quite serious now. What had begun as an age-old ritual had become an intervention.
“I want to fix that”
Not even the mirror was safe now. Neil shut his eyes tightly.
“No one wants to fix that” and a tear dropped into the bourbon.
“Look, I’m sorry I really gotta go”
Neil stood up and rushed to the bathroom. Behind him, Bryn sat at the bar on the verge of tears. Neil didn’t look back; he just went into a stall and locked the door. For an hour he sat alone and cried.
Eventually Neil stood up an exited the stall. He caught himself in the mirror; a wet mess of tears and hair. Neil wiped his face and wondered why he didn’t drink at home, but he knew the answer.
He cracked the door to the bar. He heard the voices of people talking. Young couples laughing, friends making memories, enjoying their youth. Neil could not see if anyone was there, but he braced himself for what was to come.
