There is always, when writing, an unending desire to write more. To tell a grander story. To bring so much more to life than even possible by one mind. But alas I lack the diligence or the courage to do such at this moment. This piece of a piece is all I can summon. Maybe there is more to this story, maybe there is not. But then again stories worth writing always start in such a way and there is seemingly always an air of doubtful lust in their stay. Doubt that you can do much more and lust for something so much more.
The night was crisp and full of promise as he walked into the bar. He was arriving late, a fact none of his friends would be to entirely surprised to see. But he wasn’t there to see them, at least not in the grander scheme of things. Why he was there was quite different. He was there, in this place, to meet someone else. To meet a stranger, though strangers they soon would not be. Upon approaching a group of familiar faces that he knew to be his friends, he smiled. They were a bunch of hooligans and jokers and this they knew. They had never tried to be anything other. As they greeted one another with cheers and insults he continued to smile as they smiled too. Beers were dispersed as jeers and more insults continued to flow, but he began to feel off put, displaced as if he had somewhere else to be. This was an odd feeling for him because this is exactly what he had come to witness. His friends. This sharing of drinks and tales long gone. This was his destination and any goals he had conjured up for the night were set in exactly this context, but it wasn’t… It wasn’t where he was supposed to be. As the feeling grew more and more distinct he began to absolve into anxieties of a precarious sort. And with these shuttering feelings emerged ever so more a loss of words and he began to shift his gaze amongst the room. First to his friends hoping none had caught a glimpse of his rising dismay. He didn’t want any of them to think something was going on, let alone ask what was wrong for it was a question he hadn’t the slightest answer to. Then he peered outward to the window at the far end of the room. There weren’t many people outside. No, just one man not much older than him. One man sitting there gazing off into the night with a cigarette simmering near the edge of his lips. Go… Go… This word, it was all he could now think. Go… Go… At first he did his best to ignore this word calling him to the outer realms of the bar. Calling him to dive into the solitude of another, but the harder he tried to shut this calling out the greater the pull came. Go… Go… These words became his reality. They became his all. He couldn’t stop them. They were breathing in him. The best he could do was to hold that breath for a moment or two, but this was just as futile as an attempt to hold his own for too long. For as soon as he could hold it no longer it would release again in rage as the gasping of air came out even louder than before. To ignore them any longer was nothing short of asphyxiation. GO… GO… He was transfixed. He was ungrounded. All of him was unceasingly taunted by this stranger's call. A call to be with one he knew not. A call to be cast out into the night without the guidance of familiar stars. But he had no choice. He could fight it no longer. Outside of all that he knew and expected this stranger was the only company he now sought.
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AuthorThane Hounchell: Offensive around children, scared of cats. Archives
March 2018
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