A Bar Moment
Emily Patrick

He inhaled it slowly, letting the smoke release from his mouth and curl between his hand supporting his forehead. The bar was modestly full with the exception of two bar stools on either side of him. The crowd didn’t bother him but then nothing at this point seemed to affect him.

A woman sat down on the seat to his left, inching up her skirt just a little to reveal empty white skin under fishnet hose. She smiled, trying to get his attention, while her long violet finger nails, each encrusted with a fake diamond, ambitiously caressed his forearm.

“How ya doin', Hun?” She purred as she smiled, shaking her greasy brown hair back and forth. Some of her hair attached to her deeply shaded maroon lips, sticking there temporarily until she brushed them away in a flounce of playful discourse. He didn’t respond and appeared as if he might not have heard her, sitting there drawing on his cigarette from time to time. She grew impatient and slid off the bar stool towards the other side of the room blasé that her forwardness hadn’t led to another customer.

He finished his cigarette, gingerly putting it out before lifting his head from his hand and surveying the scene around him. Several pool tables crouched in the middle of the area clothed in worn green fabric with chipped balls scattered around by a bad player. The room was perpetually smoky, the kind that played with the space around it, lingering on people’s clothes, or warmed by the low lights. The woman with her long fingernails was leaning against the wall coquettishly indulging in her most seductive grin to the man in front of her. The man with a burnt out cigar clinging to his lips nodded slowly every time the woman spoke. Very close to them was an old man in overalls, who once displayed an amiable personality which was frayed like his long beard. His pearly eyes of wisdom only saw smoke secreting through the bounds of this pit so devilishly playing with its victims. He leaned heavily on one of the pool tables with one hand supporting his slouched appearance while the other cradled his drink. The knuckles of his fingers were swollen and held a gold band on his third left finger years after he had meant to take it off. Not noticing or seeming to care, he dipped his finger in his drink from time to time releasing tiny bits of dirt that were harbored in his nail. Most of the rest of the room held monotonous figures in juxtaposition, enclosed within themselves in their stinginess over their little space along the bar. He observed all this at a glance sighing several times and finally lighting another cigarette. The bar shared his sentiment, bringing in people from the cool breeze outside into a room to indulge in their woes.

Time slowed down like a watercolor picture that does not possess definite edges; thus, blending into the background the rest of life like a bad song you can’t change. If he wanted to, he could have gone on acting that way forever so possessed with the simplemindedness of it. He stayed only a moment longer, satisfied with this small fantasy of seclusion before rewrapping his plaid scarf around his neck and suppressing the smoke of his cigarette. Putting his feet on the ground, he felt the sureness of his weight as he arose from his stool. Crossing to the door, he passed the old man with pearls in his eyes positioned just as he was before longing over nothing night after night. He made the final step to the door, twisting the handle with confidence and knowing he still had choice unlike many who had succumbed to this forgotten hollow, unbeknownst to themselves.