Written at 4 A.M in an empty bar…

….This cold dark slab of mahogany, weathered by the years and the numerous drinks held upon it's support, takes on an entirely different entity as I sit perched on it's bar stool companion. The cracks in the wood sprout from it's weak spots. The crevices jut and careen in to each other as if the vesicles of this bar have become incredibly evident like a heroine junkie. The blood source it's pumping is the same smell that stains the air, old vermouth and stale liquor from years of spills. It's that smell you get around 3 at any bar after everyone has left, their scent leaves with them and the bars true identity is left. But that's not all that is left.
Memories of the bar's years of service still echo in the air. I hear the clinking of glasses held by two sharply dressed business men. I hear the bad pick up lines being vomited from some poor saps mouth on to a surprisingly somewhat interested woman. These echoes these ghosts are still here and have their stories to tell, and I become extremely interested in to what each has to say.
I walk behind the bar to get more of an understanding of these apparitions. I walk to the bottle scotch the business man have made friends with and hold it up. Through the foggy distorted glass, light bends and their image blurs. I see one of the men hunched over at a bus stop, disheveled and obviously distraught, a very different image from the one i see as i lower the bottle for a second glance. The gentleman sits at the bus stop waiting to board his mobile coffin to take him away to a job he despises in an office he's learned to loathe. His image fades and the other man can be seen leaving a young woman's house. He turns back on his cell phone and finds a voice mail from his wife, and his temporary escape ends. A dead end marriage and a cold hard couch await him when he returns to his jail cell. I put the bottle back down and see the two gentleman seemingly content with life...

Written at 4 A.M in an empty bar…

….This cold dark slab of mahogany, weathered by the years and the numerous drinks held upon it's support, takes on an entirely different entity as I sit perched on it's bar stool companion. The cracks in the wood sprout from it's weak spots. The crevices jut and careen in to each other as if the vesicles of this bar have become incredibly evident like a heroine junkie. The blood source it's pumping is the same smell that stains the air, old vermouth and stale liquor from years of spills. It's that smell you get around 3 at any bar after everyone has left, their scent leaves with them and the bars true identity is left. But that's not all that is left.
Memories of the bar's years of service still echo in the air. I hear the clinking of glasses held by two sharply dressed business men. I hear the bad pick up lines being vomited from some poor saps mouth on to a surprisingly somewhat interested woman. These echoes these ghosts are still here and have their stories to tell, and I become extremely interested in to what each has to say.
I walk behind the bar to get more of an understanding of these apparitions. I walk to the bottle scotch the business man have made friends with and hold it up. Through the foggy distorted glass, light bends and their image blurs. I see one of the men hunched over at a bus stop, disheveled and obviously distraught, a very different image from the one i see as i lower the bottle for a second glance. The gentleman sits at the bus stop waiting to board his mobile coffin to take him away to a job he despises in an office he's learned to loathe. His image fades and the other man can be seen leaving a young woman's house. He turns back on his cell phone and finds a voice mail from his wife, and his temporary escape ends. A dead end marriage and a cold hard couch await him when he returns to his jail cell. I put the bottle back down and see the two gentleman seemingly content with life in front of me and I come to realize. Every ounce poured from this bottle empties more room for their demons to fit, and with every sip they come closer to their escape.
I leave them to their business and walk down to the bottle of Grey goose the surprisingly interested woman has been slowly make a dent in. The unattractive bumbling fellow spewing his second rate pick up lines continues his pursuit. As I peer through this bottle the man becomes very different looking. Resembling features of the woman in fact and even stranger the woman has lost about 35 years. Shes sits a young child looking longingly at this familiar figure. I look closer and see a broken family. A beautiful young girl fatherless and confused. A poor child abused by her mother's various boyfriends that enter and exit the girls life reaffirming her fears that no man can be permanent in her life. The original vision now makes sense to me now. This woman sees her father in every man that minds her attention longing to fill that male void she can't shake. This deadbeat of a man stand her false salvation her undying hope that a real man is out there, just waiting to disappointing her in a self destructive relationship. I put down her bottle...
I turn to a bottle of Makers. My poison, my medicine. Pour myself a glass to take my mind off the underlying pain in this bar. When I look in to my glass I catch my own ghost. A wasted childhood, crippled by a mental disease far to advanced for him to realize the problem, unhappy and longing to be able to just find normalcy. A young man who found his freedom but unsure what to do with it now far behind his peers. A young adult who has dragged down his relationships with his own problems and wasted opportunity. I throw back my head and let my swallow my haunts. slam the glass back down to it's rightful position and the reflection is no more, and the bottle of maker's has a 2 ounces more demon to it.
The patrons here bring these demons to this place and use these bottles as their psychiatrists. And as in every psychiatric appointment when that hour hits, or when it strikes two they are forced back in to the harsh reality. Sobriety overcomes them and the demons escape their bottles to find their owners. When they catch up with their keepers, they remind them, "this is life". That old familiar sting, reality. Until, our next decampment, Cheers...

First real attempt at creative wirrting