Now before you read too much into this (and you will), the inspriation, if that is what it is, comes from the final two or three sentences. Everything works BACKWARDS from that. (I've purposely split this into two halves so that you come back gagging for more :)
(Or wander away, too disinterested to care! :)
Write about you know, they say. Write about what's in your experience. So I did. Makes a change, no? In some respects, the beginning and the end do not belong together, although they could possibly belong. Is that not the essence of fiction? In a different world, in a galaxy a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away; in another reality, another quantum superposition of states, they could belong. But, like all stories, this is just another fabrication, another simulacrum; even if it is rooted in someone's, anyone's, experience.
A might-have-been on the long road to salvation. Or damnation!
"He was slowly beginning to calm down as he turned the corner and entered the familiar, cobbled lane that led between the tall, fin de siècle tenements to his favourite watering hole. “In what way,” he thought, “can it be considered reasonable to set such ludicrously unachievable targets and then berate someone so venomously for failing to achieve them?” He pondered for a moment as if searching for the answer, although it was there, hanging, waiting for expression; the only one possible.
“Sod ‘em,” he said aloud to no-one in particular, although a woman hurrying back to work after a long lunch made even greater haste as she sped along on the other side of the lane. “Yes, sod ‘em! Do you hear me?” he shouted. “Fuck you! Fuck you all! In spades!
He pushed open the door to the……..What would one call it? A bistro? A wine bar? A coffee shop? A café? It was all of these things and none of them. An estaminet, perhaps? He was pleased to have remembered the word, so beloved of the more cryptic crossword compilers. Yes, from now on, this would be ‘Estaminet Adrienne’, a haven of calm, peace and contentment; a place to moor his storm-damaged yacht,while he took on water and effected repairs, scraped the barnacles from the hull. It was, as usual at this time of the day, deserted. It’s what had attracted him to the 'estop' in the first place!
He pushed open the door, the wind chimes playing a delicate, atonal counterpoint to the diminuendo of his rage.
“Hallo!” She shouted, kneeling, her face hidden by the oaken panels, from the other side of the bar. “Usual?” He experienced the quotidien pang of familiarity, predictability and, as he always did, toyed with difference, surprise, unpredictability for a few moments. “Yes! Please!” He said.
“Sit down, I will bring it to you.” As she always did.
He sat down, in the same spot, the same table, the same chair, pulled out his newspaper and waited. The physical location was the same; the table the same; it was unique, no other like it. But the chair? Was this the same chair as yesterday? The day before? Last year? The first time he came here? He liked to think that it was but was struck by the quantum uncertainty of it all. He doubted even the staff could tell one chair from another but perhaps the chairs too were unique in some way and the staff could tell, just by touch, by instinct, where a chair belonged. He smiled. “Perhaps I too should learn the secret language of the chairs,” he thought.
She brought the large cognac, Hine, which they stocked just so that he might drink it, and the large black coffee which he used to fuel the evenings, the late nights in vain attempts to stave off the recriminations and vitriol of those who aimed to grind him into the ground. He pulled a propelling pencil from inside his jacket and once more attempted the cryptic crossword.
Perhaps thirty minutes later, the crossword complete and the brandy drained, he set about drinking the last of the now cold coffee. Caffeine was, after all, still caffeine, even if cold!
“How do you tell someone to push off? Politely?” she quietly asked from behind the bar as she vigorously polished a brass pump. Draining his cup, he rose and, putting the newspaper in his bag, he walked to the bar to settle his bill.
“You have a function tonight?” he asked, placing his card, the glass, the cup on the polished counter.
“No,” she replied, a puzzled expression on her face. “Why do you ask?”
And then the realisation, slowly, inextricably dawned. “Oh, I am so sorry,” she said, her hands framing her face. “It was a question, not a request! Please, forgive me! It’s just……….” Her voice tailed off into the silence.
“Getting too much attention again?” he asked. “I would have thought you’d be used to it by now!” He smiled. “Besides, you don’t have to be polite to slugs!”
“No, it is not like that,” she replied. “He is a nice man, it’s just that lately……Oh, I don’t know. It’s ……..” She turned away and stared at the shelves behind the bar, as if stocktaking. “Do you have a little time?” she asked. “Perhaps another drink?”
He considered for a moment. Late back from lunch? After the ear-bashing he’d had that morning? Slacking, again? Failing to meet his objectives? Boozing it up at lunchtime? When he should be number crunching?
“Fuck ‘em,” he thought. “Fuck 'em! There are more important things in life than their numbers………..and this just happens to be one of them!”
“Yes, I can spare some time,” he said. “Never refuse a free drink, my old man used to say. I am assuming it’s free.” He wore a broad grin; a grin reserved for the few moments when he genuinely felt for the world. A grin to surpass the everyday nature of his mundane life. A grin for the good times!
“Sit down, I will bring it to you. Perhaps I will have one myself, though I shouldn't. Coffee?” she asked.
“If I have any more caffeine, I shall go into orbit, I’ll be flying so high. Doppio, one sugar! In for a penny, in for a pound!” he said as he sat down."
To Be Continued (maybe).
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