Forsaken Draft 4
'She is too young to know the dangers of smiling at a strange man,' he thinks.
He, an ashen haired once-upon-a-time-hipster with more girth than worth, is wet with his fifth gin and tonic. She, a faye typed auburn dream, is propped pretty on a bar stool and glancing his way.
'She's smiling... at... me?' He catches the ice cube before it falls from his slacking jaw.
Her smile shines from across the smoke hazed bar like sunlight cracking a cloud clogged sky, spinning grey wool into pearly pillows of silver fleece. He fears that smile and the trap it sets within him. He fears it like a dry drunk fears the smell of a bar. He holds her gaze for a heartbeat of eternity, and then returns the smile. 'I offer copper for gold,' he thinks holding his grin tight, knowing insecurity is an indulgence he can ill afford.
He needs her smile.
He needs her smile like a moth needs the flame. Loneliness has camped in his chest too long. It lives there, a squatting junkie, waking him in the night with fits of angst; causing him to grasp at a pillow and press it to him as if longing could convert fluff to flesh. She may be young, but she is grown. 'She’s old enough to be drinking here, and so she’s old enough to learn.'
Old enough to learn.
Her smile is an invitation. He accepts. He slips the last of his drink past his lips and pushes off his stool to drift toward her. 'Two ships in the night,' he thinks. He will follow his luck as far as it may sail. Whether into her arms or into the gutter, he is willing the risk.
Half way across the bar, the junkie of loneliness in his chest whispers hazards.
'She’s a prostitute.' it rustles.
'Shut up,' he replies.
'She’s a transvestite.'
'Shut Up!'
'She’s a serial killer. She’ll cut yer cock off.'
'SHUT UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP!' he bights his tongue. The pain appeases the junkie into slumber.
She is still smiling - a beacon through the fog of his mind.
'Am I drunk enough for this?' he wonders. 'Too drunk?'
Closer.
His heart is tripping a beat like a bass drum rolling down hill. Three more steps and he is in her presence. He will lean in, offer to buy her a drink, and the first notes of their romance will begin to play.
One step away.
She stands up. Her smile beams. He returns the smile. A rush of confidence bloats his head.
“John!” She calls.
'John?' he perplexes, 'Who's John?'
She steps toward him. He leans in to make his move. But she is looking through him -- side stepping around him, and he cannot help his idiotic gawk at her dismissive steps.
He is invisible to her.
She throws her lithe arms around a man standing just behind him. A taller, better dressed, younger man picks her up and presses her warmth to his chest, her smile to his lips.
Thunder rolls. Clouds clot the sky once more, and the space between his breastbone and heart feels the stir of its laothsome guest once more. 'Idiot,' it tones. He leans on the oily wood of the bar. “Gin and tonic,” he murmers as his ship slips lost and blind into the cold empty night.
(c) copy-write 2005
