So there he was, sitting at his usual bar, or ‘night club’ as the fashionable people like to call it, staring at his usual drink. The beading glass of Newcastle only offered indifference. He massaged his downcast face with one hand, trying to clear his head. But his thoughts were deeper and darker than the stein of German import the guy next to him was drinking. As he tried once again to clear his muddled thoughts, a belch issued from the resident of the stool next over. Rising from deep within a lofty beer gut and passing through the stubble-covered throat it announced itself with an assault on the olfactory senses. A loud and somewhat sickening sound, he turned his head as his nose shrank to avoid the smell of the dark brewed import as it wafted his way. From his new angle, he cast his eyes to a more soothing setting.
Dimly lit, with an ambience akin to candlelight, but rather an attempt by the cheap barkeep to cut electricity costs. This usually calm setting made it a popular couples bar. His eyes traced over the loose pattern of lovers, imagining, to a slight degree, himself in similar situations. Having someone to hold and to comfort. Someone to connect with, someone to confide in, and someone to take comfort in against the shrill breeze of this cold existance. But he was alone. Alone in this bar as well as out in the bitter world, and he envied those couples enjoying dinner or a simple drink together. Unable to share in their laughter or their warmth, left out in the cold. Or rather just staying out in the cold, where he’d been for much longer than he’d like to say. And even though he knew that some of those happy couples might break up the very next day, they at least had each other now, and that just served to deepen his depressing envy. For he had never truly had anyone, not for one captivating moment.
He took another hard pull at his drink, trying to drive away the bitter thought with the alcohol’s warmth, but it wouldn’t go, so he took another. He only had a couple drinks a week, so he might as well enjoy them. His eyes wandered again as his thoughts deepened, trying to search out something to relieve his mind. But to no avail, the clouds gathered and darkened yet even more. Then, quite suddenly, all was clapped back to focus in a single, but not fleeting, instant as his eyes set on the impossible beauty that had just entered the scene through the discrete bar room door. His eyes were quick to scan as his mind slowly relished the sight of her long black hair that fell in gentle waves past her smooth shoulders, exposed by her low cut top. Tracing down her beautifully curved body, entranced by the light tan of her skin. Down past her skirt the smooth shape of her legs seemed to flow with his gaze. Everything screamed beauty in its perfection. His eyes wandered back up her snug skirt and her form-pronouncing top, rising to her face, just as smooth and beautiful and the rest of her. Full lips accented her smooth, soft-featured face. And then her eyes, a dark brown, holding all the mystery of passionate shadows.
It was her eyes that really gripped his attention. They held a sense of…what word could he use…searching, as if she was looking for something. She was apparently searching the bar for someone, and he got a strange and unjustified sense of hope. And then it sank, right when he realized she must be looking for her boyfriend. But then, in another moment that happened like a startling thunderclap, her gaze met his. He became lost in those shadows, so lost in fact that he was afraid she was seeing right into him, through the cold mask that he put on when he needed to go out in his depressed bouts in life. He averted his gaze, cast down in embarrassment at having been caught off guard. He didn’t need her thinking he was staring her down, like one of those crazy stalkers you hear about on the news. He hated the idea of her getting that impression, even if he didn’t have a chance with her anyway, he just hate coming off as the wrong kind of guy.
After a slight moment’s pause, he looked back up to take in more of her beauty, and to see if she had finally found her boyfriend. To his surprise, she was still looking at him, and she was alone. Strange and wonderful hope soared, she was walking towards him! With liquid motion she reached the bar where he was sitting and offered the most amazingly beautiful smile he had ever seen. He offered one in return and she sat down. He now understood what that searching gaze she had held was really about, and he realized that his hope was finally justified. Now she had found what she was looking for, and so had he.
—
YEAH RIGHT!!! As if it could ever happen like that! As if it could ever happen at all. No such dreams ever come true. Just like all those unreturned phone calls, those painful waking nights spent waiting, and those bright burst of hope rising in an instant to un-containable heights only to be brutally smothered by harsh reality. Love is something that usually never truly happens in an instant. Take the mathematical concept of Pi, for an example. We know it’s there, but who has ever fully computed it down to its last miserable digit? Assuming that that’s even attainable. It’s commonly accepted that it’s not. Love, as society today accepts it, is nothing more than a burst of lust and/or hope. But it is rarely ever fulfilled, like those final illusive digits of Pi. I refuse to accept the ‘Hollywood knock-off’ of love. The search should be for something deeper. My quest is for those last, and truly fulfilling, digits of Pi.
There it is. Short, and bitter-sweet.