Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock

Jan 23, 2017
Bar On Locke
Peppermint Stout  from MacKinnon Brothers Brewing

The couple across the room are oddly quiet; angry? I yearn to move closer. Ah, no, it would seem I was mistaken; they’re just reading what now has replaced the shared newspaper. Ma on her tablet and Pa on his phone, have just settled down for the after work drone.

It’s different, but the same. ‘Pass me the sports section’, fades to black and ‘Did you see that bit about…’ moves on in. Same couple, same conversation; only the format has changed.

I’ve seen it all. I’ve heard it all. It changes constantly and faster and faster, but it’s all the same.

That woman over there. She doesn’t think I’m watching, but I am. There’s nothing to listen to; she’s alone, save for the company of a pint of stout, which, at least in my humble opinion, has always been pretty good company.

She’s mad; I can tell. The more her brow furrows, the faster her pen moves across her book. Yes, there, the brows rise, forehead wrinkles; she lifts her pen and stares out the window. She’s trying to be me, I can see it all over her. Silently pensive, artificially disinterested, she listens. She wants to lose herself in the stories being told behind her so she can forget her own.

She watches as one leaves. I can smell her thoughts: ‘Where is she going? How did she get here? Is her story like mine? Does she have cats? Is she going home to heat up a Lean Cuisine and pour herself into her pyjamas and to pour a bottle of Pinot Grigio into a single glass, over the course of an evening until she finally falls asleep on the couch with Netflix on ‘play the next episode automatically’ mode until she wakes up on the couch at four a.m., cat on chest, bottle empty and takes her bones off to bed for a couple hours, before she has to get back up and do it all over again? Is she? Because that’s what I want’, she thinks.

I can smell it on her. She craves. But don’t we all? I crave the ability to climb down from here and be with them. All of them.

The older couple sharing the news of the day and the evening’s pasta special.

The young couple just behind them, sharing new things; first things.

That guy. The one by himself with the anecdotes and isms. He’s an artist or a writer or some other form of muse-inspired spirit. The one who did not accomplish a single piece of creativity today, but put on his London Fog and wandered in for conversation and libation. I want to sit with him.

I want to go in the back and hang out with the cook who just quit smoking. Who ever heard of a cook who didn’t smoke? Ridiculous.

Angry-by-herself-lady is almost done her pint. I can see her shoulders relax a little, and her writing hand slow. She’s made her peace. Or maybe her piece. Either way, soon she’ll close that book, pay for her beer, take a deep breath and head back. Back to where she really does want to be, even if she’s mad and kind of wants to run away. Again.

Me? I’ll be here. Like sands through the hourglass and all that…

I’ll watch and listen, listen and watch. They’ll all see me and I’ll see them, but they won’t know what I do. They won’t know that they don’t change; only I do.