Strangers in the night
I met Robert in the pub one Saturday night. It was late, the bar was almost empty, islands of untenanted seats punctured that delicate atmosphere of communion; dry throats and brown ale and a hungry thirst. Pub goers cloistered themselves in isolated groups, talking and drinking, an occasional shout of laughter stirring the susurrus of conversation.
I sat with the regulars, at the bar, slumped on flimsy stools that shifted uneasily beneath you as if weighing your worth. The regulars sat in silence, sucking on whiskey and damp fags, nursing gins and flat beer. Peering across that well worn barrier into the shadowy recesses of the barman’s dominion, drinking up the delights that rested there on dusty shelves, counting off the days of their lives, drop by drop.
He arrived in the final hours of the long night, shaking rain drops from lank brown hair like a wet dog. I had not seen him in the Severed Arms before, but I recognised him from the market down on Brenton street. A short, wiry guy with restless eyes and a pointed, angular face. His clothes always travel stained and arms laden down with grimy plastic carrier bags bulging under the weight of broken electronics, snakes of insulated wiring poking through the thin plastic sheaths, like brightly coloured hernias. Tonight he was no different, clutching a black plastic bin liner to his chest he took the stool next to mine.
‘Evening,’ I said.
‘Evening,’ he replied.
We sat in silence, drinking awhile before he spoke again.
‘Have you ever needed to tell someone something, but didn’t know where to begin?’ His eyes were intense, a grey, olive colour, with pupils like tiny pinpricks in a green sea.
‘I don’t know. I imagine most of us have at some point.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, there you go then.’
‘I haven’t. Until now.’
He shifted in his seat to face me and I found myself staring uncomfortably into those eyes again.
‘So who do you have to tell this difficult truth to?’ I said.
‘You.’
A finger of fear crawled up my legs and slid into my guts. ‘Me?’ I said, affecting bravado, but my voice quavered.
‘Yes, you,’ he said, pinioning me with those eyes.
‘I don’t know you sir, what could it be that is so hard to tell me, eh? Come on then, spit it out.’ I forced a smile to match my brave words, that rang hollow to my ears.
‘I…I cannot,’ he replied and a look of misery spread across his sharp features. ‘There are dangers.’
‘Come now, you don’t know me from Adam. Did one of the regulars put you up to this?’ I wished he would deliver his message and leave me in peace, or end this tiresome mischief.
He squinted down the length of the oak bar and shook his head.
‘No, not tonight, not yet,’ he said and sliding from his rickety stool he fled into the darkness and the squalling rain.
It was only later, as the barman called last orders and men slid unsteadily from their tottering perches to vanish into the thin night, that I noticed the black plastic bin liner propped by my feet.
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This weeks Ficktion is not inspired by a picture, but by the theme of censorship which Flickr was much preoccupied with recently. There was much more of this planned, but this is all you get. More Ficktion can be found over at our new home.