Tucking a too short piece of hair behind my ear, I attempt to smile away my creased forehead. Another customer. The lunch rush was mostly over, and my aching back resists the time spent stooped over the counter emptying glasses of their bits and pieces of once colourful adornments to laughter inducing drinks for what feels like hours.
This new, but old, person takes a bar stool for his own. The creaks from the metal matching the ones in his bones. A bartender reaches past, sliding a requested brew toward this stranger in front of me.
After the sound of glass bottle meeting lips, silence, and then: "The peanut shells are sometimes so thick on this floor, when I walk on them, it reminds me of the war. You couldn't take a step without stepping on a least a dozen bullet casings. The sound. I'll never forget it."
The creases in his face remind me of book pages. He teaches me more than my textbooks; his history is truth.
I wish we shared some of the same blood. I wish his brown eyes were mirrored in my own. I wish I wasn't just another girl behind the counter; yet one more shadowy recipient of his worn through stories.
I wonder how long it will be until I'm telling my own; until I'm no longer nodding my head in wooden obedience.
A scrape against resisting wood. My momentarily downcast eyes flicker upwards, only to catch the swinging of the saloon doors: Ushering a moment out into the past.
1 comment:
Once again, I am captivated, reading this over and over, wishing there was more.
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