Sometimes finding someone to talk to can be a lifesaver...
Image by Ray Shrewsberry from Pixabay
JACK ME UP
A plain bourbon on rye I said to the barman, and don’t hold the horses, I’m a guru short of all I could be and I need something to lift me up.
Coming right up he said.
I’d been avoiding the bowl fish all day long and I was tired of their droning on and denouncing me, and the death masks they wore in the filth they were swimming in.
There was no shape to them; they were like bloated carcasses floating around with nowhere to die because nothing and no one wanted them, and so made their noise and excuses and infected all they came in contact with; and everywhere they went they left a slime trail behind them.
I tell you, the other side of that door is not where I want to be right now I said to the barman who was wiping his glasses until they were as clear as clear could be.
I’m with you on that he said and almost looked at me.
So what’s happening tonight then I said looking around while finished my drink and passing the glass back to him.
You want another he asked and threw the glass in the sink to rinse.
Do angels play harps? I said.
Still not looking at me he mumbled something that sounded like: you want a double now that it’s this time of night?
It wasn’t time to howl yet, and growling seemed undignified, so I didn’t say anything, and let him guess.
He came back later after I’d almost finished getting myself comfortable for the show and tapped my drink down close enough to touch, and then went back to cleaning his glasses.
Not the talkative kind I guessed and moved away to sit in another place and run up a huge tab again; another weird night wasted.
Oh, just lately I’ve been feeling bad, like a real slow bones; I’m all a gurus for sixpence and twelve monkeys shy of a six pot and saying: tomorrow I’ll be someone else.
Yeah, I’m staying in tonight, there’s nothing out there that I want, and besides, the show is going to start soon, and I’ve got nothing better that I want to do than watch it, so I may as well watch it and see what happens.
I was scratching my nose a while later when the barman came right up to the table and placed another double down upon it and left without saying a word.
I felt that I kind of liked this place, the barman can read my mind, and the show is about to start without me, with me here polishing my crown and soon to be smiling up at them when they come on; and them gawping down at me in awe and saying things like: what are you doing down there, and, get well soon, and things like that as to be expected when the star of the show is taking the night off.
Two pieces of cheese for my thoughts and a graveyard in the sun later I found I was saying my prayers to myself over and over outside of where I should be when a passing shadow passed by me bathing in the moonlight and said: mighty are the fallen in this way.
My thinking turned to those that are as close as close can be, and you hold them to you, never to let go until you have to step up onto the stage and go for it in all the glory like some cat that knows how to cross the road, or a thief escaping home through the shadows to become normal in the daylight hours, and doing so you find your strengths and weaknesses like some maestro calling you from a distance.
You know, a maestro from a distance can make dinner and invite you over every night until you break and accept the offer. And hypnotised into the dream, and feeling some kind of desperation with you trying every which way to escape but finding you are drawn closer where the introduction is: ladies and gentlemen, I give you the maestro who will entertain you to your doom.
…
Dreams were just bubbles in the bath of all my troubles that I could not invite home for fear they’d drown me or throw me out and I’d just be another frog in the garden croaking.
But this is just how the mighty are fallen in their death beliefs with no cure but their own stink to haunt them.
I was morbid.
I was dead.
I would be reborn.
Jack me up…