A Quarter Life

Janet & Bourbon

The alarm clock was never so stiff. Even if it would, yet it couldn’t see Mike, fallen on bed.

The road used to be hasty normally, filled with joys and sorrows. The outrage, the inner peace, DC streets used to be a silent witness of all of this.

And afterwards? The papers crawling on the streets could feel the emptiness. The buses were craving for human, the city was like a barren mountain, longing for some loveliness, liveliness.

Mike could remember the first day, when all this emptiness initiated. He saw it on the TV. They said it was a virus. They said to be careful. The people were scared, afraid of an invisible army. But they never lost hope. They were careful, everyday. And the result? Nothing, more and more bodies falling on the streets, more and more people getting scared, more and more emptiness grasping the city, ceasing nearly to existence.

Mike liked to walk down the lane. He always loved it. The chores, the graffiti defining the city, the lives, every lives, the lives with big mansions, the lives with sidewalk tents, the lives with holding hands, the lives with holding tears, the lives running on treadmill, the lives running on a bottle of water, he liked every lives. Mike used to walk and see things. The yellow line on the road was normally the bike lane. But for them it was the borderline of home. They always had these worn out tents to stay at a street, and the next day, on another street. These vagabond lives were always a matter of interest for him.

Mike walked slowly, passing the rotten oak tree. Oak trees could be deprived of nutrition under the shed, he knew that. But this oak tree was never on that symptom. Mike used to stand near it, look at the leaves. The leaves were bright green, the greenery would remind him the liveliness. He would think himself, maybe somewhat younger version of himself, hanging on the tree. But he couldn’t picturized that, rather he would imagine the bolder version of himself, near the oak tree, hanged to death.

Mike always liked to take a long walk, just to walk. He walked, walked amidst the city, the emptiness. He would see the surrounding, more deserted. He wouldn’t mind if it were for a moment. In fact, he would pray for a moment in his life, where he could sit alone, see the sunrise. He hated the sunset. For him, the sunset was like doomsday. But, the sunrise, it is new, new to him, new to his existence.

He walked around the square. He knew the Farragut Square very well. He spent his walking time, like this pigeons flapping around here. The pigeons never bothered him, neither did people. He was of his own, regardless of every pathetic lives.

Was Mike happy before this? He didn't know. He wasn’t bothered, he wasn’t emotional. He walked in the street like every time before. He never considered them.

The Farragut Booze was, to him, the busiest bar in the town. He used to see many people, all over the bar. People grieving about their depressions over a bottle of whiskey, people dancing on the floor as like it was the last day before dusk, people vomiting the turkey they ate earlier in a corner, people betting on a fistfight which ended up with emergency medication, people flirting with the bar girls to forget their marital status, he used to see them. The place became a hallow after the lockdown.

He went in. Regardless, the place is pretty much vacant. He sat on a chair and kept aside his overcoat.

He looked down to his overcoat. Gladly his overcoat didn’t have a mouth, or else it would write a book, a book defining his failure.

He remembered, he bought this overcoat from a unpopular grocery store. He would rather say, a hippy store. He looked at this worn out overcoat once, he wasn’t in need to look and reconsider. He just went to the hippy shopkeeper and asked, 'How much?'

The shopkeeper laughed, said, 'Hey you crackhead, don't sniff to much if you can't handle. This thing is for free. You should hit a blunt joint to be in mind of buying this shit.'

Mike smiled. 'So be it, maybe I hit a joint to be so disrupted. Now I can keep it, can I?' said he.

The shopkeeper said nothing. 'Your wish, dickhead. Don’t blame me later.'

'Good evening', and the hippy, the shop, it all faded away from his eyesight. It just needed a simple evening addressing from this bar girl.

Mike knew her. Her name was Jenny. Actually it was Janet, but he liked to call her Jenny. That's quite an irony, as he never uttered even her real name.

'What can I get for you today, Mr. Ronald?' she asked politely. He kept quiet for a while. She was looking so fine. Everyday he would walk in this lifeless city, and the liveliness was hiding in a barren bar all this time.

He asked quietly, 'What day is today, Ms. Hofmann?'

She grinned, saying, 'I reckon it’s Monday, sir.'

He looked at the watch, she was straight as an arrow, accurate as an arrow.

'Then I would like to have a glass of Bourbon, please.' he said, more politely.

'Right away, sir.' she went to the cupboard.

He watched her making the Bourbon. She could have just prepared a simple Bourbon, as like she made for other customers. But she didn't. She carefully made the toast for him. Is it? Or it’s just some kind of absurd assumption he came up with?

She came with a big glass filled with Bourbon and an ice tray. He took a sip from the glass. The taste felt different. It felt different everyday, in the hands of Jenny.

She came to him and said, 'So, what story do you have for me to say, Mr. Ronald?'

He stopped for a while, the taste was surely different from any day.

He said nicely, 'And how can I learn this sort of miracle to read the fate and mind of other people?'

She laughed, not so loud, she feared to be jobless. 'I am sorry Mr. Ronald, but I can't teach you that. Don’t curse me, but I myself never learnt that. You see, women are born, or should I say, burdened with this miracle. They see every stuck words in your throat, they feel.' she claimed.

He said nothing. Was being woman a curse. What would happen if he was woman? He didn't know.

She said, 'So, what is it today?'

He kept his voice low, 'I need a psychiatrist, can you help me with that?'

She was astonished, she couldn't say anything. She was about to shout and he knew that.

'Keep calm. It’s nothing much. It’s just some weird dreams I am having, nothing else.'

She felt relieved. 'Well, I will see what I can do about that. But, don’t you think you can visit an astrologer?'

He laughed, so hard that if he was the bar boy, he would be jobless.

He replied, 'If I think I should, I would. But astrology is like the government. You think it is fate, until you see a pattern.'

He got up, took his overcoat, came close to her ear and said, 'Text me the appointment date and time, and please, be there with me, it’s not like I am used to visit a psychiatrist.'

He went out. He didn’t look back, he thought, could any scream make her jobless any better?