random prose

an excerpt from 'Keep Calm and Carry On'The music washed over her as she stepped into the place. Outside was cold and filled with car horns, screeching breaks and steam rising from the roadside: but inside was a cocoon; an enclosure filled (too full?) with people chattering, drinking, laughing and dancing. She could hear that the music was coming from the far end of the long bar, in the back room, but had no idea how she was going to get there through the throngs of people. She also needed a drink.

She could feel the smile widening as she politely, but firmly, maneuvered herself to the bar. She was standing in a place that she always wished had existed but never experienced. Her small fantasy had come true and that had never happened before. A place so fully realized from the one she saw in her head that it was scary; as if someone had taken the blueprints from her dreaming sleep and built it. And now, somehow, her winding path had led her to it.

She felt intoxicated before her drink had even arrived. The rows of liquor behind the bar, the overworked but effortlessly cool and grizzled bar tender who didn’t seem to be in a rush but seemed to be doing everything anyway, the dark orange walls, low lighting and candles flickering everywhere made the bar seem new, familiar, foreign and welcoming all at once. She caught her reflection in the large mirror that she was facing, as she handed over her money for what seemed like the strongest Vodka Collins she’d ever tasted, and she was grinning like an idiot. Everyone’s going to think I’ve taken something she thought. Drink in hand she began to move through the packed bar toward the back room, with her arms raised to make the squeezing by strangers easier, and to provide much needed protection from potentially unruly hands, she caught a glimpse of her watch: her newly found friends would be here shortly she thought - leaving her enough time to continue to be wide-eyed and grinningly uncool by herself. Riding on a wave of smiles and "excuse me's" she made it to the end of the bar and to the small glass door surrounded by red drapes. A list of bands that she'd never heard of and their stage times was stuck dead centre. She tried to work out which band she could hear but the door swung open and a man clad head-to-toe in tight denim with a little sweat on his brow burst through holding a half empty bottle of beer and an unlit cigarette. He laughed as he briefly held the door open long enough for her to scuttle through and into the dark and loud of the back room.

She didn't know how, but she just knew that the room would be small and unlike the cavernous performance spaces that are usually attached to such small bars. It was tiny. And drenched in the unfamiliar and joyous sounds of whatever band were playing. Whoever they were, the small and tightly packed audience were rapt. She shuffled closer and watched the faces in the crowd smiling and singing softly along with music and felt herself begin to sway. She closed her eyes and listened. The harmonies coming at her from the stage were beautiful and sent her head spinning. Smiling, she thought of how she'd got here. Of how strange she now felt. Of this new world. Of the possibilities. Of the unknown.