For the hundredth time that night, I cursed myself for ever deciding to venture out. The rain lashed streets were empty except for a sorry looking tabby cat. The poor thing looked like someone had attempted to drown it. The place had changed quite a bit in the five years I had been out of circulation at Her Majesty’s pleasure. Shops that I had known then were closed, their windows boarded up, where they weren’t smashed. The City of Light that once burned so brightly now flickered and faded.
Five years and everyone that I once knew had gotten on with their lives. Some had moved, some had gotten married, and some had even died, though no one bothered to tell me. People I counted as close friends stopped visiting after a while; my girlfriend sent a short letter to tell me she had met someone new and that was that. Even my family refused to make the trip to see me. I guess that’s what you get when you beat a pensioner half to death for his pocket change.
Spending yet another night with in my state assigned flat, with only the water pouring down the insides of the windows to watch, somehow didn’t quite appeal to me. The thousand or so cockroaches, I shared the flat with, didn’t seem to mind the conditions.
With no sense of direction that night, I just walked. The freezing winter rain plastered my hair to my scalp and ran in rivers down inside my collar. Through the mist and gloom, I spotted the welcoming lights of a late night bar. I crossed the deserted street and stepped ankle deep into an overflowing gutter; the water soaking through my charity shop boots.
As I approached the bar, something tickled the back of my mind; I could have sworn the site where the bar now stood had been a vacant lot when I had gone inside. Too many bottles of cheap scotch had left my memory with more holes than a cheese grater. With a shrug, I pulled the door open and stepped inside.
The joint was like many of the soul-destroying bars that I frequented in my youth. Inside the bar was just as dark as out in the street, with only small pools of smoke infested light filtering through the haze. Either the owners hadn’t heard about the smoking ban, or had chosen to ignore it. Ashtrays sat on every table and the fingers of most of the patrons held a lit cigarette. Mixed in with the smell of stale booze, sweat and cigarettes was a scent that made my nose itch. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was; it smelt like the smoke given off when you strike a match.
Along the long bar sat an odd assortment of people on old wooden stools. Bikers sat next to salesmen, drifters next to a cop in uniform. Everyone sat hunched over their drinks, silently contemplating their own lives and what had brought them to the bar on that miserable night. The only sounds I could hear throughout the bar were the occasional clink of a glass, the flick of a lighter or a cough from one of the patrons. Even two bikers playing pool in the far corner of the bar did so silently, the striking of the balls deafening against the oppressive silence.
I shrugged out of my large army surplus coat and took a seat at the bar. The heavyset bartender, while drying a glass with a filthy cloth, wandered over and raised an eyebrow in question at me. I ordered myself a scotch on the rocks and attempted to strike up a conversation. “Glad to be out of that rain.”
Without replying or bothering to look, he merely scooped up the change I placed on the bar, turned and wandered back down towards the cash register. I didn’t mind really. It was good simply to just have somewhere warm and dry to sit. The parole board assigned me a flat that wasn’t exactly full of creature comforts. Damp mould covered the peeling wallpaper, water ran down the insides of the windows and the heating system had given up the ghost sometime in the last century.
“Nice night for it,” a voice said beside me.
I jumped slightly in my seat and looked around quickly. Another refugee from the winter storm stood next to me. There had been no one in the seats either side of mine when I sat down and I hadn’t noticed the door to the bar open, which lay only a few feet to my right.
