The man slipped through the doors, greeted the bartender with a fastened nod, and slid into his usual booth. The wooden table had been worn down by years of use, covered in scratches and scars, it’s surface stained with dark rings from hundreds of beer bottles. The man knew these marks with such a familiarity that they could have been marks of his own skin.
Fuller, your Bud Light.
A voice had floated by and when Fuller looked up he saw no one, just the new appearance of a bottle of beer to his right. He grabbed it and took a swallow. The taste was almost sickening with how well he knew and anticipated it, but at this point, so deep in a routine, he feared what would come with change, even one as small as a different brand of beer.
Fuller sunk further in his seat. The singular window in the bar was part of the door, which was behind his back. However, from years of coming here, he had noticed that when sitting in just this particular spot, he would be able to watch the small mirror hanging next to the bathroom door and see that it aligned almost perfectly with the upper left corner of the window behind him. Each night he sat watching it reflect the evening’s changing colors. The sun was setting earlier and earlier this time of year, so instead of a golden sunset, the mirror reflected an aquatic blue that looked almost artificial. He imagined that the streets outside were saturated with this deep blue color. However, where he sat, separated inside the dive bar under the faint yellow lights, everything remained under a grayscale tint– everything except that very small square of indigo, the only proof that an outside world existed.
Fuller knew that, too soon, the blue square would disappear and, leaving him without any external focus, his mind would be forced to return to memories: past selves that time pushed out of reach but that still remained in the form of bittersweet aftertastes; or past hopes and dreams that pulled him to an edge and taunted him with what might have been. Each night he confronted this. And yet, each night, he felt a fear of doing so. He seemed to be stuck in a liminal space; an unbroken, recurring dream.
He finished his beer and looked to his right to find a second one already sitting there. Inhaling, he switched the empty bottle with the full one.
“Odd uneven time, aint it?”
A voice came from above. Fuller looked up to see a man in a white suit towering over him.
“Sorry?” Fuller stammered, taken off guard and unsure what that meant or if he had even heard it correctly. Coming here each night he had grown to recognize each other regular customer, but the white suit man was unfamiliar.
“You don’t mind if I take a seat, do you?” the man said, less a question than a statement, as he was already sliding in the booth before finishing his sentence.
“‘Course not,” Fuller replied, looking down. It made him uncomfortable to have his routine interrupted, despite the uneasiness with which he was moving through it, but he was no rude man.
“No, I’m not from here,” the man gave with a faint and knowing smile.
“What is your name?” Fuller inquired politely.
The man took a sip of a Blue Moon. “You know,” he gulped before continuing, “I’ve got this idea that certain nights of the year… you know, when all the elements are right– or maybe it’s that all the elements are wrong… well anyway, I believe that every so often we are given an opportunity to confront the things that haunt us.”
Fuller found this man very odd, but somehow he also felt an immediate sense of deep trust with him– despite the fact that he had known him for barely two minutes. For once, he felt a sense of familiarity that, instead of dragging him down, seemed to fill him with hope– and with fear of that hope, it being such a new thing.
“My guilt is so deep I think it’s permanently rooted in me,” Fuller stated, unsure of where these words were coming from.
“Humans are good at learning to adapt.” The man in white placed his arms on the table. “Sometimes I wonder what might happen if some of ‘em pushed back against, or picked apart, some of those things, those rules or structures, that seem to be so set in stone.” The man took another large chug of his beer.
Fuller looked into the man’s eyes, wordlessly questioning him, but somehow certain that the man was understanding his silent inquiry. However, in response, the man only drank his beer.
“I think I might… if I tried to examine or pick certain things apart, I would lose myself. I… wouldn’t know who I am.”
The man crooked his head. He took another swig of his drink, tilting it all the way up and finishing it off.
“I don’t think I–” Fuller started.
“I’ve gotta go to the washroom,” the man in the white suit interrupted.
The man stood up and began to slide out of the booth. He stopped, gave Fuller one last look in the eyes, and then turned away. Fuller watched him make his way across the room. He almost seemed to be gliding, and his head-to-toe white apparel appeared to create a glow in the dim dive-bar. The man opened the bathroom door, momentarily obscuring the small mirror, before letting it close with a wooden thud.
Fuller looked back down. He was left then with just the bottle of Blue Moon across from him. Driven by a sudden unknown impulse, he picked it up. It was still ice cold and sweating, and completely full.
Wouldn’t I lose myself? Fuller thought. Wouldn’t I?
"odd uneven time" is a plath reference. i'm not trying to plagiarize because i like the idea that maybe the man in the white suit is quoting plath. but i also do want to recognize that as much as i wish i did come up with that, i didn't; plath did.