Red Light

Blink a couple times. After temporary blindness even darkness is blinding. 'It's fine', I find myself muttering. And of course it would be. Self-induced physical debilitations become quite the chore after you lose count of the number of times they've occurred.

Of course the bartender beside me didn't concur. She was new, I could confirm that without my vision; the tender gap-year voice, the rapid (badly subdued) breaths of consternation, the unfamiliarity with an all in all, pretty regular occurrence. This particular bar shuffled their personnel fairly frequently, and arbitrarily at that, no doubt thanks to degenerates like myself normalising an atmosphere of sordidness. Bless her, some unholy coercion must have been undertaken to enshrine her in this institution for even one night. This would be her only night if she had any sense of worth.

Yet worthlessness was what my abodes generally imbued so I feared not too hard for her tainted virtuosity. I was judging her without even an appearance, appraising the book whilst blind to the cover; it was especially crass to assign her inflated expectations off of such presumptuous deductions, everyone was amoral in the end right? Regardless, she needed the comforting more than me if anything, so I repeated myself a little louder, 'Trust me I'm fine'. Naturally this trite phrase served nought to ease her fretfulness; she was still thoroughly shook.

Tearing up, whilst my eyes started clearing up, with a tense, troubled gaze she whispered in disbelief, half-mourning resigned to her wretched luck, 'During my first week?'

To me this sounded not too grave of a proposition, granted it was during Christmas season and many of the regulars had travelled to visit their unfortunate respective families and remind them of their underachieving relations, but going a week without major disturbance warranted celebration at an unheard of phenomenon, a miracle of sorts. She must have been exceptionally oblivious to the establishment notoriety, her parents would undoubtedly be amiss at its squalor. For deducing from her appearance she presented an unparalleled paragon of incongruity amongst us bottom-feeders.

Young, startlingly so, was the first striking feature. So much so that my disdain for the character of the owner undertook an immediate upturn. Not young in the 'innocent' manner, but in the form indicative of angsty, unsettled, indecisive discontent apparent in every action. From the crude cover-up of trivial blemishes which only served to accentuate her abnormalities and palpable physical discomfort, to the void of vital visual aid exemplified by her incessant squinting, to the queer prevalence of antagonistic items of express opinionation; an anarchist 'A' pendant flanked by glinting dollar shaped gold adorned her neck on a goth dog-collar, all domineered over by the aggressive, gaudy yellow of the bar apron.

Needless to say a transitional period, I hope. Although I was the one on the floor, and beggars can't be choosers. I could hardly afford to be judgmental towards the figure which had fanned my face for the past 10 minutes. Somewhat fittingly to my characterisation to my characterisation of her however, her actions completely contradicted the appearance. As, for one thing, they definitely exemplified a united front of distraught. A pitiful sight in all truth, and one I was solely responsible for.

Without meeting her eyes I instinctively uttered the infamous insincerities of, 'I'm sorry', before immediately internally lambasting my spineless behaviour, and deciding to embrace my reckless initiative by doubling over into vain self-preservation mode, launching into a tireless tirade of excuses. 'It's not that bad really', 'Quite commonplace in this establishment', 'Fairly tame as far as baptisms of fire go, trust me this is a good learning experience'

All my rambling was lost on her, no doubt, dismissed as the intoxications of a broken man. Again her remorseful resignation resurfaced in an equally as distanced and detached monologue as mine, 'It's over for me now', progressively developing into incredulity at my condition, 'How did you even end up like...this'. Admittedly my condition wasn't reflective of the average night out, yet her innocence once again amazed me, as my state was likely nowhere near the extremities she had been imagining.