I can hear a noise of chains... my heart beat is irregular... I'm in a cold sweat... my hands are trembling... my face is burning... arms reach out to catch me, but I don't let them... the faces of the girls are elongated until they touch the floor... There's something wrong with the stamp I took: I wonder what rubbish it was cut with.
The bar is in front of me and I grasp the counter. A huge cockroach with a bow tie is standing on its hind legs and serving drinks.
"Everything alright?" it asks me.
I nod and ask it to make me a Charles Manson. The giant cockroach – it's about six foot five and has a large, black, shiny body and long thin antennas – gets to work agitating its little feet... It puts a few leaves of mint in a tumbler, adds some sugar and a few drops of lemon, pounds everything with the muddler and pours in the rum and crushed ice, inserting two straws...
"The drink card," it says opening its terrible jaws and waving its thin black antennas.
I pass the card to the insect to be punched, then it begins to serve someone else and no one seems to be particularly upset by the fact that a giant cockroach is working as a barman.
I taste my cocktail and judge it to be absolutely splendid. I get up and walk away and soon I lose myself in the dark, smoky corridors of the club... I feel and increasing sense of claustrophobia and panic and, when I put my hand on the wall to steady myself, I realise that it's searing hot and I start to run and I enter a corridor that is a dead end and I turn back and start down another and I can't find the way out and my heart is beating too hard and suddenly I stop in my tracks, I squat on the floor and put my face in my hands and I start to cry.
YOU ARE READING
LAST CUBA LIBRE
General FictionIf you're looking for a gripping read, look no further than "Last Cuba Libre". Meet Jessica, who's a bit of a slag. Claudio, who rocks designer threads and snorts lots of cocaine. Then there's Tony, cruising in his Porsche, leaving a trail of broken...
