City of Redemption

-Chapter 9-

About an hour before midnight on New Years Eve, patrons at the bar were so completely packed in like sardines that Maia could not so much as move a foot without bumping into someone. Due to memories of her drunk father from childhood, she was never big into alcohol. But this particular night Bat had to work third shift and it was all hands on deck. She did her best to stay in the corner and out of the way, not wanting to be by herself, but by 10 PM she gave in and ordered her first beer for the night. Though she found herself stuck in a crowded room full of faceless meat bags, she found herself feeling more alone than ever before.

She was downing her eleventh beer when she heard someone speak his name. Within the past ten days she had come to loathe the name Jonathan so much she vowed she would punch the next person who uttered it aloud in her presence. She scanned the room for the source of the voice and found a group of mundanes at a table littered with shot glasses and baskets of fried food, laughing and having a good time. One had called his friend by the name. She ground her teeth. Or at least she thought they were mundanes. Maia squinted. She had to be sure, before she made a scene that would not only disgrace herself and the whole of Praetor Lupus, what was left of it anyway, but would also be in direct violation of the Accords. She was not yet drunk enough to forget herself.

She felt someone tapping her shoulder and spun abruptly. The room went spinning. Hands kept her from falling off her stool. She squinted again, trying to make out if she knew this person or not. She didn't think she recognized him.

"You look pretty tonight! What's your name?" he shouted over the crowd. It was deafening in here, but she didn't mind at this point. It helped to drown out her thoughts and sorrows.

She opened her mouth to speak when Bat appeared on the other side of the bar from them. "She's not interested, buddy. You might want to make your New Years resolutions with someone else."

All Maia could make out for certain was that the guy had brown hair and wore dark colored glasses. It reminded her of Simon Lewis and she swallowed down the sore in her throat that wasn't there before. She had to look away. She went to take another swig from the bottle in her hand when she forgot it was empty. She raised it at Bat. "Another Sam Adams!"

Bat hesitated a moment, and then went to get another beer. While he was away she heard the guy sitting next to her continue. "Name's Mike! I'm a real estate agent! What do you do?"

She took another beer from Bat as he passed them by and tipped it at him in thanks. As she twisted off the cap, she said, "I drink."

"Me too!" The guy laughed. "Hey! Bartender! Two Manhattan cocktails!"

Maia grumbled but said nothing as she chugged her twelfth beer down.

"You from around here?" he shouted a little too loudly in her ear.

"Let me guess," she noticed the indentation of an absent ring on his left finger, "you're from out of town, on a business trip, maybe, looking to get drunk and cheat on your wife with the first pretty girl that will hop in a cab with you to the motel you're staying at to do a little nightly charade. But the next morning you'll forget her face and name and you will go back to your crappy mundane job, your unfortunate wife, maybe with kids, that pathetic middle-class life you made for yourself. Let me say something, my friend. Life is too short to be hurting the people that love you. Even if you don't love them! You be good to that person, you hear? Because, no matter what you think they may have done, or hadn't done, they are still a person! You will never know what life has in store for them. What's waiting for them, around the corner. One day, you'll be trying to tell them it's not working out. The next thing you know, they're in your arms with a knife wound in their belly, eyes wide open, looking up at you for help as they lie there dying. They can't say nothing, either, because they got blood pouring out of every orifice. And when they die, it doesn't matter anymore how terrible a person you thought they were. They were alive one minute and gone the next. Poof! Just like that. Life is so fragile, Mike. You have to respect it. Respect all life! Because you never know when that rug will get pulled out from under you, when it will all be taken away. You find you'll be missing that person one day, living in a world of regrets. What you could have said. What you should have done... So don't you come running to me about how unfair life is, because I've LIVED IT!"