Beautiful Lullaby

Chapter Six

The bar was empty, only a few regulars sat at the bar with a pint of beer or with old man Stewart, known by all of the townspeople, the local fisherman who has been their fisherman since he was twenty years old, working on the docks but now at a withering age of 92 years old, he was a lonely man with his wife recently deceased after over 70 years of marriage, he sat at the bar with a small glass of whisky straight, his hands trembled as he chatted to Tina who worked behind the bar, telling her the stories about what he did when he was younger, “Did I ever tell you the time that I fought in the war?” He uttered to Tina with a shaky voice. 

“I don’t think that you did,” Tina replied humouring the old man. 

“It was 1939 and I was 16 years old...” he told her with a shaky voice. 

          Elena and Chris were sitting on the tall, round top tables not so far from the bar, Elena glanced over her shoulder towards Old Man Stewart with a smile on her face as she turned back around and carried on smiling at Chris, “He tells that story every night,” she told him, “Poor Tina has to listen to it every night but bein’ the kind person that she is, she pretends as if she hasn’t heard it.” 

“Huh,” Chris smiled, “Maybe one day I’ll sit next to him and he can tell it to me, I wouldn’t mind listenin’ to the story.”

“If you want to hear the story,” she responded, “I’ll tell you the story, I’ve heard it just as many times as Tina because he comes into the store every March, May and August to buy the same flowers for his wife who sadly passed away two years ago.”

 “So, he’s lonely?” he asked her.

 “Yeah,” she nodded, “Sadly, he is, he doesn’t have any family because they all picked up and moved to the city, she was the only person that he had in his life. You know the guy is actually still workin’ at 92 years of age?”

 “Jesus,” he replied with shock, “What does he do?”

 “He works down at the docks,” she told him, “He’s been workin’ there since he was in his 20’s. He’s a fisherman but instead of goin’ out to sea because he’s too old for it, he might die out there, he stays at the docks and guts the fish for the customers. I think he does it because he’s lonely and because he loves it.” She shrugged her shoulders and took a drink of her bottle of beer, “I don’t know why, he must really stink at the end of it. Imagine workin’ with fish for over 70 years, I guess you’d probably get used to it, I guess.”

 “I might listen to his story,” he stated as he raised the bottle of beer towards his lips as he took a small swig of it.

 “But I’ve just said that I could tell you the story,” she told him, “Why would you want to sit there and listen to him? It gets really old after a few times of him tellin’ you it.”

 “It’ll never get old with me,” he replied as he glanced over her shoulder towards Old Man Stewart as he told Tina his story once more. “Besides,” he shrugged his shoulders as he placed the bottle of beer down on the table, “I like listenin’ to old people, listenin’ to them tellin’ their stories, I mean, the guy lived throughout the war, he fought in the war. I mean, the guy is a hero.”

 “Yeah,” she shrugged her shoulders slightly, “I guess.”

 “Besides,” he added, “The guy is lonely. He’s on his own and if it means just sittin’ down next to him and listenin’ to his life stories just so that he’s not on his own then that’s what I’ll do. The elderly are treated so poorly these days, people neglectin’ them, families ignorin’ them because they have “busy lives,” it doesn’t take two minutes to pick up the phone and call them up just to see how they are.”