111 lines
5.0 KiB
Plaintext
111 lines
5.0 KiB
Plaintext
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Underground eXperts United
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Presents...
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[ Strangers ] [ By Noel Ace ]
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____________________________________________________________________
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____________________________________________________________________
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Strangers
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by Noel Ace
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"Anyone sittin' here?" a man on a Friday night asks a woman sitting alone
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in an almost empty bar.
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"No."
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Silence. The man sits down next to her and sets his glass of beer on the
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counter.
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She feels him staring at herand looks down at the counter. "Do you need
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something?"
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"I never need anything. You?"
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She smirks and then frowns.
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"What are you doing here then?" she asks.
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"I felt I was a danger tonight."
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She smiles. "Whom to?"
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He takes a long swig of his drink and slams the empty glass on the counter
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in front of him.
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"You, me, the world, who knows."
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"A danger?...I like that," she says, letting her finger caress the water
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residue melted from the bottom of his beer bottle.
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"I could destroy you," he says, looking at the empty beer bottles left on
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empty tables around the room.
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"Who says I'd let you?"
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"I've done it before."
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"Besides, no one is that bad..." She looks at him in the shadows of the
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night.
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"I can be, when I work at it."
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"You don't know..." Her eyes look into her empty glass.
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"I know." He looks at her.
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"Can I get you another drink? You're on empty," he says stepping off of his
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stool and grabbing the empty wine glass in front of her.
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"I don't drink."
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"But your glass..it's empty."
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"It's always that way."
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They sit still, silent.
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He takes a drink, a big drink. "I can never get enough."
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She looks at him. "You don't know the whole of it, you know. You could be
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more than you are now. We can all be so many things."
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"It's just I can see what I am. It is always the same for me." He braces
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his hands around his drink.
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"What is?" she asks.
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"Life, love. Good beginning, two months pass, then disappointment, anger,
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numbness, and then wake up one morning, she's gone. It's always the same."
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"Is it?"
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"Uh huh." He sips his drink.
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She stares into the night. "Always?"
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"Always has been for me. Doesn't matter, really. I'm used to it." He waits.
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A moment passes in silence. "Hey, let me take you home. It's already late."
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He looks at her and sees her through her own shadows.
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"Who?" She sits straight up, startled, looking around the bar. "Home? Oh
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no, I can't go there."
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"Forget it...." His finger cuts through the frost on his glass.
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"Oh....look. It's nothing personal. It never is with me." She touches his
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arm and looks into his eyes. "...It's just that I'm not here now. I'm just
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not really here anymore."
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He jerks his arm away slightly and turns away from her gaze.
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"Where are you then?"
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"Inside here..." She points at the center of her chest where her heart
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beats. "....A world no one enters any more."
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"No one in there?" He moves his stool closer.
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A shadow crosses her face. Slipping off the bar stool, she quickly picks up
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her bags. "No, no one. No one at all, not ever again."
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"Yeah."
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She looks down at her empty glass. "I just like it this way. You know?"
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"Yeah, okay. I'll just let you be."
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She tilts her head to the side to look at him once more. "Be what?"
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"Alone, I guess."
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She looks down at her feet on the red and black tiles. "I'd like that."
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She moves her stool closer to him and sits back down. She rolls her empty
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glass from side to side and watches it slip off the counter and fall to the
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ground. Glass breaks, but nothing shatters the silence in the room.
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And as the bartender sleeps, and as the jukebox plays, and as the lights
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blink off and on, the two strangers sit next to each other in a bar, alone
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at night, each lost in their silence, the only two there, both not searching
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this night for anyone, anybody, or anything.
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Not even each other.
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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uXu #456 Underground eXperts United 1998 uXu #456
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Call UNPHAMILIAR TERRITORY -> telnet upt.org
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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