Coral Bar

"I have absolutely nothing more to say to you. Zippo, you are more broke than a gambler on the day after payday, who has chased several royal flushes without avail."


"You have such a common outlook, you know, like, like it would kill you to put some, like, thinking muscle into the matter."


"Would you have preferred I dug deep into that shallow well? Is that it? Instead of searching for other new ideas, we just steal those on the surface? Or do you really believe new ideas can be bought at the corner store?"


"You know, like, open your mind."


"No, you mean, I should open my wallet, there is a BIG difference. Embracing the ideas of someone who has dug shallow, but says it was deep is common logic. I reject it."


"You, like, reject it as, like, fake because you cannot, like, see. Your eyes, like, fail you."


"Or perhaps you have mistaken the mumbles as fact, when in fact it is simply muddy ground water."


***


"She said that?"


"Yeah, she thinks his belly button lint is as valuable as diamonds."


"He spends his days wielding a deflated pen at a pseudo defunct newspaper and at night, he is an amazing Vaudevillian with his pet monkey, Oscar."


"And to think I felt like a plastic spork when I discovered Dean trained snapping turtles and dressed as a Ninja for birthday parties."


"Dating is an insane festival of highs and lows. Mostly lows."


"Yes but it beats the alternative. We could just be standing in the yard, like half dead daisies."


"Hell of a trade off. Guys with half dead daisies or clinging to the dirt, like half dead daises."


"Yeah, that is why I am here tonight with you, babe."


***


“And then, of course, it jams.”

“Well, you know, for this very reason I like to know what I am getting into.”

“I know, but man, do I love how she stretches every morning, lithe, like a sleek cat. I told her from the beginning I was going to someday disappoint her.”

“I guess she doesn’t believe in that ‘forgive and forget’ shit, she went straight for wanting you dead.”

“Surprisingly she is amazingly low maintenance, in a classic sense, anyway.”

“I have heard and seen some amazing shit, man, but this I’ve gotta to tell you, this... freaks... me... out.”

“You should have seen her. She was so hot. Standing there. Still as a statue. My breathe caught. I knew in that moment she was the girl I was going to marry.”

“She wanted you dead.”

“If she really wanted me dead, she would have tested the gun, before she tried to fire it at me, across a crowded bar.”

“Tested it how? Shoot it into a pillow or a garbage can in the subway on the way to the bar.”

“She was dressed in a rocking mini skirt, purple fishnets and her black latex mini trench coat. Legs up to here, in her knee high black patent boots.”

“So since she was dress like the star of a sci-fi porno, you think that means she would have tested out the gun, before she showed up, dressed to the nines to kill you?”

“Yeah, not only is she the sharpest dressed woman I know, she is the smartest too.”

“I know I’ve said this before, but you really need to rethink this. You bailed her out, that is enough. No need to buy her a ring.”

“All ready done.”

“I hope to God this never happens to me.”

"You haven't lived, man, until you have almost died."

***

The vile absinthe cocktail tempered the reports fluttering through the air. Eh, gads, prattle, prattle, prattle on and on. Hunched shoulders and a surly countenance my shield. Life had a way of sucking at my soul, one day at a time and one ridiculous conversation, overheard without fail over the lively juke box in the corner, at a time. The passion of the senseless and the glitter of the once shiny. Each with something to say. Clusters of people, their ideas and their words forming coral around the bar, so beautiful and yet so very dead, death brings the beauty. Today, just like every other day, without fail, the whips of disjointed conversation race the liquor, which will move me to oblivion first.

 

 

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