“He was having an affair, you know.” The older guy said.
“Affair? Like he was seeing someone else?”
“No, no. Like a rrrrrelationship.” He mocked the word.
“Aaah! One of those things - sandwiched between creepy crawlies on your skin and staying indoors during a snowstorm. Relationship.”
He looked at me a bit funny. He must’ve been quite a lot older to call that an affair.
“Yeah, yeah, that.”
The barman also looked at me a bit funny.
“That’s an odd analogy.” He said.
“Everything’s an odd analogy if you think about it.”
The three of us sat there. Well, the older guy and I did. The barman mostly sat there and then occasionally pulled himself off the chair he was sitting on to attend to someone who wanted a drink. I was having a Gin and Tonic and the older guy was having a can of beer. It was my first or second Gin and Tonic. It was a new drink and I thought finally I had found my drink, because most alcohol disgusted me. With most alcohol while the taste tied in with my tongue for a split second I would wonder if the effects were really worth the taste. I never got an answer that satisfied me, but I was sure it must be worth it if everybody drinks. The Gin and Tonic appeased me, at the very least.
Outside it was pouring. I know this because that was the reason I came indoors. It was one of those impressive storms; I stood outside just looking at the sky for a long time. How long I don’t know, but I saw three lions, and a dragon. I pointed this out to this guy who was beside me and he pointed a crocodile out to me, and then it seemed like there were a lot of people just standing outside watching the storm. I had no idea people liked storm-watching so much, but in that instant I thought they must do. I felt like a part of a cult – or an accepting group. These storm-watching strangers had something in common with me. But finally I decided to go indoors as I got bored and those strangers looked like they were probably not going to talk to me very much. Not enough to have a memorable impact on my life. So then, the bar-trip seemed appealing to me. It’s funny when you think about it. It wasn’t like I had an image of myself sitting in the bar; I just automatically assumed that existence would somehow be better in another place once you got bored of where you were. Even after I sat inside and thought about if it was better outside I was answer-less. Questions, questions, but never the answer!
The older guy sat at his bar stool and propped his head upon his hands. With his dark, almost-grey hair and his hardened expression and tanned skin he looked a bit like a scarecrow left all alone in the middle of the field. He was quite tall and looked slightly ridiculous on his bar stool – it was far too small for someone of his stature. Mr. Scarecrow turned towards me and carried on talking, as if he had never diverted his attention away from me. He did that with inexplicable ease, as if it was the most normal thing in the world to stop talking to someone, and then start again. His talk was nothing infinitely interesting. He talked a lot about the old days and what he used to do when he was my age, occasionally telling me what I should do and then skipping on to another haphazard thought. That suited me fine; I had a stride of carelessness about me that day.
What kept me sitting there was how he was so sure about everything he said.
“Really? You think so?” I would intercept every now and again, and the answer was always a firm, hand-thumping-on-table assurance with an air of confidence about him. It was very comforting sitting there listening to someone being so sure about the things I wasn’t so sure about. If I was in another state of mind I would have probably felt quite irritated but right there and then it was all alright. Everything was fine as long as he knew what he was talking about and was utterly and entirely sure of it. It felt that way.
The tap-tap-tapping of the raindrops against the roof of the bar swooned into the arms of his rambles after a while. They seemed to join together as I became tipsy. I felt surreal, and I didn’t feel like I was myself anymore. It was sort of like an out-of-body experience, like I was leaving my old self behind - my old self-loathing shell - of baggage and tears and blood and sweat and morphing into someone else. Almost. I could have done that, I was certain, if there was zero gravity and the laws of physics and science didn’t apply. The bar-top seemingly drifted in and out of itself.
Mr. Scarecrow excused himself very politely for a drunken man and headed to the bathroom. I gazed dreamily out of the window that was now stained beautifully with condensation from the rain. It was time to go, I thought. The rain was now reduced to mere drizzles and there was a possibility of catching sight of a rainbow. Chances were slight, sure, but they were there. I decided, in my new self, to take that chance. Previously I wouldn’t have. Previously I would have continued sitting in that bar or stuffed my headphones into my ears and drowned out the dull drone of the world and trotted back home. But not this time, no. This time I felt invincible, something in me told me I absolutely had to go on out of the bar.
I paid for my drink and thought of leaving a little note for Mr. Scarecrow who quite certainly had no idea how he had made me feel. I tore out a piece of paper from my notebook and contemplated upon the words to use. Words, words, words. They are meaningless and shallow and void of all physical human contact but in a way they were all we had left in this world to keep going. I didn’t want to write anything trite or cheap.
It came upon me finally to write, right smack in the middle of the page the following words: Thank you for the conversation. I hope I see you again.
Of course I didn’t really hope I saw him again, it was just one of those things you say to people. I just hoped that those words would make him feel how he made me feel. I paid for my drink, thanked the bartender and made a little joke about odd analogies.
“Look at this odd analogy of life. Our coincidental meeting and then I might trip over a hat tomorrow and it might be an awful fall and I might die, or I might not and I might come back in here in a few days!”
He grinned and waved in the surly way bartenders do, guffawing a little and then choking back on the cigarette smoke that had previously infiltrated his massive lungs. I felt quite good as I stepped out of the bar. True to my instincts, there was indeed a rainbow. It was a gorgeous one - all colours entwined into one and I couldn’t stop looking for a good few minutes. If I stared hard enough I could almost see the different shades swirling and twirling on their axis. There was something very ethereal about rainbows. They always made me feel like they were God’s way of offering us comfort and calm. There was a different crowd gathering now, the rainbow-watching cult.
I trotted on home and for some reason all those feelings I felt before left me entirely. My trot had turned into a sluggish movement of my legs. I was thirsty and tired. Alcohol is not a very good thirst-quencher and whenever I felt thirsty I would feel panic-stricken, almost afraid that I would die of thirst right there and then - even though I knew the possibility wasn’t there, and that I wasn’t that afraid of death.
The positive vibes and confidence that soared through my body before were all leaving me the way a father abandons his children. I was cold, empty and hollow but at the same time teary-eyed. “Hello, hollow, whatever will I do with you? You are coming around again”, I thought. Round and round again.
I soon arrived at a magnificent looking tree and stopped. I had to do something with this tree. I spread my jacket on the ground and sit on it. I decided I couldn’t walk that much with all that hollowness throbbing inside of me because if I did it was likely I would burst into tears at the first human or even eye contact. It was relieving sitting under a big tree after a rainstorm. It wasn’t too cold either, there was a wispy breeze passing through, tussling my hair and sending them in different directions. I was wearing my hair down and they were long, up to my breasts, and with wind like that caressing them I felt somewhere between a forlorn orphan and a beautiful goddess. In that moment I felt like the breeze could blow me and all my fragility away. The cool air was comforting yet intimidating.
I was tired of thinking and feeling and I ran my fingers over the xanax pill that was in my pocket and popped it into my mouth with a swift motion of my hand. It wasn’t long before I fell asleep underneath that tree.
I woke up of course; about two hours later and continued back home again. It was dark by then.
I could have married the sane part of her personality. Three years wasted learning that crazy is crazy no matter how much you love the person. 
