The days spilled out of his cup, so he mourned through cigarettes and whisky. In a dimly lit bar, rather grimy and sweet, he sat on an uncomfortable stool, sipping his drink and puffing beasts out of his cigarette. The flesh on his elbows soaked up the design of the wooden bar-top since he hasn’t moved for nearly an hour. There he sat, smoking cigarettes and drinking whisky, staring at a thick, gelatinous nothingness.
A strange tune filled the air of the bar, something about remorse. In the song, a woman sang along a simple piano rhythm. She sang about a man she was waiting for, someone who left after a night together that was burned into her mind. She wanted to forget him but remember him at the same time.
The ice clattered in his cup.
It was nearly 1:30 in the morning, so the barkeep was wiping the bar down to close. The other customers stumbled out. The bar began to dim its lights, expressing their will to close the place down for the night. He didn't budge. Clouds rose from his lips.
About 20 minutes later, he found himself standing outside the bar, out of cigarettes and a hand that ached from the lack of a drink in it. He wasn’t an alcoholic, no. He only knew when he wanted a drink, and that night was clearly a day that warranted a drink.
The week oozed by, always faster than he expected, and when the weekend came around, time was swift.
He started walking back to his room. There’s something about dormitory housing that is strangely inhumane. People barracked into large facilities. A single room with just a bed and a window that often looks out to nothing impressive. It’s like a cell.
He saw someone ahead of him. That person was far enough so that he couldn’t tell if he or she was walking towards him or away. He pocketed his hands into his jacket and walked briskly. He thought about the unfinished writing sprawled out on his desk. The blankness of the pages yet filled had a bitter existential taste to them.
He was approaching the figure ahead quickly. The figure was a woman, and she wasn’t moving at all. He slowed his pace a bit, considering what he should do. Was she injured? Was she feeling sick?
As he approached, she began to turn around. She looked decent – with a little less makeup, she could be one of those athletic types whose subtle masculinity has a silent charm. She wore a Burberry coat and dark, brick red boots. She looked straight at him as he approached. He felt nervous. What was she doing there so late at night? Was she lost?
As he came into talking distance, she moved towards him. He slowed down and stopped a few feet away from her. A cautious distance.
“Why is life so difficult?” she asked with an uncommon sincerity.
“Excuse me?”
He didn’t know why he said that. He heard what she had said with perfect clarity. He could tell that she wasn’t inebriated. She didn’t slur her words and she stood steadily, almost steadfastly, to the ground. She approached a few steps.
“Why is life so difficult?”
Upon closer inspection, he noticed that her eyes were slightly puffy.
She must’ve been crying, he thought.
He wondered how he could best respond to this situation. Should he buy her a drink? Should he walk her back to where she lived? He just couldn’t understand why she was standing out here in the dark. It was as if she was waiting for him. He stood there, quietly, trying to piece the situation together as she continued to stare at him, patiently waiting for an answer to this impossible question.
It felt like his mind was being pinched. Why was life so difficult? He was at the bar listening to a woman sing about her remorse. Why had he gone to the bar in the first place?
“Life…” he began, his lips parched with confusion.
He wanted to return to his isolated world in the bar, drinking silently while puffing away at a cigarette and listening to a woman sing about her remorse. Wait, did he want to? He wanted to but didn't. That world was too familiar to him. He was forgetting what it was like to have it any other way. He felt like his body was being flushed into a different dimension. He was paralyzed, but his lips began to move:
“Is difficult because we can never understand it.”
Was it he who said that? He didn’t know where it came from. He had never said that before.
Her eyes lit up and glistened in the twilight. He thought she was going to cry again, but instead she smiled.
They stood there for a while longer in silence. She was deep in thought. His mind was millions of miles away from there.
“Life really is difficult, isn’t it? It’s like a marvelous painting. Once you get past how beautiful it is, you find that underneath the paint is an intricate knot of meaning. Why don’t we just go back to admiring its beauty? Is it beautiful because it’s difficult? Or is it the other way around?”
