At 9 o’clock on a Saturday I left my house alone. I jumped from the couch, my wrists crumped up and my head heavy. The images and the words in my mind were cloudy, so it’s difficult to explain why I felt like I needed to get out, but I simply did. It was an impulse so raw it seemed like the only thing to do. There is this strange glooming sensation that only a true winter night can convey, and as the chilling breeze struck my complexion I could feel my thoughts slowly drifting away. The wind screamed on my ears but I did not mind, just as I choose to not be bothered by the cold almost burning the tip of my nose. For a moment I could finally not worry about my mind and the endless current of thoughts, so I went in deeper and deeper on those streets and forgot my feet were even moving at all.

I would only regain conscious of my surroundings much later, on a part of town I had never been in before. Right in front of me I stopped at an alleyway with nothing in it, the only exception being a faint light right at the end. I looked around. No street name, no other houses or stores that seemed to be open or even have people inhabiting them. I felt like a moth at that moment, a senseless creature with nothing but curiosity for what shimmered from a far. 

As I got closer I realized it seemed to be a bar, even thought there was no sign indicating a name. I entered those doors confused, and once inside became even more so. The bar in question had the most incoherent design I had ever seen in any establishment. The chairs were Queen Anne like, with graceful curves and upholstered seats that were almost torn up from being used so much. The tables had an industrial design, with clean lines and legs made of steel. There was a grand piano right at the end of the bar, with such a dense shade of black that it almost felt like an illusion. The wooden bar counter had carved out curves on the edges, and intricately painted flowers on top of it. Right behind it, on the walls, there were beautiful glass shelves with LED lights built in where the bottles of the drinks stayed. But, nevertheless, the place was completely full with people all around me drinking and talking.

I could only gaze away from every single little detail of that decoration when I saw what I believed to be the bartender. The blonde figure behind the counter, with beautiful curls and an angular face, also happened to be a child. She was drying out a wine glass when she briefly looked up and noticed me. Her face did not convey any change in expression, and she quickly turned back to the glass. When I sat down in front of her she said:

“You are new here”. 

“Where are your parents?” 

She looked up, eyeing me so profoundly I almost felt like she could see right thru me. 

“What would you like?” she said tilting her head. I hesitated before answering.

“Gin Rickey please”.

The girl started making the drink. She held the bottles like a maestro does with his baton, with complete grace and intention in every move. I had never seen such a clear demonstration of proficiency in any other bartender. When she finished, the drink was handed to me, but when I drank it, I could not feel the alcohol. Matter of fact, it did not taste like anything at all. I stared at it in disbelief for a few seconds. I watched her open the bottle of gin, squeeze out the fresh lemons and everything. 

“There is no alcohol in here”. She looked at me as if I had just stated that the sky is blue. I looked around me, saw people holding martini glasses, wine, beer bottles. “Do their drinks taste the same as mine?”

“We do not serve alcohol in here. In this place we share something a little different.” She eyed me from head to toe, I could feel shivers going down my spine. “You don’t look like you belong here just yet.” 

“Would you like me to leave?”

“No, please stay. You might enjoy talking with some of these people. Plus, the show is about to start”.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” I said holding up the glass.

“Keep it. Everybody feels calmer talking with a drink in their hand. Alcohol or not.”

She turned her back to me and went inside the kitchen. I remember thinking that was the strangest girl I had ever seen. She had a maturity in her voice and on her gazer that I had never seen before on a child, and barely in any adults at all. So I decided that, at least for a few brief moments, I would suspend any pre conceived notions and just stick with her advice. Stay. Talk with these people. Try to understand this place as much as that little girl seemed to understand everything. 

I walked around at the tables when a man who appeared to be in his 30’s looked at me. The darkness around his eyes made him seem older than he actually was, but when he smiled at me his face lit up. 

“Hey mate, what are you doing here? You don’t look the part.” 

“I have been asking myself the same thing.” 

He told me his name was John, he wore a button-down shirt with stripes and a pointed collar that he was constantly adjusting. John spoke freely, his voice was low and he always raised his tone, almost screaming, when he talked about something that excited him. He told me all about himself. He was left at an orphanage at just 4 years old, and had no recollection of who his parents were, nobody ever told him who dropped him off. After spending so many years insisting on knowing, and getting nowhere, he began to make up his own stories. John started telling people that his father was a sir, receiving his title after he came back from the war. He married a lovely baker, a beautiful and talented woman who owned a local bakery and used all she earned to pay her mother’s medical bills. His father never longed to be a rich man, so when both him and his wife died in a car accident, all the money they had was already given to philanthropy, and almost nothing was left for John. With no other relatives that could care for him, he had to fend for himself. 

“That is a beautiful story”.

“And it is one hundred percent the truth”. He said giving me a mischievous smile. 

John offered me a sip of his beer. It had the same taste as my drink. Nothing at all. 

“You want to know something funny?” He said with a smile. “I am going to be a great writer. I will write novels that in a few years will be studied as classics. People will read me in book clubs, and I will go to these fancy parties with fancy people who want to talk about my prose”. The smile ran away from his face. “I just need to get out of this place”. 

John spent his entire life working, so he told me he never had the time to write a book. But worst of way, the inspiration evaded him almost every time he put pen on paper. He felt like he could never finish anything. Eventually, words did not feel like words anymore. Letters were just nonsensical lines. His masterpiece of a book never was written. 

I traveled around the tables, had some interesting conversations that, even if I would like to, I could never forget. I remember passing by Molly’s and Bill’s table, they barely knew each other but liked to share a drink. It is always better than drinking alone, or so it seems. Bill was in the navy, and he quickly chugged his entire glass of bourbon before telling me “I will be there for life”. Molly had a skinny face, you could clearly see her bone structure and its curves peaking from her skin. She seemed reserved, but eventually she pulled out of her wallet an old picture, that seemed to be taken by a polaroid. The picture had her when she was a kid and an older woman that appeared to be her mother. I saw her eyes shimmer. When she put the photo back she looked at the floor with her eyes wide open and the corner of her mouth trembling, then she said in a broken tone of voice “I should have taken more pictures.”

I landed on a group of 4 young women, all of whom had been recently married. They talked with excitement about their spouses, and seemed relatively happy with how their lives had turned out. Until one of them, a red haired woman with a pearl necklace and laced gloves, whispered in my ear:

“Don’t believe the brunette that is talking. Her husband broke one of her ribs a while ago, but he was good friends with the hospital’s staff, so no one will ever admit what actually happened.” She looked at her hands, crumped them into a wrist and breathed deeply. “Marriage is never what it seems. But it is nice to seem happy. Maybe if we admit to some of the bad stuff we will actually become stuck in the dread. Nobody wants that”. She seemed to smile genuinely. You would almost believe it if you did not notice her carving a little bit of her flesh with her nails on the insides of her palm. 

I was making my way to the bar counter once again, when all of a sudden I heard a melody cutting thru all of the conversations. It is hard to describe how those people became once the first notes on the piano were played. There was this air of pure and complete attention, there wasn’t a single soul inside that establishment that wasn’t completely and utterly focused on the suited man banging on those notes. 

I still, to this day, try to find some decent words to convey what listening to that melody felt like. How all of those notes sounded like a memory, how they conveyed fear, humor and loneliness in a single bar. The piano sounded like damn carnival, it was a prayer to the greatest of all gods, it felt like a song sung by the ocean. I felt the notes entering my ears, traveling thru my body and giving me chills at every pace. And for the longest time, I felt the melody screaming my name. 

When the man on the piano stopped I was completely distraught. I could feel my muscles shivering as tears came falling from my eyes. The man approached me with a smile, and for a moment I almost felt the need to kneel down and worship him like a God. 

“Everybody sees something. Every song I play is a memory.” He started saying eyeing me with tenderness. “Some remember the last time they were with their loved ones. Some remember the smell of their childhood home. But you, you don’t belong here just yet. What do you remember?”

I was taken back to 9 o’clock on that same Saturday. I left my house in search of something that was long gone. I was looking for that same feeling of when you are a kid, scared in the dark, and your mother hugs you and tells you there is nothing to be afraid of. I was looking for the first time I fell in love, before someone who has nothing to do with me now broke my heart so profoundly I could never piece it together completely. I was looking for those moments where my dad looked at me and said how proud he was of me. I was looking for that book that wrote down every single feeling I had ever felt but could never figure out how make sense of.

For a moment, right there, on those piano keys, I found that. I saw everything. Felt the warmness that I left my house desperately trying to find. 

I did not say this to the piano man. I just stood there, crying. He tapped on my shoulder gently, and went inside the bar’s kitchen. 

I sat on the bar counter. The blond kid was there again. I sat in front of her and asked for another Gin Rickey. I knew it would not taste like anything, but I still felt like I needed something to hold, something in my hands to look at while I pondered about everything. 

I don’t know how long I spent just staring at an empty glass. But eventually the kid looked at me and said:

“We are almost closing. Are you going to stay?”

I looked around at the people in the bar. I was trying to get a sense of what they felt. As if, somehow deep inside, they all shared the same thing.

“They aren’t leaving?”

“They can’t. Not anymore”. For the first time, the kid did not have a monotone voice. I could feel a sense of melancholy, and for a few brief seconds I felt bad for her.

I stared at the piano for a little bit. Maybe I could stay for just one more song. 

But in a strange pulse of strength, that I did not even know I had in me, I got up and left. 

I tried to look for that bar a few times after that time. I never found it. Maybe it has never tried to find me again.

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