Deep breath. Silence the inner editor. This isn’t about a perfect story, or any real story to be exact. It is about fifteen minutes of letting the thoughts flow from your brain to the page. Of getting into the habit of getting the words down. Editing can come later or you can just set this aside never to be used again. Pen’s ready? Timer Set? Then… Go.
Wednesday, October 7th: He ordered a round of drinks for the table.
He ordered a round of drinks for the table. He saw several eyebrows raise as he put the order in and formerly reticent old men started edging closer to his table. He hid his smile in the rim of his glass. Thus far no one wanted to talk to him. He understood. He was an outsider and this was a tight knit community. In a day or so he would be gone, or so they’d tell themselves, but their neighbors they’d have to live with for the rest of their lives. While he understood the reticence, he needed information. Now he hoped drink would loosen natural caution.
He tucked his smile away and shifted his features to look more resigned as he settled his glass back on the table. Most of the men around him drank from heavy ceramic mugs, most of them with their names inscribed on the mug. The mugs of those departed lined the perimeter of the large tavern. The mugs retired when their primary user departed the area, usually for residence in the local cemetery, although it seemed wars had claimed a few. There mugs looked as though the bottom of the mug was dipped in black paint to just under the name before the mug was hung with the others. The black showed well against the tan colored ceramic of the other mugs. Some years held a few dots of black, others had large swaths of their rows darkened. Some of the more recent names he recognized. In fact he knew of the custom, having heard it from some of the men whose black dipped mugs now hung above his head. Briefly, he wondered what they would think of his inquiry, but dismissed it for later contemplation. Perhaps he would feel guild, for now there was only necessity.
The glass too marked him as an outsider. The glass was given to those without their own mugs. Visitors, travelers; the temporary folk. Only those who stayed used the mugs. He could see the stacks of pint glasses gleaming behind the bar. They were all freshly washed and awaiting visitors. They looked hopeful. At the moment his glass was the only one in use in the tavern. It gleamed and shone as though looking proud to finally be used instead of washed and restacked night after night. The lights reflected off of its surface, it’s gleam a constant reminder of his status as an outsider.
“Are we celebrating tonight, sir?” The barman asked as he quickly filled the glasses around him and brought him a second glass pint.
“No I’m afraid we are wallowing in disappointment,” he told the barman. He made certain his voice carried. “I came here seeking information and there is apparently none to be found.”
“Ah,” the barman replied. “You’d be staying at the Inn?”
There was no need to name the Inn as there was only one in town. “I am,” he confirmed anyway.
The barman frowned as though wondering why he didn’t take his patronage to the barroom attached to the inn. It was where all the non-locals partook of the locally produced ales and why his was the only glass in use. The barman didn’t seem quite able to question the reason for his patronage. Knowing it would get him further than even lips loosened by drink, he sent a silent apology to the dead.
“Tell me,” he began. “Is that mug for the Johnny Bostock who served with the fifth regiment?”
Ten til Midnight 