Title: The Art of Storytelling
Author: Kait
Rating: PG
Date: 1.04.03
Summary: The storytellers have died out.


The Art of Storytelling

He sits at the bar, six feet of lanky, lonesome twenty something. No one pays him heed, for even the most remarkable of patrons and events get nothing more than a head bob from drooping bar flies, drowning in more than sorrow, more than alcohol, something more like nonstalgia, memories to faded to evoke any sort of emotion.

He holds out three fingers. "Whiskey." The barman moves to add ice to the cup, only to have his wrist touched, ever so lightly. "No." The man is shaking his head. "Straight." The bartender does as he's told and places the drink in front of the man without another word. The concerned barkeep is a myth, you see. In the city, in reality, no one cares. It's a hard bussiness, caring, and so, so much easier to slip back into the cracks. No repercussions. No tiny voice bleeting into your conscience.

So the story of the young man with the bloodshot eyes, the tired looking man who drinks his whiskey in one minute and fingers the glass for the next twenty, will go untold. Who wants to hear another story of pain and doubt, who, when the world is in a secret war and the country is in a public uproar? Too many stories end in bars like this and too many begin in them, and the vast majority have their skulking middle section played out here, floating in the ether, waiting for an ending, good or bad, but getting only the same decrepit reruns of sour memories and bitter scotch.

And so, in a dark bar in a dark city in a dark time, another story dies. Another storyteller wilts. Another soul sits unused, dusty, musky, and smelling faintly of whiskey and tears.

.end.