Our kind of place

We walked into the bar before last orders. The place was quiet.

There was just the barman, two guys playing darts, and a drunken couple smooching at the far side of the bar.

A crackly Nina Simone record was playing on the jukebox.

Cigarette smoke was thick in the air.

It looked and felt like the last bar on earth.

Lifeless and dead.

But it was the only place we could find in downtown Krackow still open at that time of the morning.

Before we got a chance to order, the barman had two beers and two whiskeys in front of us.

He raised his own glass of whiskey and threw it down him.

It was then we realised we won’t be going anywhere else tonight.

We were in this for the long haul.

This was our kind of place.

Before too long they had us talking.

Not that they could understand a word we were saying of course.

They just found our language amusing and peculiar.

We communicated with them in grunts and nods.

They were laughing at us but we didn’t care.

As long as they kept pouring the drink.

And not once did they ask for payment.

In fact it was hard to tell who was running the place, if anybody.

For all we knew these were crazed people off the streets who came in and took the place over.

We didn’t ask.

We played darts with the two fellas, and pretty soon the couple at the end of the bar were fighting.

She slapped her man so hard he fell off his seat.

He got up and lit a cigarette and the fight was over.

Nobody batted an eyelid.

The Nina Simone record continued to play on repeat for the entirety of the night.

We looked at the jukebox.

It was the only record in that thing.

It was getting light outside.

Time to go.

But not before a final shot.

And a goodbye to our new friends.

When we left the place it was just as we had entered it.

Everyone was in their same place.

The barman.

The dart guys.

The angry couple.

Like nothing happened.