Lucid Waking

Archive for April 10th, 2010

Closing Time

        Anna finished wiping down the bar stools and counter after a long evening of work. She surveyed the room quickly and was pleased with the cleanliness of the bar. At three in the morning, she was more than ready for rest. But, she reminded herself as she opened up the cash register in the back room and pulled out a small black book, she still had one more thing to do.
        The book looked innocent enough at first. The small pages were filled with tables and numbers labeled with dates. She took it to the corner table that sat in the darkest part of the room—the overhead lamp was never quite bright enough illuminate anything—and opened it up to the very last entry from the night before. She closed her eyes and focused on retracing her evening carefully from the moment she walked in to the point she was now and tried to remember every detail and every person. All at once she started hearing whispers that started quiet and gradually got louder. She barely opened her eyes and watched the glowing blue smoke flow into the black book from the walls.
        Once her day was finished, the ceremony continued and she watched the now technicolor smoke tendril around her arms before entering into the pages. Then the affair dissipated and she was left with the black book again with a new entry and time from the bar’s evening. A number sat next to the date and below it the final total that was held within the book. She glanced at the numbers and marveled that she had collected two thousand, five hundred, and thirty six stories from the time she started working. She knew her boss held many more of these small books in vaults somewhere. It was quite an amazing collection.
        “Anna, you ready to go?” her co-worker called from the back room.
        She nodded and got up, replacing the book in the cash register before leaving the bar. It was late, but clear and the moon was out. She sighed and was momentarily blinded by the fog of her breath. She got into the passenger side of her coworkers car and thought about her own story.

Author’s note on post 381: Coming up to the final stretch, so I’ve been busy. I’m working hard on school and my muse seems to have taken the time off, so I apologise if I’m sparse.

I had this tucked away already, so I dusted it off. I like the concept, but I’m not fond of the ending. I think I wanted to do more with it, but ran out of time. Oh well, I can’t be too deep in 10 minutes. I’m taking a break from "To Look for America" until I can get a clear picture of where it’s going next. Who knows when that will be, but you can read what I’ve written so far, right here.