Well, we're all in the mood for a melody...
[The Tavern of Hell]
[It's nine o'clock on a Saturday, February 6 (day 251)]
...and the regular crowd rushes in. And I know the faces you see at the bar, making love to their tonic and gin.
Humming along with the jukebox, and the room's not too crowded, but it's full enough that I can step back and around the people crossing to their table or the bar and if it isn't what they would call dancing it's a movement that makes me smile. The Market was good to me today, and I am wearing my brown mask, but I have pinned a quartet of small bronze ribbons to one side, and brushed them back. They are a little darker than my hair, and it pleases me to have them there, reminds me of places and parties where people took delight in the subtleties of a mask.
I imagine this is how other women feel when they paint their faces, and I smile.
"Do you have cider, cher?" I say to the man behind the bar, slipping onto one of the stools and drawing myself up, appraising him. Audience and player at once, what a delight. "Something that tastes like there could be spring again, something to match the air today."
[Open]
[It's nine o'clock on a Saturday, February 6 (day 251)]
...and the regular crowd rushes in. And I know the faces you see at the bar, making love to their tonic and gin.
Humming along with the jukebox, and the room's not too crowded, but it's full enough that I can step back and around the people crossing to their table or the bar and if it isn't what they would call dancing it's a movement that makes me smile. The Market was good to me today, and I am wearing my brown mask, but I have pinned a quartet of small bronze ribbons to one side, and brushed them back. They are a little darker than my hair, and it pleases me to have them there, reminds me of places and parties where people took delight in the subtleties of a mask.
I imagine this is how other women feel when they paint their faces, and I smile.
"Do you have cider, cher?" I say to the man behind the bar, slipping onto one of the stools and drawing myself up, appraising him. Audience and player at once, what a delight. "Something that tastes like there could be spring again, something to match the air today."
[Open]