The Ghosts are Hungry Tonight

Every year it's the same, he thinks, drumming his fingers on the surface of the bar, looking down at the near empty tumbler in front of him, the ice slowly melting into the rest of the Scotch. Do you always capitalize Scotch, he wonders, or is that just something that I do?

He looks up at the bar in front of him, the rows of bottles under lights on neatly organized shelves. Really, he thinks, there's a strong need to get more specific, less general. He pulls the notebook from his pocket, starts thumbing through the pages. The devil is always in the details and we are always looking for the devil.

Her picture slides out from where it was trapped between a few scribbled sheets and slides down to the bar surface. He frowns involuntarily, then reaches down to pick it up. He holds it up so that he can study it in the dim light of the bar. She's leaning against the doorframe, the archway between the kitchen and dining room in her parent's house. Behind her, he can see the clutter of dishes from the meal still on the dining room table. Her cousin had come back from the war, the entire clan was over, neices, nephews, grandparents, aunts and uncles. Somehow he had managed to catch her alone, in this doorway. She is leaning against the frame with her hands in the front pockets of her jeans. She has tilted her head forward slightly to let her dark brown hair fall across part of her face, and she's looking at him with a mixture of amusement and annoyance. A look he's seen from her all too often.

He shakes the pciture between his fingers slightly, making the stiff paper crack a little. This was two years ago? Three? War never ending. He sighs, sliding the picture back into the notebook.

He raises a finger, and the bartender comes over, and silently, he pushes his glass forward. The bartender nods and takes it, and comes back with another Scotch on the rocks that he sets on the bar in front of him. The ghosts are hungry tonight. They are gnawing on the edges of my heart. He takes a long sip of the Scotch, lets it burn down his throat. If only we knew. Instead, we are born blind and we grope our way towards each other. I have no patience for my fellow man today, because the ghosts are filling my heart.