Thanks for stopping by. It means a lot.

You have a profound effect on all of my work, girl, in the most positive way. I hope you know that.

<3

These are good little works and I miss that time and place, too. Well, most of it anyway.

Thanks for the trip down memory lane. Now, write some more, eh?

Loves….

I love the snapshots of your characters — you have made them interesting, relevant and believable. Really good work here, lala. We think so much alike it’s scary — heh!

Thanks so much for posting this.

Your setting is – A piano bar

Your time is – New Year’s eve – any year.

Constants – the following words must appear in your story

vacillate: 1. To sway from one side to the other; oscillate. 2. To swing indecisively from one course of action or opinion to another; to waver.

desalinize: To remove salts and other chemicals from.. (sea water or soil, for example)

Variables – Follow the instructions provided

Characters – at least three of these:

A baptist preacher
A Hare Krishna
A ballerina
A nurse
A bartender
A chimney sweeper
A factory worker

Objects – at least four of these:

A bar of soap
A dish of pretzels
A looking glass (hand held)
A 9 volt battery
A bear claw (not the delicious pastry)
A cell phone
A portable CD player
A paper clip
A casino chip

Milos

I stand at my usual post behind the bar hustling Tangaray and tonics and dirty martinis while watching the pretty and not so pretty vacillate to the music. Sinatra’s voice squeezes through the speakers and floats softly through the dim blue light of the smoky bar as murmured conversations blend together like the drinks I mix.

It’s a sad truth, much to the owner’s disappointment, that Milo’s is the last place most people would want to spend New Year’s Eve, unlike 70 years ago when society’s best crammed inside it’s tiny walls. We’re off the beaten path of Uptown, situated in a back alley like some sort of forbidden, forgotten speakeasy, a quiet, invisible symbol of days gone by. Nowadays, with the onslaught of noisy techno clubs filled with their physical and chemical ecstasy, piano bars have simply fallen out of vogue. We’ve an odd assortment of customers: the down and out, the lonely, and the once was, all who slip in unnoticed to drink away their pasts.

Mike, our piano player, is taking one of his three breaks, schmoozing up the modest young nurse who is a regular every evening after her shift at the hospital down the street. They sit at the far end of the bar, their foreheads together, talking in secret whispers. Story is that about five years ago, she came home one night to find her high school sweetheart-turned-husband beating her baby girl to death. He quickly turned his fists on her, battering her so badly that she hung by a suture to life. Now every night this is her home and she comes in here to quietly sip her rum and coke and forget about the daughter she’ll never know. Mike reaches for a pretzel from the dish on the bar, gently placing it to her pouty lips. She bats her dull brown eyes and accepts it hungrily, as if it’s a valuable token of his undying love.

In the back corner sits Svetlana Samsonov, Prima Ballerina extraordinaire. At least she used to be like about 100 years ago. She sits sipping her Vodka and drunkenly gazes at her wrinkled skin and faded youth in her tiny looking glass. She is barely able to hold in her knarled hand. Her portable CD player is constantly at her side, headphones always on, as she listens to the Russian composers she used to dance to so freely and gracefully, and unencumbered by the betrayal of her now crooked body. Her and her brother, Ilya defected to America nearly sixty years ago when Svetlana was still a teen. Ilya had himself been a talented ballet dancer. He had seen to her education and nurtured her career. But when she was twenty-five, she committed a sin in Ilya’s eyes by falling in love with a lowly chimney sweep named Carl. By day he swept chimney’s, but by night she dressed him in fine silk suits and they sat at the same back table, sipping champagne and publicly necking into the wee hours of the morning. Then one New Year’s eve fifty years ago, Ilya could take his sister’s distraction no more. He confronted them at that very table shouting, “You are descended from the great Czars of Russia. I forbid you to continue this unclean love with a filthy commoner.” Ilya pulled from his breast pocket a knife. Svetlana jumped to her feet sending her glass crashing to the floor and Carl quickly retrieved a large piece to arm himself in defense. Just as Ilya struck Carl in the chest, piercing his heart, Carl slashed Ilya from ear to ear. Both men fell dead in a crimson pool at Svetlana’s feet. For years she tried to continue with her life, but her dancing was never the same. Her heart was as dead as the two men who had dominated her life. Now she sits every year at that same table with her twisted body and broken spirit, wishing for her lost youth.

It’s almost midnight and time to send Cindy around with the complimentary Champagne. Just as I place the last one on the bar, Pastor Roberts slams a casino chip down on the dark wood in front of me. “Give me a Margarita, Harriet. Desalinized.”

“Excuse me Pastor?”

“Hold the salt you silly woman.” He slurs.

“Pastor, you know we can’t take that chip as payment.”

He grumbles unintelligibly, wobbles a bit, and reaches into his pocket for some bills. I give him his Margarita, no salt. It is obvious the good pastor has already begun his New Year’s celebration.

Pastor Roberts had a good life as the leader of the Sugaw Creek Baptist Church, preaching to a wealthy congregation of over 1000. He had enjoyed the fruits of his work with a big house next to the sanctuary, a large family car, and a more than generous expense account. By all reports, he loved and doted on his wife and two boys. But then he met Sarah Mitchell, a follower, ten years his junior, with hazel eyes topped by long black lashes that she batted indiscriminately. He very quickly went the way of Jimmy Swaggart. But if adultery wasn’t enough, Sarah also had a love of money and the Indian casinos. Soon she and Pastor Roberts could be seen holding hands and nuzzling necks over the crap table. His dance with the shapely devil lasted only a few months before the congregation caught wind of their leader’s wicked weaknesses. Even before they could fire him, his wife left with the kids and moved across the country. And as often happens with temptresses, the pastor’s defrocking left Sarah unfulfilled when the excitement of doing something naughty turned into a simple fling with an ordinary single guy. He comes in here often trying to spend his occasional earnings, but he spends his days on street corners, harassing strangers like an airport Hare Krishna, and trying to force the Word of God upon them.

The countdown begins and the morose revelers raise their glasses to their lips in reluctant anticipation. “10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4,3, 2, 1, Happy New Year,” the bar half-heartedly rumbles in unison. New Year’s is a time for new beginnings, but to the patrons of Milo’s, we are the refuge from their melancholy lives and the best of times that have already passed them by.

Jenn Astles last blog post..Tina Fey Gets Her Period

Hi Jenn! Visited you, and left a comment. Nice work

Thanks, Tasha. I’m so glad you enjoyed it. I’ve written quite a bit of flash, there’s some on the sidebar thingy over there -> I’d love to have your opinion.

Thanks, everyone, for stopping and reading. Appreciate it

Best wishes for 2009!
Tasha

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Jenn Astles last blog post..Tina Fey Gets Her Period