Ficlets

Alone For Too Long

The neon sign outside the tavern flickered as I opened the door beneath it. I seemed to be having that effect on things recently. A bell jingled loudly above my head, “Watch out! Here comes the freak who didn’t die!”

But I suppose I’m the only one who understood the words it spoke. I suppose I’m the only person crazy enough to assume I know what a bell is saying. Allow me to amend that once more: the only human being suffering from such a depth of insanity that I pretend that inanimate objects can talk.

Several days before, I noticed I had been talking to myself and to the radio. Then I started talking the trees as I walked past them in the evening. I really needed some company.

Just for that reason, I sat down at the bar and asked for the bartender to give me whatever “that fellow over there” was having. It was just a mug of ale. But I drank it, I could still drink if I wanted to. I just wasn’t ever thirsty.

Suddenly, “Hey, beautiful, how’s it going?”
Me? Beautiful? This man had to be trashed.

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