Visions of Blood on the Ether

To my left my friend is talking fast and low and slow about seduction being the ultimate form of control and all I can think to myself is, Jesus Christ please shut up, but all I can manage to do is nod and sigh and take another shot of whiskey, or is it vodka, and rub my eyes and slam down the shot glass hard enough to get the bartender's attention.

I can still hear their voices in my head at the party, letting me smoke to calm my jangled nerves as they put their screws to my thumbs. Cops with pads and badges and guns, asking, What did you say to her? How did you know her? Did she say anything. Allegations of blackmail and other things that slid from my tired body like rainwater off of an oil slick.

I can still see her blood as it glimmered and then dissipated, drank in by the sand.

The bartender walks over and pours me another shot and I am about to take it, lifting my tired head slowly from the bar top when I catch sight of a dark stain on the gouged wooden floor. Is that, I swallow a cough of vomit. Is that blood?

Yea, he says, yea it is.

God, I say and slam down the shot, which might be rum or tequila, and look up at him. I can feel the contortions of my face but I have no idea if I am smiling or crying and he fills my shot glass again. How, how did it get there?

Forgot about my friend but he's listening to me and the bartender.

I killed a man here a week ago, the bartender says, and I look hard at him waiting for him to say something else, to smile or sigh. He looks completely serious and unaffected. Seriously?

Yea. He pulled a gun on me so I shot him down. By the time the cops were done the blood had sunk into the wood. Kind of a permanent reminder now.

I think of the blood on the sand, the complete mutability of the beach and how the sand would be clean away at high tide or swept clean by the wind. How lucky for me, I think, that I was just ancillary to the carnage. The stain on my soul will not last. The bartender, however, will always have that man's soul in his palm.

I think I need a bathroom, I say, and stand suddenly, the room tilting and twisting as I rush to the toilet and feel my body turn inside out, tears in my eyes as I vomit.

I wake up the next morning on in my own bed. In my pocket is a note which reads, If you need to talk, ring me - Aidan. The bartender, I think, clips of our conversation flooding back to me. I think I cried all night.