A Trip to the Bar
Melody stared across the slowly emptying rooftop bar, her attention fully fixed on her enemy.
While it was, perhaps, a bit unfair, Melody couldn’t help but blame the parking cone. After all, that cone was the reason the whole night had gone from awkward to abysmal. At a more reasonable hour, on a different night, the idea of blaming an inanimate object for one’s problems might have struck Melody as a sign that she should consider investigating if a straightjacket was a slimming look. But in this particular moment, the cone seemed as apt a culprit as any to take a sizeable chunk of the finger pointing.
The primary fault of the parking cone was, indeed, its inanimacy. Had it been sentient, perhaps it would have observed Melody coming towards it, eyes fixated on her phone screen, attempting to calculate what her date would look like in real life based on three somewhat out-of-focus photos. And, if the cone had been capable of moving of its own volition, maybe it would have had the courtesy to step aside, allowing Melody to blunder past, emitting an air of panic only associated with those poor souls facing judicial sentences or first dates. Had it seen her and had it moved, maybe Melody would have simply walked past. The cone could have said to the stop sign it was next to ‘poor thing. So glad I don’t have to go through that anymore, now that I’ve got you babe.’ The stop sign would, no doubt, have swooned slightly and the pair would have had a great night.
But that’s not what happened.
Because the parking cone was not aware of nor able to move itself out of the path of the oblivious moron named Melody who had been on a collision course with it.
Or maybe it was capable, but was also, unfortunately for Melody, an asshole who took pleasure in watching chicks trip over it, landing sprawled on the floor with their skirt piled up above their knicker line.
In any case, Melody’s resentment of the cone, and the rest of the uncooperative, clunky so-called ‘décor’ of the bar, felt reasonably justified.
Melody hated theme bars. When her would-be date had suggested they try ‘that new rooftop place, Blue Collar’ she’d become instantly wary. Tragically for her now smashed phone, that sense of caution had not translated to her watching where she was going.
Embarrassed, and anxious to numb the pain of her now bleeding knee not to mention far more injured pride, Melody had made for the bar. The hardhat wearing bartender quickly dashed Melody’s hopes no one had noticed her fall by asking if her grandmother minded that she’d borrowed a pair of her panties. Crimson, Melody stammered out her drink order.
‘What?’ The bartender asked, adjusting his safety goggles.
‘Whiskey, neat,’ Melody repeated, louder.
‘Nu-uh. No off-menu drinks,’ the bartender replied, thumbing towards a sign with the same message printed on it behind him. ‘Here!’ he shoved a large laminated card in front of her and moved further down the bar.
‘Wait! I …’ Melody yelled after him, but her plea was lost in the din. Groaning, she started to read.
Like everything else there, the menu was loosely construction themed. Most of the drinks had names like ‘hydraulic drill’ or ‘jackhammer’ and contained enough mixed booze to ensure you’d feel like that’s what had hit you in the morning. After a few minutes study and several more minutes of attempting to flag the bartender again (which she finally managed to do using an actual road flag) she ordered a paint roller ‘except, no cola, no lime and no ice.’
‘But…that would just be plain whiskey,’ the bartender, confused, replied.
Melody nodded solemnly. ‘Good point. Better use extra whiskey in that case.’
Glass brimming, Melody edged off to the side of the bar and stared out across the crowded rooftop. Orange safety lights, strung like lanterns above her, gave off just enough glow to confirm she was never going to find her date without wandering around, staring intently into strangers’ faces, asking every blonde in the place ‘are you Lisa?’ in the vague hope of finding her before security invited Melody to find an exit.
‘Right,’ Melody said to the caution sign on her left. ‘Let’s consider the options. Option 1: I skull this drink, flee, and be home in bed before midnight.’
Comfortingly, the caution sign said nothing.
‘Option 2,’ Melody continued, ‘I walk around, likely make a fool of myself, possibly find my date, maybe hit it off and be that tiny step closer to not dying alone.’
Melody took a deep, long sip, enjoying the steely silence of her new companion.
‘Good point!’ Melody concedes aloud, much to the confusion of the sign. ‘Another drink first is an excellent idea!’
Nearly two hours, and an unknown quantity of booze-fuelled courage later, Melody had managed to encounter three separate women named Lisa, none of which were in any way pleased to encounter her.
Dejected, Melody had plopped herself on a stool at the bar, where she sat and glowered at the patrons who were left. The majority had all paired off and were in the final stages of their various rituals in pursuit of orgasms.
As one such pair rose and staggered their way towards the exit, Melody saw the parking cone, it’s reflective tape seeming to mock her from across the room. She glared at it. Hard.
‘Stupid cone,’ she muttered aloud.
‘You mean, that parking cone by the entrance?’ questioned the redhead next to Melody. Embarrassed at her outburst, Melody opened her mouth to insist that she must have heard her wrong when the redhead continued, ‘I hate that thing! First time I came here, I didn’t see it and tripped right over it!’
Melody turned, slack-jawed, and asked, ‘is your name Lisa, by any chance?’
‘Huh? No, it’s Sara. Why?’
Melody smiled. ‘No reason. Sara, may I buy you a paint roller?’
Contest details:
Contest: NYC Midnight Flash Fiction 2016, Round 1, Challenge 1
Genre: Comedy
Location: A rooftop bar
Object: A paint roller
Score: 10 points