The girl asks an ill-looking woman, who happens to stop by the bar after leaving the hospital. She can only drink water as the girl is drinking a milkshake.
" I don't know if it's the right decision since I need it for my health. The doctor seemed hopeless somehow during the treatment before letting me go. "
Her voice is as soft as an owl's wing flapping. Her eye becomes as small as a crescent moon. Her hair is messy and covers the left side of her face.
"What is the purpose of that pill originally?"
The girl questions the lifeless woman as she examines the pill bottle next to a glass of water.
"It was meant for stomach pain, but it also has a side effect of easing your heart rate. I am not sure if it affects my sleep routine or not."
"I think the pill only helps with sleep deprivation, no mention of the stomach pain. Do I understand it correctly, Mr. Bartender?"
The girl replied to the fainted-looking woman as she hands over the bottle to the bartender.
The bartender read through the description and started to speak in distressed manner.
"Are you well aware from the very beginning that large consumption of this medicine over an extended period will lead to a deadly consequence?"
The woman turns her face away from the bartender for a brief moment, then starts laughing in a disturbed manner. Her leg is shaking simultaneously as she tries to help herself together.
"I suppose you already figured everything out? I had always questioned my existence in this dystopian society. What's the point of being alive when your decision doesn't matter anymore? Envy, aggression, guilt, greed, ignorance, and many more. It's just a basic fact of human nature, craving for something that never existed. It felt so pointless."
As she continues, she struggles to deal with her unconditional laugh. She huges her own body with as much strength as she can. She struggles to keep sitting, standing up, and screaming toward the front of the bar, squeezing her head. She attempts to tear out her hair piece by piece. Both the bartender and the little girl watch over silently. As she let out all her rage, she turns back to her seat with both her hands covering her face. Her tear finally breaks out from her eyes.
"I figured that the best escape is to just sleep, transport myself into an imaginary world where I can express who I am despite the conditions I have. Ha ha"
The girl hands over a napkin to the woman as she sits down at the table.
The girl looks over to the bartender, signaling him to bring out something from the back of the bar. During his absence, she moves her chair closer and leans onto the woman's arm, hugging her right arm tightly.
"We are all born with a gift. We never really knew whether it was a blessing or a curse, as we are meant to figure out for ourselves. Perception is just something people will hardly understand. It is all subjective and complicated to me. As long as you start to learn this truth, then there is no need to be worried about others as much as the person in that mirror, right?"
The girl looks into a mirror at the back of the cupboard in the opposite direction to the table bar. The woman looks in the same direction as the girl and sees a pale face with a beautiful, symmetric facial structure. Her lip has a pinkish shade with an oval shape. A faint birthmark is visible under the left eye, which highlights her inner child's identity of being fearless and cheerful, characteristics that have gone without her realizing.
The bartender is behind her, wearing a black cartwheel hat with a white ribbon wrapped around the top, adorned with an orchid brooch. He put it over the woman's head, then proceeded to style the hat with her hair.
"What do you think, kid? Is this suitable for the job?"
"More than a word to express Mr. Bartender," the girl replied.
The girl appreciates the woman's new headpiece.
The woman is too stunned to speak.
She feels a sense of realization deep within her heart.
She never thought she would throw away her chance of becoming something special to her younger self over a much-neglected fact that takes up too much space in her head. Forcing herself down the road of depressive episodes. She turns to the girl and hugs her tightly.
"Thank you for helping this lost soul find its way back."
"With pleasure, we often lost some time, and being able to talk about it at the point of no return, has never been a bad thing to do"
The girl kisses her on her left cheek and walks her down to the front door of the bar with the bartender, bidding farewell as the woman steps on the bus.
"Until we meet again!"
The woman shouts as the bus moves, waving to both of them as the bus slowly disappears in the distance.
"Suicidal thoughts seem to be common these days, I suppose. The tendencies to trigger this horrendous act must be so severe."
The bartender mentions it to the girl as they walk back to the bar together.
"Most of them become broken and hardly recognizable by their looks."
The bartender walks over to the back of the bar and starts cleaning up the glasses.
"Not everyone acknowledges the mistake they made, and it's okay if this conversation ends up putting her somewhere she truly belongs."
The girl agrees with the bartender as she climbs up a tall chair and proceeds to write a bill.
"Another incomplete bill, I suppose, so what next?"
