The girl asks the bartender as he cleans his equipment and calls it a day. He shows a sign of hesitation, but covers it behind his blank face. His shirt sleeve, which has been tugged up to his elbow, gets a small splash from soap bubbles as he loses in those moments. As he puts all the utensils in the dishwasher, he pulls out a Coca-Cola bottle and two chilled glasses with a thick layer of ice at the bottom. He still wears an apron as he considers it best to maintain the role of service provider during working hours.
"What would you like to know about me exactly, Hm?"
He asks her with a subtle voice, leaning onto the counter, facing the mirror at the back. He faces the girl, who sat on the other side of the table and was drinking Coca-Cola. His curious eyes have a matching color to his lips, a deep red cherry hue, and a spotless facial appearance, which is a classic combination often seen in high-society bartenders. Nevertheless, he senses that tonight is the night when he has to confront an embarrassment he hid away a long time ago.
"Well, how can I put this into words. Let's begin with that"
The girl points to the picture in a wooden frame across the room. The monochrome image showcases the shop in its glory days, with numerous people gathered around and listening to live music. At the corner of the picture, a young man appears to be performing the art of mixing cocktails for his customer. A bright smile across his face can be seen from a mile away.
"Back in those days, this bar was a meeting point for all people of different generations, where young folks and mercenaries hung out most of the time. Sometimes those in management stop by from time to time, but they often get themselves in trouble because of their ego, so we tend to clean up the place until morning, then reopen again in the evening."
The bartender stops to take a sip of cold, refreshing soda. Recalling a life in this place when he started his life as a bartender.
"I got an offer to be a classy bartender in another town. A promise of a better life and reasonable compensation always wins over young people like me. Still, it wasn't a smooth road, so I packed my bag and quit the gig to return here."
He sighs. A flash of memory from when the owner confronted him about quitting the job started rolling through his head. A heated argument between an old craftsman and a young, passionate boy can be heard by most of the people walking by in the morning. Eventually, he let him work at the bar as if he had never been left to begin with.
"Seems like he cares about you a lot. Did you still see him nowadays?" the girl asks with a subtle voice as she swirls the glass in a circle.
"When I came back, he was still the same person I knew before. He wasn't angry with me for leaving; he still took me in as part of his staff, which he often referred to as family. Deep down, we both understood that it wasn't going to last long…."
"Because someone vandalized the place, which led to a casualty, right?"
The girl put the glass down as she gazed at some part of the wall, multiple bulging plaster patches being covered under wallpaper. A trace of a burned mark can be spotted along the ceiling. It wasn't intentionally meant to be there from the beginning, unless an incident did happen long before.
"Not dead, but hospitalized. Someone in his actual family takes him in and cuts ties with me completely, at least they agree to let me have this place since his health has declined rapidly. As time flew by, people started to move out of town, so only a few hundred original citizens, including me, were still here in this lonely town."
His eyes became dull. He holds a glass in his hand, inspecting the melting ice at the bottom.
A film of the event replays in his head. No one in the community knew exactly what happened that day, except the bartender. Ironically, he prefers not to speak much about his past.
He always considered it a fresh, open wound that never rotted, no matter how many years had gone by. An irritation and rage start to creep inside his head again. A drop of sweat fell from his face.
"What exactly happened out there? Why do they desperately want you dead so much?"
The girl's strong voice rose as the bartender circled within his world.
"None of your business."
He replies with a solid voice as he puts the glass on the countertop. The sound of glass hitting the table echoes through the bar. A frustrated feeling begins to show through his gesture. His body is simultaneously shaking as he grabs onto the countertop in front of him, holding back his temper before lashing out, pointing at her.
"You know what. You had always been asked stupid questions with every customer who ever stepped into the bar, and somehow, by the power of your "Wisdom words and affirmative phase", they all got better and off to the horizon. Are you a **** child or a bloody telepathic psychic?? Because if you are a child, you wouldn't be able to guess everyone's thoughts and solve them cleverly."
He yells at her, who stares at his face with a fearless posture and a neutral expression. Her eyes grow darker, her face blank, revealing no emotion or fear in her expression.
"I'm surprised that you've just realized my identity is the opposite of what you see in front of you. Death takes many forms beyond human perception. Life is valuable, so is death, and it costs a fortune to guide them in the afterlife. Some might be lost forever, while others are lucky enough to have a second chance."
The girl paused as she refilled her glass with a soda from open cans. The fizzy sound of soda hitting the ice momentarily regained the bartender's consciousness. The chilling vibe starts to creep in as he slowly pieces together the story.
"Who are you exactly?"
The girl denies his question as she glazes her finger on the table, drawing a random shape, showing an entanglement of string being created as her finger moves back and forth. The newly drawn string slowly disintegrated in the air as the new one was forming.
"We agreed to accompany the bypassing soul to find comfort in an unexpected place, didn't we? Or should I remind you of the day you signed the contract?"
The girl questions the bartender as she snaps her finger. The bartender's eyes start to widen a bit. He felt as if he had been torn apart for a moment and assembled back like a toy. Before he could stabilize himself, they had arrived back in time to the pinnacle point of his life, the day the bar got torn down because of him.