colvin11

The beer is flat and bland, but I don't have much of a choice, so I drink it.
The stagnant air stirs and a beam of light cuts through the gloom, showing up all the dust and dirt. I don't even need to look and I can see the guy walking in. Young, talented, whole life ahead of him. Well not any more. He sits down beside me. I can't bring myself to look up.
"Hi, how you doin'" he says.
I try to reply, but my voice is rusted shut from lack of use.
"A gin and tonic, please" the man says to the barman, who is slowly spreading a mixture of his spit and dirt around a glass. He silenlty pours the drink and gives it to the man.
I realise he is very fit. He might just do it.
The bar reads my mind as always and tried to hypnotise me with the chaotic patterns in my flaccid drink.
I scream in side my mind and try and force my head to move.
I finally manage to drag my eyes from my slowly swirling drink.
The nerves in my neck scream at me but I manage to face him. My lips begin to bleed as I drag them apart. I can feel the blood beginning to pool in my throat but I manage to croak out one word,"R...r...run."
The man looks at me, at first in disbelief, but then he looks in my eyes and something clicks. He stands up slowly, the bar fighting him for every inch. He turns himslef around. His legs begin to move, as slowly as if through cooling lava. His skin begins to split under the pressure. The deep crimson blood flows through the thickening air as if through water. I hear several damp snaps as his bones break under the immense pressure and jut throught his skin. He falls through the door, into the light, into the rest of his life.
I turn back to my drink and smile for the first time in 50 years.

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Three men walk into a bar, one of them is a bit stupid, and the whole scene unfolds with a tedious envitability

semtecks

I had to read this twice to see what was happening. So the old man was stealing youth using the bar, eh? I think you could probably draw this out into something longer.

The only problem I had was that you jumped tense a couple of times from past to present.

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http://semtecks.bebo.com

Chris Miller

I don't totally get it, but I really like it. Nice imagery. Something to sleep on. Not sure I agree with semtecks, but until I have a better idea...

I'm seeing the old man as Satan or some guardian in the afterlife, whom the kid manages, with minor injuries, to escape. Which doesn't happen often in the old guy's experience. Which is why he smiles.

Also strikes me as a birthing of sorts.

Very nice flash.

in side = inside

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Wyndstar

Oh Colvin, I like this one. Old guy who has wasted his life in a bar, trying to keep someone from falling into the same trap. Nice imagry, and fittingly eerie. Nice that the old timer found a brief redemtion in the younger's escape.

Nicely done.

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Old enough to know better, young enough to think I can still get away with it.

kalibantre

One of those things you have to read twice.

I liked it, but I did have trouble with the first line, just didn't seem to fit right.

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~kitty

colvin11

This is veery loosely based on the song the hotel california
The bar is a living thing and tries to trap people, like the old man. He smiles because he has managed to save the young guy

I don't know about anyone else, but chris, I woulldn't class several snaped bones and gaping wounds 'minor injuries'

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Three men walk into a bar, one of them is a bit stupid, and the whole scene unfolds with a tedious envitability

colvin11

Thanks for the feed back by the way
I'll try and fix the tenses semtecks

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Three men walk into a bar, one of them is a bit stupid, and the whole scene unfolds with a tedious envitability

cecilia

Ilike it, the man is trying to tell him to keep away from wasting his life in alcholism, iam intrigued about its imagery though it is alittle complicated at times and dramatic. I really like how he tells him to run.......hmmm yes interesting (pondering**)

luv cecilia xxx

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cecilia

noo! ilove that song.....the one by the eagles???? WOOOOOOOO!!!

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I believe in constructive criticism....so LAY IT IN TO ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!