Strange

Something rather strange happened to me the other night.

Doesn't one’s brain curdle in one’s head whenever someone utters those fateful words! One just knows some tediously un-strange incident is about to be told in horrifyingly long-winded detail. Not as bad, however, as when someone starts off with "I had this really weird dream last night…" and then proceeds to tell it in minute detail. Who cares if there were puppies flying in the sky that then turned into giant shoes made of butter? It never happened.

Anyway. The incident was strange, but it did happen, and horrifyingly long-winded detail is my style. So suffer.

A group of us had stopped off at a bar for a post-dinner sherry. Sherry was my idea. Someone pulled a face, but I nonchalantly said "Sherry is what all the cool kids are drinking these days." The bartender pointed out that sherry was increasing in popularity amongst the middle-aged set, "You know, like people in their thirties." Thirties! Middle-aged! Get your tongue ready, young man, you are kissing your tip a fond farewell.

I went outside for a cigarette. It was raining heavily, the sky dark. Someone passing by asked for a light, then moved on, and I was by myself, looking in at my friends inside.

"They’re bad for you, you know."
I turned, and saw a tall man in an precision-cut black suit standing next to me.
"Smoking makes you look cool," I replied with irritated terseness.
"I wasn't talking about the cigarettes," he said, and he turned his head, and looked into the bar. He was looking at my friends.

My blood ran a little cold. He walked away without giving me a second look. I looked up at the bar sign above, noted its meaning, and couldn’t help but feel I was acting in a movie, and this was the scene which predicted bad things that were to come.