42 Weeks

That's how long he spent in an imaginary world between the time he was supposed to get laid, and the time he actually did.

I should probably explain. It was just another Saturday night, and he was all revved up with no place to go. Well, there were actually lots of places he could have gone, and he fully intended to find the one that would lead to the ultimate act of moving on with his life. But, as it turned out, he wasn't quite ready.

So all dressed up with any number of places to go, he stayed home and fell into a land of make-believe, and for ten months or so, fancied himself to be on some sort of magical mystery tour across the universe to the centre of his soul. Of course, it was all just an illusion, but it was one that served him well at the time, his reality having been way too depressing to give any more than the absolute minimum of attention to.

As escapism goes, it was arguably less damaging in both the long and short run than the substance abuse he had been flirting with, and from which his imaginary world almost certainly saved him. As he had liked to say, the Universe gives us what we need when we are ready for it, or summat™. And thus, after most of a year immersed in such clichéd pseudo-philosophical wisdom and other prophecies, he was ready to get laid.

But that's another story...
  

The Notice

The bartender grabbed the envelope pinned to the wall as he unlocked the door, went inside, and tossed it onto the counter as he went about his business. Every now and then he would glance at the envelope, then look away.

He knew what was in it; he had known it was coming for a long time. He had been waiting for it ever since he first heard the news, long before the rumours started flying, long before similar envelopes had been delivered elsewhere.

Finally, he sat down to open the envelope and read its contents. He was surprised to read that the bar did not have a spot reserved in the new mall, but that didn't bother him much; he hadn't planned on going there anyways.

He was pleasantly surprised to see that the bar, and the Main Street on which it stood, would not be razed, but rather preserved as an historical site. Nevertheless, he continued to pack the boxes to be shipped off to the museum, just in case.

When he was as done with that as he was going to be, he crumpled the notice, tossed it into the trash, and got on with the rest of his life.

Last Call (When Words Go Free...)