Christine Hensley drank the beer from her mug in one gulp, slamming it down on the bar and exhaling loudly after the last drop. “Barkeep, one more.”
The barkeep, a middle-aged man with a fine mustache, eyed the woman with a deep gaze before speaking in a low voice. “I think you've had enough for tonight, miss.”
“Do I look like I've had enough?” Christine asked with a demanding voice, her eyes red and her speech a bit slurred. Her breath reeked of alcohol.
“Yes, you do,” the barkeep replied.
“Just one more glass, Mr. Barkeep, and I'll go,” Christine offered with a winning smile. Despite her drunken appearance, she still looked the part of a stunning woman.
“No,” the barkeep said resolutely. “It's half past midnight already. If you want to get back home safely, I suggest you stay sober enough to at least be able to tell right from left.”
“I appreciate the sentiment, Mr. Barkeep, but I'm a grown woman and I can handle myself,” Christine replied, then gave him a hopeful look. “So how about that last drink?”
The barkeep didn't move to serve her order, only giving Christine a fatherly look. “If I may ask, what bothers you so much that you get yourself drunk every night?”
“That's a very personal question, Mr. Barkeep,” Christine chided. After a few seconds, she answered, her face turning expressionless. “A close friend of mine died two months ago. We were so close that we were practically family.”
“May I ask what happened?” the barkeep asked with a low voice. There were only a few patrons left in the tavern minding their own business, making it unlikely for them to eavesdrop, but the barkeep kept his voice low all the same. He had enough experience to know that the topic he was about to listen to was delicate and needed a tactful approach.
Christine looked conflicted for a moment, hesitating whether she should share her woes with a barkeep who she wasn't even close with, but for the past two months ever since her closest friend died, she had nobody to confide with. Even the most aloof person would express their feelings to someone they were close to, but Christine didn't have any of those. Not anymore. Maybe sharing my thoughts can help me get over it, Christine thought as she decided to share her story.
“I have this very close friend that I met back when I was a kid,” Christine began. “He and I would always play together, laugh together, eat together… we did everything together! But then an incident happened where we were separated from each other for years. When I finally found him after I finished college, I applied at the same place he works at and when we met again for the first time in over a decade, he didn't recognize me!”
Although she did not realize it, Christine became more animate as she told her story. The barkeep noticed but remained quiet, opting to listen while wiping a mug dry.
The young woman shared many different stories of her reunion with her friend. Christine shared how she kept her identity a secret from her friend, how she found out how the years changed her friend's personality, and how torn she was when she learned that her friend became a cynical prick.
“The time after our reunion was like water after a drought,” Christine murmured with a distant look in her eyes. “I was dreaming of our reunion for many years and when I finally met and spent time with him again like the old days, I felt like I finally found a distant oasis in a scorching desert.”
A tear slid down Christine's cheek, but the barkeep didn't comment on it. “But when he killed himself, it felt like the oasis I saw was simply a hallucination brought about by my thirst. I finally thought things were going to go back to the way it was, but it seems things weren't simply meant to be that way.”
For the next few minutes, Christine sobbed. She did not expect the tears to come. More than two months already passed and she had repeatedly told herself that she was done crying for her friend, but telling her story felt like she was experiencing her memories with her childhood friend all over again. The memories were sweet, but knowing that she wouldn't experience something like it again hurt her deeply.
The barkeep handed her a glass of water, to which she thanked him for. After composing herself, Christine continued. “His death was sudden and unexpected, but it felt like I was the only one who really knows that he died. Our former coworkers in the Office were shocked, but it wasn't a big deal to them since they weren't close with him anyway. Brogen made sure that his work wouldn't be impacted by his death, so his superiors barely even noticed he disappeared.”
Christine suddenly paused in shock. Ever since her friend's death, she did not speak his name. She told herself that it would help her get over it, but in truth, she was simply afraid of remembering. She began sobbing uncontrollably again as the barkeep listened.
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“There were only two people who attended his funeral,” Christine whispered in between sobs. “Me and the janitor from our workplace. Brogen was a good man, the best human being I ever knew, and only two people in the world know that he is dead.”
The barkeep nodded in understanding. Few people truly understood the meaning of a person's death. For Christine's coworkers, Brogen's death was a temporary loss of workforce until a replacement was found. For the restaurants and food stalls that Brogen frequented, his death was a loss of a paying customer. For the buses and cabs that Brogen used to commute, his death was a loss of a regular passenger.
But to someone like Christine, Brogen's death was a loss of a person who would listen to her complaints without judging her, a loss of somebody who would brave rain or snow to fetch her when she forgot her umbrella, a loss of someone who would tell her straight if she was being a bitch, a loss of someone who would walk close behind her to cover her period leaking through her pants.
Brogen may not have mattered to the grand scheme of things, but for Christine, he was all that mattered.
“I think I've had enough to drink,” Christine finally said. Sharing her story had sobered her up and made her realize that numbing her emotions by drinking wasn't helping her situation in the long run. “Thank you for listening, Mr. Barkeep.”
“I'm open for listening to your woes anytime, miss,” the barkeep said with a nod.
“I think I've had enough of sharing my thoughts with you,” Christine said with a wry smile. “Sharing my most important story to a stranger like you made me realize that I don't have anybody to call a friend or family anymore.”
“People who say they don't have friends are friendless because they don't bother to make one,” the barkeep replied. “You claim you were childhood friends with ‘Brogen,’ but you weren't friends before that, yes? Both of you were strangers to each other before meeting. It may be you or him, but in the end, somebody had to take the step forward to shorten the gap and become closer with the other, and I'm willing to bet that somebody was your friend.”
Christine bristled in annoyance at the barkeep's accurate deduction. “No, I was the one that took pity on a loner and approached him first,” she lied. Seeing the barkeep act like he knew the ins and outs of her relationship with Brogen vexed Christine, even if it was true.
The barkeep simply chuckled quietly in response, which irked Christine even more. “What's so funny?!”
The barkeep just kept on laughing. Christine shot him an annoyed glare until she too started laughing. For the first time in months, Christine laughed, just like how she always did when she was with Brogen.
●●●
“I'm going home earlier next time,” Christine muttered as she waited for a bus. The bus stop had bright lights, but the streets beyond its glow were dark and filled with shadows. Christine was the only person present.
“I hope the front gate is still open,” Christine whispered to herself. She lived in an apartment and the landlord usually locked the front gate at midnight, except for when he was out of the city. Christine hoped he was.
The sound of a faint footstep behind her reached Christine's ears and she turned her head to see who it was, but before she could, she felt a sharp object press against her back.
“Gimme' everything you have,” a trembling voice whispered beside Christine's ear, sending chills down her spine. She lamented her bad luck to end up in a situation like this.
“Fine, fine! Just put that thing away and I'll give you all my money,” Christine said with a trembling voice as she rummaged her small bag, her hands shaking. As she did, she took a glance at the glass to the side that served as the bus stop's wall and saw the reflection of the person behind her.
A person in a hoodie, presumably a man judging from the voice, was holding a knife against her side while constantly looking behind him, probably worried that there might be somebody else in the area.
“Hurry up and give me the money, bitch!”
“Here, I already got it,” Christine said nervously. The moment she took her hand out of the bag, she shoved the object she held in her grip in front of the man's face and pressed the button.
“Take that, you thieving fuck!” Christine shouted, her terrified facade gone. The pepper spray in her hand made a loud hissing noise as it expelled its contents on the man's face.
“Aaargh!” the man screamed as he tried to cover his face and wipe off the fluid burning his eyes and nostrils. His actions were futile as Christine kept her finger on the button and expelled all the contents of her pepper spray on the man's face.
Instead of running away, the man faced Christine with red eyes and charged her. The tackle knocked both of them to the ground, the back of Christine's head colliding with the concrete with a loud thump. The trauma to her head caused the world to spin around in her vision, rendering her helpless and unable to defend herself from the man.
With a satisfied grunt, the thief managed to yank the bag from Christine's hands and sprinted away into the dark, leaving his victim behind disoriented on the pavement.
For a full minute, Christine remained sprawled on the ground, blinking her eyes repeatedly. Her vision had darkened, but thankfully she could still see. The issue was the intense headache that she was experiencing. That fucker really had to bang my noggin to the ground, Christine grumbled in her mind.
After a few tries, she managed to stand on shaky legs, but the moment she did, Christine threw up on the pavement and her headache worsened even more. I can already imagine the hangover tomorrow, she thought.
She patted one of her pockets and sighed in relief. Living in the streets as a child had taught her to never to leave all her eggs in one basket. With a smile, Christine retrieved the crumpled bill from her pocket that would serve as her fare.
After waiting thirty minutes with a head-splitting headache, Christine managed to ride a bus back to her apartment. She went to sleep that night ruing the hangover that would inevitably come when she woke up tomorrow. I wonder what Brogen would say if he saw me like this, Christine thought before she fell asleep.
Morning came the next day and Christine's apartment was quiet. Her days living in the streets programmed her body to wake up before seven and the only times she slept in was when she still lived with Brogen and his mom, and yet Christine was still in bed.
Her face was peaceful as she lay inside her blanket. She wasn't breathing.
●●●
There was a fog covering her mind, making every thought sluggish and muddled. She could hear voices around her as her body felt like she was being carried around. Where am I? Christine thought.
When everything finally quieted down, the fog on her mind lifted and Christine awoke from her slumber. She felt an extreme dissonance as she spotted the unfamiliar ceiling as she lay on her back and tried to look around, but for some reason, her body was extremely weak and heavy. Am I hallucinating? Christine thought.
Then a kind-looking woman dressed in exquisite robes entered her field of vision, looking upon her with a gentle smile. “Good morning, Christine. Did you sleep well?”
Why yes, lady, I did have a good night's sleep, Christine answered. Now do you mind telling me who the fuck you are and why you kidnapped me?! And why do you look so big?!
Instead of speaking coherent words, Christine only managed to utter gibberish and garbled words. The fuck?! Was I drugged?!
“Sleep well, little one,” the woman said as she caressed Christine's cheek, “so you may grow into a proper Princess that Ocrana needs.”
Stop spitting bullshit… Christine thought as her consciousness slowly waned from her new body's drowsiness. The last thing she saw before passing out was the glint of a crown on top of the woman's head.
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End of Act 1: Mirror of the Past