• There she stood, smiling, almost radiating a faint glow. It could have been the dim lights of the bar, but she seemed luminescent.

    I sat down a few stools down from where she was serving; I was incognito. I frequented the bar on Thursday nights, I knew that was her scheduled worknight, but I never said more than four words.

    "Bourbon on the rocks."

    She already knew, but she always asked what I wanted anyway, just in case I changed my mind. I never did.

    I watched her make my drink, and then glanced at all the lushes in the place gawk at her choice of clothing, mostly the perfectly rounded cleavage she presented when she reached down to grab a glass.

    Though her body was beautifully sculpted, I didn't come to stare at her, I knew she got enough of that from the local drunks as it was.

    I came to be alone, to get away from my nightmare of a life, and yet... to be near her.

    She set the glass down in front of me and smiled. "Starting a tab?"

    I nodded numbly and clasped the small glass with my fingers.

    "You never talk much, stranger. Why is that?" She tried to hold a conversation with me sometimes, but I couldn't let her do that.

    "Don't have much to say." I said, trying to sound gruff, but instead I fear it came out sad. I was normally very experienced at masking my emotions, but when I walked through those swinging bar doors, the mask melted away.

    I glanced at her face, warmed by her smile and her fiery red-wine eyes. I don't get smiled at very often, so it was a nice change, but I didn't smile back.

    She patted my hand ever so gently, fingers gently caressing mine for only a moment. "Well, maybe you'll warm up eventually."

    I could only shrug. I lingered in the moment of short lived kindness, and went back to my drink.

    If only I could live the life she lived, unwatched, unjudged, and free. I would trade all that I had to be able to leave the lofty prison I sat in everyday, but I would have to die for that to happen.

    Maybe that is the only option, death.

    Or maybe I can bring her to me somehow...