There is a shop situated at the back corner of a shopping plaza, its door hidden by untrimmed shrubs, its windows always reflecting the passerby, hiding what lies within. The shop is called Spirits. It is a liquor store.
Inside the store, there is a man. He is old. His white hair is pulled back into a bun. His wet lips twitch under his snowy mustache, his eager blue eyes smile at you as a small bell rings when you open the door. You look around, the walls are lined with colored glass liquors. Vodkas and rums and tequilas perched like dolls on shelves, their bottles glinting in the low light. “I think I’m in the wrong place,” you say.
“Maybe that is why you are here.”
The old man steps out from behind the counter. “Where am I?” You ask as you drift towards the walls, reaching out and touching the cool glass with the tips of your fingers. These bottles are faceless, no label, no price. You pick up a green bottle by its neck, looking at it through the light so that the brown liquid inside glitters. Putting one bottle down and picking up another, you notice that they have all been opened, the drink inside partly consumed. “What’s in these bottles?”
Behind you, the old man has walked the length of his shop, pausing by drinks and pulling them from shelves, yanking out their corks and bringing the bottles to his nose, inhaling deeply. He returns to you with two bottles. One, a simple clear glass bottle with dark brown liquor inside. The other, a crystallized bottle with textured glass and sparkling clear liquid. He pulls out a large shot glass from under his counter and pours a shot from the first bottle.
He holds it out to you. “Mixing rum with a soda takes out the adventure, the soul. It needs to be taken alone.” There is a moment of hesitation as you glance out the storefront window, though the outside seems dark and far away. You glance at your watch, you need to be somewhere. Maybe a meeting, or a lunch. You reach out for the glass, instead, and take it, quickly throwing back your head as the liquor slips down your throat the way you try to swallow a scream: bitter and burning. The old man smiles at you, more so with his eyes than with his mouth.
You feel the liquor spread throughout your body. The heat starts in your chest and stretches out to your arms and legs, the pads of your fingertips and toes growing warm with sensation. The shop seems dreamlike; the light of the ceiling bulbs catching in the glass bottles, projecting stain glass reflections on the floor. First, there is the sound: seagull wings flapping as the birds arch back their heads and bark to one another, water lapping against the side of a wooden boat, the body of the ship creaking as it is rolled by the sea. You smell the ocean; your skin feels tight with sun and dried salt. The light is getting brighter, but if you focus hard enough, you can still see the old man standing in front of you and you tell yourself that you are still in the shop, but below you, the wooden boards are tilting under your feet, the sides of the ship rising and falling as waves curl under it. There are sudden memories that don’t belong to you, though, for a moment, they do. Voices and images flash through your mind, you remember them just as quickly as you forget. Take a step forward, reach out to grab the railings of the deck, lean over and look down into the ocean, into the vast emptiness spreading before you. Take it all in, because in a moment, it is gone. What you are gripping is the counter and what you are peering at is the old man’s shoes, old loafers with tearing seams. As quickly as the ship appeared, it has returned to its sea.
It takes you a moment to gather yourself, to place exactly where you are. Already, the old man has refilled the shot glass with liquor from the second bottle. “A very fine vodka,” he says, handing you the glass.
“What is this?” You ask.
“The soul.” He pushes the glass closer to your face. “Drink it.”
You do. It tastes like metal, coating your mouth and throat and a strange chill fills the cavities of your body. You shiver. You stretch out your arms, your fingers suddenly feel heavy. Looking at them, there is the glitter of diamonds, weighing down your wrists and fingers. There is the sound of clinking glass, of faint music. Looking around, you see the empty store. But there is a presence of bodies, many bodies, whirling around you, laughing, dancing. They slowly start to appear, apparitions dressed in silky gowns and velvety suits, lacy gloves and feathered boas; the light of chandeliers fragments as it hits the gems of expensive jewelry. You have the sensation of moving with them, you feel weightless as you are pulled into the crowd, dancing among them. An invisible partner wraps an arm around your back and pulls you closer. There is the definite smell of perfume and wine, of glamour and wealth. There is the definite memory of being here before, of dancing like this. You do not remember it as yourself, but as someone else. You do not remember it at all, and then you do. And then it is clear, so clear that you are certain you will never forget it again. But then the music falls away and your partner lets go. Your body lurches to a stop, though you realize it had never moved. You are still standing in front of the counter, the old man watching you carefully. You are already starting to forget.
“People don’t just come here on accident.” He says. He has put the shot glass away. You look down at your fingers. Bare. “People come here because they are looking for something.”
“For what?” You ask. Outside, it is dark. You’ve missed your meeting, or appointment, or whatever it was. But it doesn’t matter because it will be rescheduled and there will be more meetings and endless lunches and your life will be spent moving from one room to the next; moving from the bedroom to the kitchen to the office then back to the house and there will be crappy motels for business trips and there will be semi-okay rooms for vacations where the wi-fi will suck and you’ll still be stressed about work. The observer will never see the adventure of your life because you never lived any.
Don’t you get it?
“Thank you,” you say, though you can’t articulate why. The old man smiles at you and nods because he knows you understand. You turn to leave, push the door open, walk out into the night. You must go now. There are other places to be.