pervasive lubricant

Some thing, or rather a liquid, seems to be flowing through a great deal of the stories and news I’ve been reading. Alcohol and all the various flavors and forms. The liquid has come to affect the sounds of the late evening here in the Crossroads. Some may be at this point, saying, “…well duh!”. Duh indeed.

Even the writings about the deceased Senator today mention his large living, his love of the drink and we all know that the liquid contributed to his accident long ago. Characters in novels having a drink, musing about life alone or with drinks, friends coming to a decisive moment of understanding, the character sitting in the bar watching as a crowd slowly slips under the influence as a mass. Closing time and the work to shuffle customers out of the bar and onto the streets.

Onto the streets, where the fresh air at first awakens but then enhances the buzz perhaps, and the talking begins, while the liquid has in the process affected the consumer’s hearing and their voice sounds decibels louder than what is normal. What is normal?

This is not a criticism of the liquid of modern life, but rather, a recognition that it is just that. I sometimes forget that. It’s been over a year since I left the life of an English publican, one who runs the pub, the “public house”, dispenser of the liquids to the locals, at their bar which they refer to as their “local”. And despite the distance and the cultural differences, this place sometimes reminds me of those nights when the lubricant took effect upon the neighborhood, and like the blood of a being, coursed through the streets, and gave life, in this case a strange one, to the people who worship at the altar of the bar or drink alone on the corner by the gas station.