Frost, Embers, and Irish Whiskey
This story is dedicated to Lugh, deity of skill and arts, with love and joy. There's this man at a table in a bar. Not some fancy upscale bar, but not quite a dive. But one of those places people go to be alone with other people. I don't just mean sitting and drinking alone, because the pressure of so many thoughts inevitably leads to some of them leaking into audible language, though there are some people doing their closest approximations of a bivalve here. I mean the kind of being alone together where it doesn't matter if you talk. Nothing gets said. No one bridges the gap. And if it happens to pass that you find yourself getting close with someone in the physical sense, it's empty and distant and desperate.
It's a bar without a heart and, right now, there's a man sitting at a table near the bar. And it's clear he doesn't belong here. It isn't the clothes or the hair, though both stand out. He's just… a little brighter than his surroundings. It's not a physical thing, not in the way that can be measured by the usual senses, anyway.
I'm struck by little things about him. He spent his first five minutes just studying the table carvings and graffiti, tracing each lonely letter and shape with a strange reverence one wouldn't think deserved by property damage. And now, he stands and heads to the bar proper. If there were a heart in this bar, it should by all rights be the barstaff. But even they feel the distance, gaping wounds from which the vital organ has been plucked by too many people who devoured bits of it to sate themselves enough to steel themselves against another day in a world that feels so brutally malicious.
So he steps up to the barstaff and speaks. His voice is like nothing this bar has heard in ages; he's not singing, but his voice is music and war and lust and something that might be hope if I can remember what hope is. Been too long since I've heard it.
The weird thing is, he's not trying. He's not putting on some show or trying to act like hot stuff. He's just talking.
"Writer's Tears, please. No ice. And do you have a pen and paper to hand, perhaps?" There's a hint of lilt to his speech, and his accent is from everywhere and nowhere, but perhaps a hint more of someplace in particular, someplace where spring water tastes of apple cider and ambition and the night romances poets.
The bartender he speaks to blinks twice, a blush crossing his cheeks, the first warmth this bar's seen in ages. The first signs of the thaw to come.
"Yes, sir. Right away."
The man watches as his drink is poured, smiling in admiration as if he's watching someone mix a fancy martini with too many ingredients and steps while doing a gymnastics routine on the bartop, not pouring a glass of whiskey with no ice. He thanks the bartender, pays and tips up front, and accepts the pen and paper with a warm "Thank you. That was wonderful to see."
"Uh, what was?" The tender now looks a bit confused, if not also flustered.
"The care you take. So often people overlook the simplest steps. It's just nice to see someone who respects their entire skillset."
The bartender stiffens like he's been caught committing high treason. But then, the smallest smile tugs at his lips and the first bit of frost starts to warm.
"Thanks. Hey, what's your name, anyway? Not seen you around here."
The man sits at the bar, sipping from his glass and sighing happily before starting to jot something down on the pad of paper.
"I haven't been here before. At least, not that I can recall. It might just be that I haven't been here before yet. Though I suppose that is always true." He shrugged once. "As for my name? Whatever epithet you feel fit to confer upon a stranger, I will wear it this night."
"Isn't that sorta risky?" The voice comes from another person at the bar, an enby college student I've seen here before. "Letting some rando you just met give you a nickname for everyone to use? What if it's something god awful?"
The man chuckles. "I don't think our kind bartender here is the sort to level me with such a nom de nuit. But it's less of a risk than you would think. Those who treat random strangers cruelly don't wait for a chance to deploy such words, and most people treat strangers better than they do themselves. Which is, in its way, sad. Treating one's own heart with hospitality is just as important as treating a stranger with it."
"You sound like a greeting card, man."
"Ember." That was the bartender's voice. "I think your, what was it? Nom de nuit? Tonight, it's 'Ember'. Does that suit you?"
The man tilts his head. "Interesting that you give me an out from the words I wrapped around my own wrists. But also, very well phrased. And yes, Ember suits me just fine. Thank you for the lovely gift of such a name." He taps the pen upon the page for a moment, then goes back to whatever he's writing or drawing.
The college student frowns, leaning over to see what Ember's doing on that pad.
"Wait, you drew all that so fast?" There's anger in that voice, but I think I hear something else. Sorrow? Envy? Ember seems to hear it, too.
"Lots of practice. Do you draw?"
"Not like that."
"Of course not. I draw like I draw, just as you draw like you do."
"I mean, that's a masterpiece on a beer stained memo pad. I don't do much better than stick figures."
"Do they convey a story? A feeling? A joke? A state of being?"
"I. I mean, I guess, but-"
"Then they are just as valuable as my drawing."
"Oh please." They're sounding sulky now, but like they're fighting to stay chill against Ember's weird soothing aura. "No one's going to buy my art."
"I will."
"You haven't even seen it yet."
Ember laughs softly. "I don't need to."
"Then how do you know if you'll like it?"
"Because you're curious and you feel. And those things are exactly what you need to make masterpieces. Training your skill is just so you can build the framework for the really important bits."
"Which are?"
Ember lifts the pen and points to the college student's head, chest, and belly with it, matching a statement to each indication. "Your thoughts. Your feelings. Your passion. If you put those into everything you make, no matter how novice or practiced, no matter how pastoral or angry or beautiful or silly, then you're more than halfway to a masterpiece."
They stare at Ember for a moment, seem to fight inside their own head before speaking again. "You can call me Labs. Short for Labradorite. Can you teach me how you figured out the lighting for the towers?"
This goes on for the rest of the evening. Ember's warmth and simple ease, not to mention his seemingly bottomless bucket of skills (he wins every game of pool and darts he puts his hand to, but also does so in a gently demonstrative way that leaves everyone feeling better about their own game) draws people in, at first one by one, but soon, groups are forming. And not just around him.
He moves from place to place like some long haired moth, pulling groups of people into conversation before happily excusing himself to follow on another thread of conversation or action that some other person or group has directed his way. And the conversations keep going. People talking about their interests, their talents, their passion for hobbies and skills. It just keeps going. I've never seen anything like this before. Not here.
The thaw is going strong now, rivulets of conversation pooling together to nourish a cthonic ritual space so long buried under layers of ice that it had become trapped in stasis. Slowly, but quicker every minute, people talk. They talk now of their feelings, their troubles, their hopes ( I'm beginning to remember what that sounds like. I was right, that was what was in his voice). They move through stages of grief and revelations of joy and that night, I witness a wake and a birth in cosmic alignment move like a wave through this space.
Ember's departure is noticed only when someone goes to get him to clarify something about an anecdote he told. Sometime in the last half hour, he's slipped out of the bar. I missed it. I've been having a very interesting conversation with a gentleman named Cale who does anatomical illustrations for a living and likes to draw fanart of science fiction novel characters in his free time,. Labs joined us in conversation at some point. I now know Labs is taking art classes, but their ADHD meds are backordered so they've been struggling to get assignments turned in on time. I learn that Cale spent two semesters working in his university's business office and is more than willing to walk Labs through how to handle the situation. And I learn that I care about these people, these new friends.
The chill, but for the softest refreshing breeze, is gone. There is warmth and camaraderie. Someone is being given an impromptu interview by the owner at one table. She's a regular and it turns out she has everything necessary to run karaoke for the bar on Fridays. The bartenders are in good spirits, tired at the end of the night, but all smiles.
I notice something sitting on one corner of the bar and go over to it: the little notepad and pen that Ember was working with. The drawing of the castle is intricate, detailed, beautiful. There's a line of poetry beneath the castle drawing.
"I awoke to spring's thaw
And the sweet sound of a friend's voice."
I smile, then blink and peer closely at the castle ramparts. There, smiling and posed as if waving, is a little stick figure, framed by a beer stain, and certain that his future is brilliant indeed.
