The Cellar Pub

I stumbled over the last few uneven steps before my eyes had a chance to adjust to the gloom. I peered into the room through a haze of smoke. A single ceiling fan sliced languidly at the air, leaving a ring of cigarette soot on the ceiling tile. Jim and The Doors drifted from the sound-system… This is the End… My only friend, the End… I walked up to the bar and ordered a beer: “Keith’s. Please.” The bartender grunted, then said, “Two-Seventy-Five.” I smiled. The times may change, but the prices stay the same. I tossed him three bucks, “Keep the change,” I mumbled. “Gee, thanks…” he said with a smirk.

I turned my back on him and looked out across the room. The patrons looked up from their miseries and eyed me with suspicion. Yes. This was it. The Cellar. The dark, subterranean tavern of my subconscious. Where elements of my past came to linger and die slow deaths, every now and then, reeling up the stairs to make an appearance before stumbling back down to their stupor. I saw a table of regrets downing shots of flaming Sambuca and dwelling on past mistakes. A group of guilty memories played ‘Truth or Dare,’ led by a manifestation of my young self, insisting that he hadn’t pushed a centipede down the furnace grate. “Don’t trust him,” I said, as I walked by, “He’s a liar.”

I focused my attention on the darkest corner in a room that seemed to have more than the standard amount of dark corners. Half-hidden by a suspiciously stained pillar, I spotted my quarry. I pulled up a chair and sat down. I tried to make light of the situation, “So, do you come here often?” I asked.

The blog looked up from the pint of Oland’s Red, “Oh, it’s you…”
I glanced around, “Look, I just wanted to say…”
The blog shrugged and took a slug of beer, “You’ve gotta lotta nerve…”
“Just listen, I’m sorry… I’ve been busy.”
The blog scoffed, inasmuch as blogs can scoff, and said, “Busy? That’s the best you can do?”
“Well, I have been working four jobs you know…”
“Oh, boo-hoo. Try juggling hundreds of posts and comments. You’ve been busy before. Did you even think about how I feel? Sitting there, being accessed, with nothing to show?”
“I cast about for another angle, “Well, the internet barely works, and I haven’t been able to post anything.”
The blog slammed down the nearly empty glass, “You haven’t posted in a month!... a whole month… But forget that… you haven’t even checked in.”
I hung my head, ‘I know… I know… I feel bad.
“Ha. Tell me the truth, there’s someone else, isn’t there.”
“Well…”
”I knew it!”
“But I’m back! I’m reorganized. We can start over, just like old times.”
The blog looked up, “Really? I dunno…”
“Oh come on…” I shifted closer, “Remember when we were in Africa? The jungle, the treehouse, the internet café computers named after the twelve apostles…”
“I remember…”
“Then let’s do it. We’ll get back together.”
The blog was all smiles. We walked up the dingy stairs and stepped blinking into the light. “Are you sure you’re going to keep this up?” asked the blog.
“Well…”
The blog sighed. “It’s ok, I understand… but you’re back for now, right?”
“Yeah.”
"Thank God, because that was ridiculous.”
“What? This post?”
“Yeah, come on, anthropomorphizing a website is one thing, but drinking beer in the dark, watering-hole of your soul? That’s just plain stupid.
“Shut it, Blog.”