No name

Note: No edits. I wrote this with free-form in mind.

Jeff didn’t like where he was currently at. He wanted to leave. He didn’t know why, he just did.

It was a well-lit bar. Unlike others that used their lights for ambience, dimming almost the whole place, this one has lights everywhere. From the booths, to the bartender’s station, everywhere. The walls took in a nice blood red color, the floor a titled black and the upholsteries were also black. 

Perhaps it’s why he went here, he needed a sort of guiding light to keep him from sinking himself into nothingness. And the bartender didn’t push him to a conversation. 

But then gain, any other place would probably give him more satisfaction than this bar. Don’t get him wrong, he came here willingly. But after taking a seat, ordering his drink, and listening to the Spotify Jazz playlist playing, he just… didn’t know what else he could ever want to do there. 

He was just staring at various bottled drinks that the bar owned, unconsciously downing every refill he was given without thought or hesitation.

“You seem lost.” 

He turned towards the direction of the voice. 

Eyes so brown that they could be black, hair that look too thick to even manage, and a face that completely expressed the statement she mentioned, except…

“What?”

She smiles. It was a better sight than the bottles, that’s for sure. “I said, you seem lost.”

Oh, Jeff said in his head. Unable to comprehend the situation, he became stoic and rather blank. He hoped he said that out loud, but the woman’s next expression told him otherwise.

“Oh.” She said, looking a bit embarrassed. That didn’t stop her from talking though. “Sorry. I get it. You went here alone. I mean, to be alone. I’ll just be on my way then. Excuse me, go geez, I’m rambling…”

She had gone down her stool already when, finally, Jeff told her “It’s okay. Y-you can keep rambling.” He didn’t mean to stutter, but maybe that was the 5th or 6th drink talking. 

The woman giggled, a welcoming sound unlike the place’s playlist. “I had a pretty rough day and thought I’d tell a stranger about it.” 

Oh. That’s right. Jeff thought. I don’t even know her, but… “It’s fine, as long as you don’t expect me to reply.”

“That’s okay!” She said that a bit too eagerly that Jeff flinched. Noticing this, she said sorry in a quieter tone. “Where should I start though?”

It wasn’t something that he felt he had the right to answer, but the woman looked like she needed to vent. “Start from the beginning.”

She did. And Jeff did his best to try and get as much information as he could while in his tipsy self. 

This woman is a writer, a copywriter to be exact. She was spared from her agency’s recent lay-offs but had to say goodbye to her immediate supervisor. It was okay though, that supervisor had wanted to leave anyway. Sadly, things looked like they kept getting worse for her. There were lesser people, but more work had been piled in. Her new superior, though easy to contact when out of the office, was hard to grasp.

She mentioned how everyone around her has plans of leaving. And it was from these people that she learned some sad truths of her agency. Jeff started blacking out after that.

A shake on his shoulder got him to start waking up. ”There we go. I’ve been trying to wake you up for 10 minutes.”

Jeff got up, slowly so as not to get a headache. He looked around to see that it was only him, her, and the bartender left.

“They’re closing up in a while. I thought I shouldn’t leave you behind considering I bored you to bed.” She was embarrassed again.

Jeff had to clear his throat before replying. “It’s okay. Thank you.”

“I paid for your drinks. It’s the least I could do.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“Don’t worry. I get paid well anyway.”

Jeff was sure he could’ve known that had he stayed awake long enough.

He was swaying on his seat before finally trying to stand up. No headache. That’s good. He thought.

“You want me to get you a cab?”

A stoic face first, then Jeff replied. “I drove here.” An awkward silence, then he continued. “I’ll drive you home.”

The woman was caught off-guard by the offer. “Oh. No. It’s okay. This building is the same one as my dormitory.”

“That’s… convenient.”

“… yeah.”

It was silent again. Jeff only noticed that the Jazz playlist had stopped playing, someone was wiping away at tables, the bar’s guard was doing his best to stay awake, and that some of the place’s lights had been turned off.

“Thank you.” Jef flinched.

“Sorry. Hmm. Thank you for listening. I actually didn’t notice you were knocked out until you knocked your glass over in your sleep.”

“Sorry for the trouble…” The way Jeff said it sounded like someone was gradually lowering the volume of his voice.

The woman, unfazed, giggles. “Don’t worry about it. Just… drive home safely.” She starts walking away from Jeff, towards a door that could probably only be reserved for tenants of the building. “I had fun talking, letting it all out, to a complete stranger.”

Jeff wanted to ask for her name. But he doubted he’d have a need for it. He raised his hand and waved at the woman. She waved back, and he waited until he couldn’t see her anymore to finally make his way out of the bar.

As soon as he did, the guard had twisted the Open sign to Close. 

What was the point in all this again? Jeff wondered. He sat in his car and felt that he was wearing the same expression he had when the woman saw him.

He never started his car then. So he didn’t go home. He wasn’t at work the next day.

The next day, news spread of a man who died in his car of cardiac arrest. No one knew his name. Not even the last woman he had spoken to.