Notes, not much else came to mind. After all, a man can’t afford to think of idealistic notions of love and fantasy, not when playing the piano at least. Fingers sprawled on the checkered dance floor, orchestrating a symphony for the drunkards at the bar and the knights at the pool table unsheathing their swords.
Here in Timely tavern the sun never came, the moon never peered over the horizon because in this eternal darkness lit by second hand chandeliers and pipe fog there wasn’t a place for father time. Why is that you ask? Time never paid us any kindness of course. He was too busy losing sanity at the bar, slowing our places in this worthless and priceless world. He froze us in our own pain. He took his time making love to his drink.

I play to this day the same song because when time stops what else is there to play except for the reminiscent sounds of when the clock still held values…the two notes that you’d hear etch into the harsh air and write it’s notes into the dampness of the scent of vomit and despair. Lovers say that time stops when you fall in love…and that’s true…because I’m father time and I’ve fallen in love with my gin and tonic.

“Jack, you’ve got to quicken your step. The crowd’s lookin for a dance this time a day,” said the seasoned voice of his old friend, Reg, now employed as the bartender of this retched cavern. His grandiose smile wasn’t fit in this damp place, the sun incapable of lightening those teeth…perhaps if that orb in the sky did land a gaze on reg the shine might lift us from this spell or at least give enough lighting to see the white of the keyboard…I suppose I’ll just have to make do with the radiance of the drinks and the emporium of bottled poisons that reg keeps behind his bar to quench the parched legs hungering for a dance.

A deep heave escapes the pianist as he tries to shift his weight for the utmost comfort, comfort that can’t be found in the darkness of this tavern. He looks down at the keys laid before him with narrowed eyes, slits emblazoned with the hunger for sound, the hunger for a temporary happiness where the void would be filled. A new persona lays in the darkness of these grey pools. Something frightening that one might see in the depths of a churning ocean on the black night...but what can we human expect…we all fear the darkness of its unknown capabilities and the monsters that lay in its veil, in the depths of this song, in the depths of our hearts.

Keys jolted with nimble fury pulling the strings of the marionettes, those dancers. Each note carried on the breath of his song carried a man’s next step in this dance and played a smile on a woman’s face. The dance floor may have been filled to the brim of this drink but there were only two people partaking to this gleeful elegy, the pianist and the dancer.

“Reg! Why you standin by the juke box? My music was never one to invite the company of a machine and with all the girls with drinks in hand, the place is lit for ya,” Jack yells over the cascading keys as he cocks his head toward the gaggle of girls congregating near the…wait…the juke box. ‘heh, never mind Reg’…

“Don’t worry Reg! Just save me a song at the rack why don’t ya!? And I better not get leftovers like last time!” And with that Jack continued to play his fingers on the checkered dance floor and Reg continued to play his happy tune with the girls…a sly smile plastered on his face as he gives Jack the nod of approval.

Sweeping a chair and painting a mask proper for any masquerade ball, Reg seats himself by the girls. His eyes lit like the second hand chandeliers in the sky and a smile so subtle that it precipitates the idea that he’s got a plan for everything…and indeed he did for anything and everything. Legs crossed, hands folded over each other and face absorbing every facet of these lovely lasses…he nears closer to the girls…smiling…and as those pearly whites gleam and entrance the gaggle he breaks up into the air shoots up his drink, arms attached and proclaims his name.

“Reg dears, name’s reg. Now who’s up for a dance? You all look pretty but do you have the liveliness to rock this joint” The sly says, a wink aimed at the girls and an extended bow and hand stretches out in tow. ‘Sigh, women and wine…what else does a bartender need…what else does any guy need.’

Giggles, the sounds desperate girls make Reg would say, swallow the muggy air and battles play on there rouged faces as the girls fight for the open hand at a dance.

A flip of his hair, jet black and roughed up by the occasional bar fights he’s had to calm, he stands tall, a good six feet. “How bout you dearest?” He says, his query aimed at the shy misses near the corner.

OOC:grand...grand...i see that i don't even get a simple critique...well i'll leave this blemish on literature where it is...i want to see if i can do better than this poor work.

Oh, come on Julian. It's not half bad. I just have a hard time critiquing stuff. I have a way of ignoring bad stuff unless a) it's blatantly obvious or b) I'm really looking hard for it. If you want someone to tell you all the stuff you did wrong, you're asking the wrong guy for help.

Sorry! I'm just too nice, I suppose. I liked it plenty; I find Reg the bartender's outgoing attitude to be good for a laugh. It's the way an introvert like me thinks (yes, offline I am very much an introvert).

OOC: Dude, if you call that bad, my writing, and a bunch of other people's writing on the game, maybe more than 3/4 of them, are dreadful writers. I must include myself among them. Dude, at least for my standards, you are a brilliant writer. It's not what's happening; it's the way you said it that makes it great. I'd like to add onto it, in fact! You see, I'm the exact opposite as you; I can't write very descriptively. But, I'll put my mind to it now. Oh, and do you have a real book in the proccess? You know that I'm looking forward to it, right? Maybe, if it's still going to take time to publish, you could write a bit, and then PM it to me. I'm a fan already.

IC: As Reg finishes his words, a man with a leaft green cloak opened the door of the tavern. It was more dampened than parched. He was breathing heavily, a walking stick weakly gripped by his bloody hands. When the door had opened, none noticed him, being that he had pushed it so weakly. Alas, they did when a loud thumb sounded from the floor, where he lay benumbed on the ground. Some of the people who where present bustled to his side, to see if he was still alive. On shouted, "Come! This man is dying. It appears he was in the sea, and hit something."

It was then that a youth was seen in the doorway. The same man came to him. "What happened, boy?"

Only a faint sound came from the boy's small mouth.

"Speak up, boy!"

Another man came. "Leave him, Brock. He's a mute."

The man, now known as Brock, frowned. "But why isn't he beaten up. I don't see much blood on this lad."

"Look!" One of the people near a window cried. "By the sea! There's a demolished raft! He must have crashed."

"No matter. Get the man help, and get the boy a place to rest. We will answer the question of what happened later!"

OOC:

OOC:Nogare, I am not writing a book. I'd like to but there's a couple of problems in my system...one, i'm not nearly as good as i should be. i don't care what y'all say it's my opinion...second of all and most stifling is the fact that i get tired of writing about my characters and i end up giving up on them sooner or laters...it's probably gonna happen with these two too.

OOC2:This should have gone before the first post but me being...well...me...didn't write it till afterwards...gosh...another star wars incident

Wind swept the last bit of confidence in the boy's stride. Jack was fearful of these nights, the moon was never too far off and he could usually tell when her opaque beauty was nearby. His fingers beginning to tremble and his palms clammed up over his staff as he massaged the head of his wooden cadaver. He needed some way of feeling as if he was in control of this night and the setting didn't seem to invite courage in him nor did they invite him at all because the passer byes were beginning to give him glares and tapered masks that evoked the malice that people now gave him

'great, why this night?' the thoughts seemed to dribble out of his mouth in a sketchy voice, the cold was beginning to envelope him, every part of him it seems as it was a struggle for him to keep himself upright in this trek.

There it was, the sacrosanct of a bar pleading his arrival. The grapevine seemed to had called his name again...and this time it took its leisurely time getting through everyone but him...the bastard time can be he thought. there he stood, frozen in time as it were. Hand stretching out in dramatic lethargy, he nears the door and stares at the threshold he would find and as he stares at the gleaming doorknob thoughts flood his mind of what he must do and as the seas of memories began to take hold he remembered.

He had to commit to his routine safeguard...he searched in the depths of his frigid mind for the proper attire...a dazzling smile would suffice, he built his shoulders up a bit for the appearance of confidence, narrowed eyes that gave him the unrelenting gaze that would most certainly come in handy, he tossed his dirt brown hair a bit...'hmm...better than I thought it'd turn out. Mind over matter of course, I still need the insides.'

"Now, behind this door Jack is a sea of sins...you've lived a life void of these things...you're not one of them...you'll never be one of them...you may be born flesh and bone...but you're not human like the rest...you're like nothing this world has ever seen, understand.' said the voice of his inner conscience and jack nods absent minded as he continues to preach to himself...nodding every time to make sure he understands and agrees with his thoughts. It may seem a bit queer to you, my dear reader, but Jack Mocking took no chances and prided himself in being in control of every situation.

'You'll be playing the piano again Jack, don't live off the keys, make sure to smile, and occasionally talk to the people around you no matter how sickening their breath and persona is...understand?"

"Yes," he tells himself, his voice enthralled with his own genius, and then he continues on through the lists of things he must be aware of tonight making sure that he let no vulnerability escape him, no hole go unguarded. Jack, as many of his kind are known for, is fraught with mistakes it is only human but he prides himself in knowing that he is not human not of any kind you might come across.

A shadow appears over him, someone who wants to drown their memories perhaps...and it seems that Jack Mocking will have to cut his ritual short tonight and hopefully the aromas of alcohol poison will keep him nimble...without thinking he opens the door to the stranger, still looking with glazed eyes...he was still in the trance, a lucid mix of consciences and absent minded asinine behavior…and follows in tow…

He takes a deep breath, the scent of vomit and alcohol and cigarette tobacco swallowing him whole, a cough escapes him in an almost apologetic manner for taking in such olfactory misery. He looks at the garden of Eden after the snake’s poison sunk in. ‘Such sinful ambience.’

The place was paradise for the lost.

kasei opens the door to a tavern he had never seen before, and listens to the music, setting himself to the beat, he goes over to the bar for some sake...


OOC: nice thread!