I gave thanks, but that was yesterday...

A bloody sunset stained tissue clouds while I stood at the brink tossing pennies -- wishing, wishing, wishing. The sky’s fiery light dimmed and a bruised darkness came, smudging trees’ silhouettes beneath early stars.

Orion hung in the sky as I rolled an empty trash bin across the lot. Such a poised, crooked, and eternal warrior. Light from the bar’s kitchen door threw a path across littered blacktop as I rushed back inside to sweep and mop a lonely room. Gone were the sharp drinkers’ voices.

I swept crushed things across scuffed slate. I once felt doomed. I once felt haunted. Winter’s chill had settled in. Locking the door and giving the bar back to the spirits, I scraped frost from my windows and shivered.