Rick's

The smoke dances among the cold night air

Spiraling upward in a haphazard path, a pale

ghost that is slowly swallowed by the encroaching

Darkness.



Back into the bar, a new cigarette flares to life.

Cigarettes,

Those silent soldiers marching in their precise rows of 10. 

Those common companions,

That remain after everything and everyone else have

Fallen into the shadows of the past.

But they're leaving me too,

Their ranks depleting faster than my past comrades

left broken and buried in the bloodstained sand.



The last patron left hours ago, the club now nothing more

Than an empty room -  the laughter and music of earlier

Having fled with those desperate couples that drowned their

Sorrows to make my profit.  A near-empty bottle of gin

Beckons with the sweet promise of forgetfulness, a bit of

Medicine to numb what is wrong with me.

Though the numbness never lasts.



Of all the gin joints, in all the world,

I have to be stuck here in this one,

Waiting for a future that left me for a second time,

Soaring to freedom and leaving me trapped,

Both in this bar and in the echoes of my memories.

Play it again Sam... wait, Sam left hours ago. 

Oh well,

I light up another cigarette, the smoke curling towards the ceiling

with the pungent smell of tobacco and fate.

The only real friends that I have left.