Trust your gut (294 words)

The bartender pulled the cord and the neon lights went out. The bar stools were being pushed and pulled along the wood floor by the waiters. All the color and noise had left the bar after last call and now the dim lights made the room look like an old sepia photograph with the usual leftover characters, save one.

She sat alone in the middle of the room. Her cigar smoke seeped from her lips and lingered over the table like a snake slowly slithering away. She was tall and thin with chestnut hair and nut-brown skin. Her emerald eyes, watery crystals glistening in the dark, made me wonder what it would be like to be caught in her gaze. I jumped when she looked up at me, "sorry" I said, "I don't mean to stare." And then I knew what it was like.

Talking to no one she said "I love this place" mouthing 'love' in a cloud of smoke. The rough velvet sound of her voice was what dreams are made of. She climbed up on the table and laid down on her back with her dress tucked around her and her legs swinging in the air off the end. "You have to take chances in life; don't always duck" she said "And tonight two people are going to wing it."

She lay still for a moment, then drawing on her cigar and thoughtfully exhaling she said "I will marry the next guy that I talk to and we will live happily ever after." Without a word spoken everyone was thinking the same thing, sometimes what you want and what you don't want are the same thing.

She sat up from the table, jumped down and walked out the door.