The bar and the hills

Last night began at the Water Wheel, only it's wasn't. It was a cross between that and some other place I've never been before. Everyone seemed to be there, including you, drinking and being generally jovial. I blacked out for a while and things seemed to go wrong after that.

When I came to I was at the bar being screamed at by an old coworker. She was pissed that I just cost her the rest of her shift. After a lot of yelling it was revealed in flash images that I bought her a drink and her boss wasn't going to let her waitress after having a drink.

While this was going on there was an unknown group that kept calling me into the bathroom. Every time I'd hear someone yell I turned around to a different person trying to coax me in. I wanted nothing to do with any of the scene so got up and went to order a drink.

I went up to the bar and ordered a few shots, but I couldn't find my card to pay. The woman who ran the bar smiled and said, "Don't worry honey I kept it for you, I knew you'd be back." She then passed over three shots of brown liquor and handed me my card. The card looked like it had been butchered and then taped back together. I was irate and started screaming. She told me to talk to my old coworker.

I went over and threw one of the shots in her face before yelling, "What the fuck did you do to my debit card!" She slapped me and then busted up laughing. "I cut that thing to pieces after you paid for my cab ride here." "WHAT!? I paid for your cab?!?" "Yeah you said it was no problem. I figured you wouldn't remember. Don't worry though it was only a couple hundred dollars. Oh yeah, and you tipped him really well." I was enraged. I took the other two shots straight back, looked her straight in the face and said, "you're a bitch". Then I left.

As I got out onto the street I encountered the Swirl. He was just as wasted as I was. We bullshitted for a while and then decided that we needed to get some doughnuts. It was at least two miles to the nearest doughnut shop so we waited at a bus stop. However it wasn't a bus stop like you'd recognize. When we got there we sat in the seats, at which point harnessing lowered and enclosed us. The seat was then lifted by a large magnet and we began to travel down the street at very high speeds.

It was only a few moments and we were interrupted by a group of men in black cloaks. Their very presence stopped our maglift bus ride. We were released by the seats and the men immediately started to "scan" the Swirl. I took a few steps back and just watched it all. They turned him in all sorts of directions, inspecting everything about him. Finally the obvious leader of the group said, "He's clean. His clothes covered his whole body during the tests. Let him go." They gave a strange look at me, but then walked the other direction.

This is when everything changed. I was no longer near my house. Everyone at the bar was gone. I was in a very small car on my way to Vancouver with the 4ster's. It wasn't long before we reached our destination, but again it wasn't what I expected. There were giant hills all around us and while it was unseasonably warm in Seattle, Vancouver was under multiple feet of snow.

We parked the car at the bottom of a hill. The area reminded me of Leavenworth, if it was built between 5 massive, steep hills. The 2x4ster began to demand that we visit a chocolatier. This is when I noticed that half of the stores only sold specialty chocolates. We hit up a couple and I was in awe of the variety and craftsmanship of all the chocolates. I ate so much I thought I was going to vomit in the snow.

We decided that we needed to eat some kind of real food. A small elderly lesbian couple, as if they knew what we wanted, broke from their kissing to tell us about a tapas place that was worth checking out. We headed back to the car and started to drive up the hill. We didn't get too far before the car slid back down the slippery incline. A few more attempts were made, but all failed.

I got out to see if I could find someone to tell us how to get there without having to go up the hill. I met a young woman who knew exactly where I was talking about. "Oh yes! It's not just tapas. They have raviolis too. Make sure that you try the ravioli. If you don't try the ravioli you're really going to be disappointed."


I thanked her for the advice and went back to the group. There were less than pleased to find that all we talked about was ravioli and not how to get there. They all seemed to turn on me. If only they'd had pitchforks and torches I could have called them an angry mob.


Then I was back at home lying in my bed. It was another hour before my alarm would go off. I just laid in bed and listened to the sound of the rain.