the tangy taste of expiration

I was in a zone.  I could not take my eyes off the barmaid.  She looked as though she had lived a hard life, her face and hands wrinkled, her voice gravely like that of a decades long smoker.

I watched as she would take her knife and plunge it in and out of the fruit in the same habitual manner that she had for years.  It was not a very skilled maneuver she performed and she was lousy at it.

I sat in a private terror that had things gone just a bit differently, that could have been me cutting fruit in that smokey, dimly lit bar.  At one point that may have been a fantasy of mine.

Now I sit at a desktop performing the same mundane tasks day in and day out.  So badly I wanted to remove myself from the very same position this barmaid was in, and now as irony sets in, I find myself wanting to be back there, with that knife it my cigarette stained hands.

As the hours pass and the nozzle attached to the wall tap of scotch could pour no more, I become mindful of a long drive home.  The lousy feeling in my gut is probably from too much cheap booze.

Immediately upon standing I start to see patterns, clouds of cigarette smoke blur my vision.  I hit the ground with a thud, vomiting the entire way down.

The diffusion of my throw up causes the remaining patrons to get up and leave, shouting words of praise for how much I could drink.  As my memories begin to return, I realize I was not the victim of too much scotch.

That spicy ranch dressing I had on my salad earlier in the day was not spicy ranch dressing at all.  That, after all,  was the tangy taste of expiration.