So I’m sitting here. I’ve been sitting here for a while. I’ve got a drink in front of me, some beer. Some beer that says local, but it’s made somewhere else.

It’s either that, or it’s a beer made locally that they say is authentically Belgian or French or German or something like that. Then that’s how they advertise it to you.

So you know they are bullshitting you and yeah, I’m sitting here just having a drink. I’m not carrying out a purity test to have a drink at a bar at two o’clock on a Monday afternoon. It’s just this is what it is, I suppose.

So I’ve got myself a beer, and I’ve got myself a shot. If you’re going to get a shot, in my experience, a shot shouldn’t taste nice. A shot shouldn’t be sweet. It shouldn’t be like raspberry ice cream or something, or like a woman’s perfume or something. It should be something a bit more vulgar. A drink to wake you up.

So I ask the barman for a drink like this, and he looks at me like I’m absolutely fucking mental. I’m thinking, come on, man. And he starts telling me that they’ve got all kinds of stuff. So he pours me something, and I say to him, one for you too. We knock it back. And I feel it burn. And I say to him, let’s do another, and he pours two more and we knock them back, and I feel myself change just a little. Like something’s just changed just enough that I’m kind of sitting outside of myself and looking back at myself.

And someone calls him down the other end of the bar, so he’s away, and I sit there and I close my eyes just for a moment, just for a few seconds.

The street is under my feet. Your town?
Our town? I keep going.

Then I’m walking through it.

And then I’m in a room, low lights, we’re at a table. I’m talking to her, and she’s laughing at a joke I make. She’s looking at me, blonde hair, blue eyes. And it’s been 21 years.

Us. Together.

And I smile.

And then I’m moving through the city, past strangers, people. Someone bumps into my shoulder. I just keep moving. They bounce off of me, and another one. Someone’s walking out of a tall building, shouting instructions. I just keep moving, their words just bouncing off of me.

I’m sitting down on the rough ground behind where they built the new buildings, and the motorway’s in front of me and the cars are just ripping left to right. And I’m smoking and I’m thinking about something I wrote years ago. And it’s still with me. It’s still here right now.

And I feel the pulse of the universe.

And I open my eyes, and I take a sip of my beer.