The bar is filled, probably because it’s late at night. Light music is audible, but the chatter is almost noise, a sound that moves like music, impossible to understand. Peter stands at the bar with a drink in hand. The bartender who served him asks if he needs anything else. Peter shakes his head, and the bartender moves on to another customer.
Peter grabs the stool beside the counter and settles in. His eyes move around the bar, taking in all the preparedness and glamor. He’s hesitant to talk to anyone. He’s come straight from his shift, a long day, so unusual for him to visit the bar. He wanted to be alone more than to meet people. In his mind, that’s better than the alternative. But is it?
Half a glass into lucidity, a lady appears beside him. For him to notice her, he had to shift from his position, a drunk, lightheaded face pressed to the counter. To his left, she’s waiting for the bartender.
Photo by Yasin Arıbuğa on Unsplash
She notices him, and to counter that awkward glance, he laughs and asks her for a drink.
She declines. Peter, understanding, nods again. He felt customary in his lucidity; he didn’t want one either.
So Peter doesn’t feel too disheartened, she asks him his name, and he tells her. Likely, he asks hers too, and he mentions that the bartender went to the restroom.
She replies, “Yes, I’m waiting for him.”
Peter says, “So you’re alone here, or with friends?”
“Yes, I am.”
“I forgot your name. What was it?” Peter asks.
“I_t’s Sarah, by the way. Are you okay? You don’t look too good_.”
“Oh, it’s that obvious. I had a long day.”
“I mean the drinking.”
“Oh, that too.”
Sarah asks, “What do you even do?”
“It’s complicated. I’m a broker.”
She replies, “What even is that? What do you study to become that?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean?”
What started as an awkward conversation transformed into pretty chatter.
“I don’t know. I studied engineering, but then I transitioned into this.”
“So you’re an engineer?”
Peter, hearing that, finds it odd. He studied it but never worked in that field. It’s like for about many years no one has called him that. He had forgotten that part of him.
“Yes, I am an engineer, but not really.”
“Oh.”
In the meantime, the bartender comes, and Peter quiets down so the lady can take her drink and move away.
Peter is happy that it happened, but not that it lasted, the conversation.
Sarah orders her drink, then continues to stay at her place. Then she looks at him again with a smirk.
What do I do? What do I do? He is nervous.
12 May 2026, Freewriters Community Daily Writing Prompt Day 3101: I’m a engineer
