Marco drinks alone at this dull, warmly lit, half-full bar every evening. He tries to get there before the lead-weighted loneliness that this city drops on each of us sinks. The drink helps keep it afloat. Observers might say “That’s no solution” but Marco didn’t agree. After all he and the uncounted others wouldn’t do it unless it helped. Most medicines don’t remedy the root cause. Muffled symptoms sufficed today.
He looked at things with some hope. He saw the bar as half full, after all. The drink made the loneliness shrink. It opened his heart to possibilities he couldn’t see in the sober light of reclusive doorways.
Each person in this big city in their little home in the dark night, looking outward, wondering why all the others don’t come out and play. In the morning gloom they put on their headphones and stare at their shoes. They’re out, to work not to play.
So Marco comes to this bar, and he drinks the promise that the play might happen here and he might get mixed in. And if he doesn’t he’s relieved nonetheless that the hollow continuity of existing on the other side of the pane is avoided. He can think of this as living, at least.