Here's my own response to the prompt I posted to SomeGuy's Writers Bloc yesterday. Want to see? Look here!
After some deliberation, I decided to write about my neurotic barmaid-pilot girl, Jasper. Enjoy!
***
On nights like this, Jasper sometimes wondered if she would live out the rest of her life in Gillian’s Irish Pub, serving drinks to and breaking up the fights of the only people in Boston who were more miserable than she was.
And then, of course, if that were the case, she’d probably die in some little, quasi-ironic way, like getting hit in the neck by a flying shard of beer bottle, and then her boss would be completely useless in identifying her corpse, since she lied to him about her age and he seemed to think her last name was “Merlot” instead of “Marlowe” and her parents would never find out, but her mother would always think that she eloped with a rich man and had to hide her background, and her headstone would be a cheap little plaque that read “Here Lies Jasper Merlot, Killed by Beer Bottle.”
Not that she was a pessimist or anything.
She’d tell herself often that she was too young to be jaded, but she didn’t understand how she could be optimistic, either. Not after what must have been the fourteenth rejection for an interview. Not even for the job, for an interview. She was “too young,” “had no professional flying experience,” and even if she’d had a chance with the latest one today, she had to rush over from work, and still smelled like alcohol and cigarettes.
She had walked out from that rejection calmly, only to break down crying in a little North End pizzeria when she didn’t have enough money for extra toppings, just in case she didn’t feel like enough of a crazy person.
At least she had plenty of company. The little ten-year old who kept telling her he’d forgotten his ID. The constantly mumbling older man who yelled “Mazeltov!” every time something got smashed in a fight. The young, clean-cut man at the end of the bar who cried “She’s gone! She’s gone!” every few minutes or so. The man in the rumpled suit who kept calling her “Lass” and demanding she speak in an Irish accent, even though she’d already told him she was from Illinois.
It was one of those steamy, humid days that she kept hearing were rare for Boston, except every day since the beginning of June was like that. Nights like these were so perfect for flying, she’d found: hot air rose, but you could rise above that, too.
“So, how about this heat, Mr. Davis?” she cheerfully asked one of her regulars, cleaning out a glass.
Mr. Davis’ face crashed to the bar, his arms covering his head like he was in a fallout shelter.
“… uh-huh.” Jasper set the glass back under the bar. “Tell me about it.”
