Over Again

I glanced up again at the little weathered door. Floating several feet from the ground in the corner of the dead-ended alleyway, it swayed and wobbled and flickered. The light of the lamp post from the distant road brushed its battered frame with golden fingertips but the door remained stubbornly dark. I took another step forward. Paused. Hesitated. A slight wind started up, wrapping my ankles in cold ribbons that spiraled up my legs. I barely noticed it.

Straining, I could just barely make out the sound of music and laughter from beyond the doorway. It sounded strange to hear it again after such a long time and I found myself moving forward, my earlier hesitation forgotten. Just as I raised my hand to knock the door creaked open, spilling warm light and whiskey fumes into the icy air.

The woman who appeared at the door was tall, almost absurdly so, and was stooped awkwardly underneath the frame. She looked at me with surprise and then smiled, cocking her head. Her eyes, I thought, seemed sad.

"You look like you'd be welcome here," she began, sticking the hat she'd been holding under her arm and extending her hand. Without really thinking I shook it, and noticed that her knuckles were bruised and red. A flash of gold drew my attention to a signet ring she wore around her finger sporting a symbol I did not recognize. She awkwardly shuffled back to avoid bumping her head and smiled again, holding the door further open.

"Would you like to come in?"

I paused, glancing briefly past her into the room. It was warmly lit, with a number of tables buzzing with conversation and the shuffle, snap and crack of cards. Waiters whisked around the guests laden with trays of drinks and off in a corner some musicians were performing the blues. White-yellow smoke drifted hazily above the tables and as a result the faces of some of the taller guests seemed blurred. I couldn't quite pinpoint why, but there seemed something slightly different about this particular bar.

The woman, noticing my hesitation, leaned forward and extended her hand again, loose brown curls spilling forward over her shoulders. Her eyes were soft, earnest.

"Here, let me help you."

I don't know what possessed me at that moment. I reached out and her hand clasped mine, hoisting me upwards with surprising strength. From how smooth and practiced the movement was I had the feeling she'd done it many times before. She steadied me with a hand on my shoulder and together we ducked awkwardly beneath the low door frame. As the door shut behind us, I felt the last tendrils of icy air dissipate from my legs.

Once inside, the woman led me towards the bar. She glided around tables bursting with chairs and voices and banter and skimmed past waiters with practiced ease. I followed more clumsily, narrowly avoiding several crashes with the other guests. I ended up stumbling but was saved from the embarrassment of falling by a man who caught my arm. He laughed, flushed from drink, and turned away before I had the chance to give him my thanks. By then I was caught up in another swarm of people that had arrived from someplace else, weaving in around me pulling out chairs and gleefully exchanging insults.

Eventually, I made it to the bar. The woman was already seated, taking a drag of her cigarette with her wide brimmed hat pulled low over her eyes. She smiled when she saw me and gestured to a chair beside her, which I accepted gratefully.

"Would you like anything?" she asked, angling her head in the direction of the drinks list. Looking over it briefly, I frowned. Most, if not all, of the drinks seemed unfamiliar. I shook my head and glanced around the room again. This time, I noticed something I'd not noticed before.

In the very center of the room stood a bed. It was empty and the tables were organized in haphazard rings around it. Most of the guests seemed not to notice it, exchanging cards and placing bets as though it were the most normal thing in the world. There were others, however, that stared at the bed almost as if in a trance, with hollow eyes and hands wringing together (either from nervousness or anticipation I did not know).

"They're new. Like you."

I started and turned back to the woman, who put her cigarette out in a glass of whiskey with an oddly empty look in her eye. She glanced once at the corner of the bar and, turning back to me, held a finger to her lips for silence. At that very moment, three consecutive rings went off.

Instantly, the noise and commotion in the bar ceased. All heads turned to the center of the room. Cards were folded and placed face down on tables. Drinks were lowered from lips. Smiles dropped and eyes became stony, serious.

From a table close to the bar, a man rose quietly from his seat. He was tall, lanky, with hunched shoulders and a haunted face. With an uneasy gait that became smoother and more confident as he neared the bed, he withdrew something from his pocket and stopped, straightening. I sat stiffly in my seat, lips pressed tightly together. It was a knife. The man had withdrawn a knife from his pocket. I shot a half questioning, half alarmed glance at the woman but she slowly shook her head at me with a look that invited no argument.

For a long moment, nothing happened. The man waited patiently, tightening and loosening his grip periodically on the handle of the blade. I exhaled sharply when a faint shape materialized on the bed, gradually gaining color and mass until it was impossible to mistake the young woman lying fast asleep amidst the tangle of sheets. The man bowed his head for a moment, muttering something underneath his breath. When he looked up again there was something cold and hard in his eyes, as if someone had carved them from stone. He advanced, knife drawn.

I made to get up but was stopped by a firm hand on my shoulder. It was the woman with the wide brimmed hat. She looked angry now, and her fingers dug almost painfully into my flesh. In my peripheral vision I caught the deep red and purple marks on her knuckles - in the flickering yellowish haze of the bar they seemed to pulse, spreading as I watched.

"I know you don't understand but please sit down. If it becomes too much you may look away, but do not interfere."

"What," I said, speaking sharply to mask my mounting fear, "are you talking about?"

The woman spoke low and fast, glancing from me to the scene unraveling in the center of the room.

"The man. He's getting back at her, for the abuse she put him through. That's us. That's you. It's why we're here. It's what this place is - an opportunity you'll never find anywhere again."

I opened my mouth to respond but a sudden flash of motion forced me to turn back to the man with eyes like polished stone. His knife came down in a heavy swing. What followed unraveled by itself.

When it was over the man sat down at the foot of the bed and I watched him sink into himself, knife clattering to the floor. The sound seemed louder than it should have been in the eerie silence of the bar, with every face turned in his direction. Eventually, someone came over to him and led him away gently by the hand. The man moved robotically, staring at the floor, seeing nothing. As he passed, people turned their eyes away and some murmured words of comfort. He didn't seem to hear any of it, or if he did, he gave no outward sign.

I could only watch, frozen, as the bed with the corpse flickered and shimmered. The dead woman disappeared, as did the knife, and the bed re-appeared moments later freshly made and new, with no trace of what had occurred just moments before. Movement and sound resumed, then, with the guests turning back to their tables and card games. The musicians struck up a new tune and slowly chatter and banter returned to the same rowdy level as it had been before.

All through this the woman watched me, her earlier anger gone. She'd dropped her hand from my shoulder and was busy lighting a new cigarette with practiced, efficient movements. After a long time I turned my attention away from the bed and took a new interest in counting the scratches on the bar top. I wasn't sure what to think, or to feel. The woman sat silently beside me, exhaling blue rings of smoke, humming something indistinguishable amidst the music and the laughter from the nearby tables. This was absurd. The whole thing was absurd.

When I was finally recovered enough, I looked up and folded my hands in my lap. The next words I spoke slowly, to keep my voice steady.

"I'd... like some answers."

The woman exhaled and nodded, lowering her cigarette. Far off to the left a table exploded with loud laughter and I wavered for a moment. The smoke of the woman's cigarette still lingered on the air and I took a breath, dragging it into my lungs. I didn't much like the smell but, oddly enough, it seemed to help me find my words.

"What was all that?"

The woman smiled, more to herself than to me, but it did not reach her eyes. She removed her hat and set it on the bar top, running a hand through her hair with a sigh and letting that smile melt back to nothing. I noticed for the first time how tired she looked, how drained her face was, how pale her features.

"I've told you already. It's an opportunity. Against anyone and everyone - it doesn't matter whom you choose, or how many, or what you decide to do to them." She looked away, took another drag of her cigarette. I was silent for a moment, glancing again at the bed.

"Are they real?"

When she gave me a questioning look I made an amendment.

"I mean, are they really here?"

The woman paused, thought for a moment, and then shrugged.

"Yes and no. I don't know any specifics. But they always appear sleeping. And whatever you do - or don't do - carries over to wherever they are."

"So, the woman who died just now, she's really -"

"Yes. But he killed her a long time ago. He stays just to relive that experience over and over again. Finds it therapeutic, or so he tells me."

I looked away. Half a second later, three distinctive tones rang out and I jerked in my seat. Again, the sudden lapse into silence. The folding of cards, the cessation of voices. Chairs scraping on wooden floors as bodies twisted away from abandoned games. Faces, stone masks, turning as if pulled by invisible strings towards the center of the room. The woman next to me smiled grimly, and this time it was her that rose up from her seat. I glanced at her hands and noticed that she, unlike the man, drew no weapon.

"Wait."

When she turned to me, her eyes were as flat and as empty as stones. I was taken aback by the hardness in them and felt me question die on my lips. The lines around her eyes softened momentarily and she seemed to know what I had failed to ask.

"You'll have your turn. At one point or another. It's why I invited you in, isn't it?"

With that, she turned away from me and strode towards the center of the room, flicking the cigarette to the floor. As she stood over the bed I could make out, even from this distance, how battered and bruised her knuckles were. She seemed calmer than the man had been and didn't fidget or give any sign of apprehension.

When it was time, I leaned back against the bar as she set to work. I watched, but my mind was whirling away with other things. Other places, other people, memories that seeped first as a trickle and then flooded as a river. A flash like a firework.

I closed my eyes.

Oh, there was one. One I'd meant to make pay for a long time. But how would I do it? Did the method truly matter? I could do it again. Hell, I could do it as many times as I liked. Over and over and over and over and over again. For ever minute, every hour. I became suddenly giddy with the thought of how much time I had. I could -

"Excuse me, miss?"

I opened my eyes and found myself staring at the man tending the bar. He was heavy set, with sloped shoulders and a pleasant, open face. He smiled brightly and quickly set something down on the bar top. It glinted gold as I picked it up, turning it over in my hand.

"That's for you. Enjoy your stay."

For the first time in a long time, I smiled.

"I will."

Over.

And over.

And over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over

And over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over

And over again again again again again a.g.a.i.n a.g.a.i.n a.g.a.in.

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