Whatever was going on in his head had distracted him from his new shot of cheap booze. The gap was long enough for the other drunk to sidle up to him at the bar. The other drunk reached ever so slowly towards the shot. The movement was not slow in an attempt to sneak up on the shot of liquor, it was as fast as he could move. He picked up the shot and drank it, setting it down as fast as he had approached it. The owner of that shot watched the whole scene with no effect or emotion until about a full 10 count after the empty glass hit the bar. I saw one eyebrow respond, then the other. A line appeared in his forehead and another. Soon his face registered that he had just been taken & was finally showing the anger. He grabbed the bar with his right hand & then his left. He pulled himself around to face the drunk that had violated a sacred trust of a bar. I sang along with a full chorus of "I Love This Bar" in the time it took for the first brow to move & the turn to complete. The violating drunk stared blankly at the owner of the stolen shot. A twitch in his chin registered that he might be in trouble, but the rest of him was not getting it. Soon a questioning look came over the sides of his mouth and the angle between his brows dropped. He then looked up, I could tell he finally got it. He had to run, he was in trouble. He spun himself around & stood, fell back to the bar stool, & stood again. His pursuer was pulling at the bar as if it was supposed to give him a boost up, it did not. He stood, fell back on his bar stool, & stood again. The thief had an arms length on the pursuer. The pursuer, at a pace that would take about 1 and 1/2 minutes to cover about 20 feet of carpet, reached as far as he could in front of him with fingers wiggling as if trying to grow them just long enough to grab hold. The thief was doing the same but grabbing at thin air in hopes that something would catch and give him leverage to move any faster than the snails pace at which this chase was happening. The booze they were drinking must have spilled down their pants and melted their shoes or something. They just couldn't move even in anger and fear. The chase proceeded as the rest of the song ended, they went around the corner, leaving us to stare at the Chinese stone engravings, feeling like we just had a drug flashback. This whole scene had just transpired in the slowest of motion but the song and sound around us had remained constant, it was just these 2 guys moving in absolute rhythm with each other. I wonder if on their plane of existence that they were moving at a completely normal speed. The victim returned, it took forever for him to get from the door to the bar, obviously he had not caught the offender. About 2 minutes later the offender returned. He walked to the bar and sat down next to the victim, neither one seemed to recall what had just happened. They didn't know that one of them had broken trust and stolen the others drink & they didn't know that one of them had intended harm to the other for doing so. This must be the meaning of true peace. Only that magic elixir booze could deliver such quick resolution to conflict & such a decisive transition to peace.
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