Another Victory

by Gregg G Guydish

The urgent buzz of the alarm clock pulled him from his peaceful slumber. Reaching blindly from under the covers, he fumbled with the clock, hitting the snooze button. His eyes closed of their own volition for a long moment, before he shook himself back awake, turning the clock so he could read the time off of the illuminated dial. With a muffled grunt, he switched the alarm off, and lumbered out of his warm bed, finally bringing a start to this new day.

He followed his usual routine, quietly exiting the house before anyone else could rise, being careful to disturb no one. The commute to the office was the usual hassle of snarled traffic, always worst as he approached the downtown office district. At work all was normal: the mundane round of morning chitchat, office workers ruminating about recent events around the water cooler, or lounging in the break room, lingering over a cup of coffee & lollygagging about in a futile effort to make their days more tolerable.

He slogged through the day, dealing with quarrelsome clients, mountainous paperwork, and insipid requests from clueless superiors. Not for the first time did he question his choices in life, his position and place, and the decisions that had eventually led him here. How he longed for those simpler times, when his life was his own, and he could do as he pleased without anyone, or anything, getting in his way. The future was a construct of his own making then, with no responsibilities or concerns to impede his progress down his chosen path. It was times like these, he thought, that those times seemed like much, much happier times...

---

After work, a few of his colleagues invited him out for a round or two, and, in an inexplicable moment of weakness, he agreed to join them. As he drove to the agreed upon rendezvous, his mind steadfastly refused to deal with where he was actually headed. Instead, he filled his head with the most mundane things: work, chores, errands he needed to run, and letters that were waiting far too long for him to write. He contemplated how angry his wife would be for his being late, and how he might dissemble afterwards. And then his mind slowly turned towards anticipation; the opportunity, justified now in his thoughts, to put his work and home life aside for a few hours, and to enjoy the company and camaraderie of his friends and co-workers. Surely no harm could come from a little male-bonding, he thought, interaction that he got all too infrequently in this modern life he has now.

As he entered the establishment, he let out a small gasp; the sights, smells and sounds overwhelmed him in a sudden, hot torrent of memory. He shut his eyes and concentrated on the sounds and smells, warm and liquid in his ears and nose, and his mind reeled back to an earlier time, when he was a wholly different person. He lingered for a long moment in the doorway, breathing in the enchanting atmosphere, charged as it was, with odors far too familiar to him, and not nearly as half-forgotten as he thought they would be. His mind cast back to those innocent days of his youth; the endless days and nights of dalliance, spent in the company of other like-minded individuals, acquaintances and strangers whose names he never knew, and surely would never have remembered now anyway. But in a bar, he reflected, everyone was your friend...

A jostle from behind pulled him abruptly from his reverie, and, with a start, he stepped clumsily aside, oblivious to the queer stares from the other patrons gaining entrance. He stared lovingly at the bar for long minutes, his eyes caressing the long counter, the brass rails, the tall beer taps, and the staggering variety of bottled liquor displayed there behind. A motion out of the corner of his eye dragged him back to conscious reality, and his mind dimly connected the motion to the waving arm of his colleague, and that jump-started his brain again. Never quite taking his eyes off of the bar, he made his way over to his friends, his nostrils ever filled with the odor he could never forget, as he drew closer to the object of his obsession. His mouth was unaccountably dry and his paws trembled as he approached the bar, almost completely oblivious to the mindless chatter of his coworkers. He gripped the edge of the bar tightly to steady his paws, his breath still in his throat, as the barkeep approached to take his order. His heart raced as emotions and memories conflicted in his head, battling for dominance in a test of wills unlike any he had experienced in a long, long time. He closed his eyes, seeming to wilt for a hearts-breadth, his death-grip on the bar the only thing keeping him upright, and when he again opened his eyes, they were clear, and his voice was as calm as the dead. His mouth opened, and words fell out. Money changed paws, and a cool glass was pressed into his paws...

---

Getting home far, far later than he had anticipated, he made his way through the silent house as quietly as he could muster. He poked his head into each of his children’s bedrooms, marveling at the exquisite engineering of each tiny body of his beloved blood-kin. He lingered far too long on the threshold of each room, staring for an amount of time that would have surely made its occupants uncomfortable had they been awake, before eventually moving on to the next door.

Despite the languor he spent doting over his children, he seemed to reach his own bedroom door all too quickly. Stepping as quietly as possible, he entered the room, his ears telling him that his wife was fast and deep in her slumber. Turning out his pockets on the bureau as he disrobed for bed, he stopped short as his fingers caressed a heavy coin tucked in the folds therein. He instantly knew what it was, and he lifted it under his nose, his eyes straining to read it in the dim bedroom light.

“TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE”

“UNITY - SERVICE - RECOVERY”

“1 YEAR”

He smiled softly, and perhaps a tad ruefully, then looked over at his sleeping wife and spoke softly under his breath.

“Another day sober, is the greatest victory of all.”

The End.