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He goes into his bedroom, crawls into the bed, and takes a nap.

There is a dream of a rigid street, a neon and black hotel bar with a large window gazing out onto the world, the lighted stage, all the unreal.

He’s the only one there for now.

The pumped-in music is instrumental and weepy.

His head is bowed as he prays to the bourbon.

How much more of this life can I take, he thinks.

Rabid Bible men skewing the focus of what life really should be.

Preaching patriotic hate and rage.

Guzzles the last of the liquid.

He taps at his glass with a clean and trimmed fingernail.

“Another,” he says to the bartender. “This makes me feel good.”

Bartender looks at him, pours. “You’re famous aren’t you,” he says.

“Famous for what?”

“I don’t know. Something.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You have a famous-looking face.”

“It’s just a face… And if I’m so famous, why am I all alone here tonight?”

The bartender grins. “Maybe you’re just anti-social.”

“You got that right. I’m tired of all these dipshits making noise. Tired of all this talking and nobody says anything remotely interesting.” He nods toward the window. “I guess I’m here because I don’t want to be out there. Out there where all the terrible things happen.”

“You sure are full of the blues,” the bartender says to the man. “It’s not all bad. Just think of all that tight ass out there.”

The man chuckles. “I once new a guy who used to stroll around the mall… You do know what a mall is, right?”

“Yeah. I know the concept of one. Ancient history, man.”

“Anyways, this guy would stroll around the mall, following women around, and he’d try rubbing against them or touching them, you know, like on accident, but it was no accident.”

“Sounds like he was a troubled pervert.”

“He sure was. His name was Cliff. Go figure. And he’d tell me this stuff at work while we were in the breakroom and all I wanted to do was eat my sandwich in peace and this guy is yapping about his ass escapades. I don’t know what happened to him, but I bet he’s in jail…”

“Or maybe he jumped off a cliff.” The bartender laughs.

The man laughs along with him. “You got to wonder how many Cliffs have jumped off a cliff.”

The air grows silent around them and the man taps his glass once more to get another drink. The bartender pours and then walks away to attend to a couple who have come into the bar. They take a seat at a round table in a corner, and the man studies them as they talk. He wonders what they are talking about and then suddenly doesn’t care. He just watches their mouths move incessantly. It makes him uncomfortable. Talking is painful to him. It takes too much effort, and the thoughts never form correctly in his own head. Finding someone to be comfortable with is the ultimate dream.

I’d rather write stories and make the characters talk, he thinks. I can make them say whatever I want and I don’t have to actually talk. People bring me discomfort. People rattle my nerves. It’s hard to swallow. It’s hard to see. My throat dries up and I spit out word salad. My psychiatrist thinks I may be schizophrenic. No. That can’t be right. Schizoid, maybe.

He catches the woman at the table in the corner glance over at him and then whisper to the man she’s with.

It’s hard for me to function in society, he thinks to himself. But then again there is nothing real about society. No one is true blue; they’re all dead red. Red Dead Redemption. He’ll go home to his high rise and play video games by himself. It’s an escape. He needs an escape.

He finishes the last drop of his bourbon and gets up and leaves. Once outside he hails a taxi. He lives in Las Vegas. Nevada, not New Mexico. He wonders how many people even know there is a Las Vegas, New Mexico. Not many, he concludes. People are stupid.

He enters his empty apartment and turns on a light. A cat comes out to greet him. He goes to a window and looks out at all the lights. He’s surrounded by life. He’s surrounded by cliff divers.