Pay no attention to the man in the corner. He’s old, a has been just waiting for death to take him. Earlier in his life though he was a great warrior, who wielded a mighty hammer. Some say that the only person who could match him in strength and skill with a hammer is Thor himself. The end of his fighting days came suddenly, one day he just simply could not lift his hammer. His pride was broken that day now he is a shadow of his former self.
Ignore the man at the bar he’s a drunken holyman. He believes he’s on some holy quest from god to save the world. Says he must kill the one who came before him. He doesn’t know where that person is or what they look like but he must find and kill them. He will not be able to rest in peace till that person is in pieces.
The man behind the bar is a storyteller. His favourite one to tell is the one of the dueling dragons. The two ancient serpents that were each others opposites yet completed each other. They gave the world balance in the early years before law and order existed. The story of how one killed the other in a moment of rage. The slain one simply accepted it as fate. The other went mad and was killed to preserve the world.
The man behind the piano is blind he lost his sight when he was a boy for getting mud on some lords boots. He sits there in and plays the piano. He is trapped behind the piano unable to move trying to compose his masterpiece, a piece of music that will elate and bring joy to people. Some say he can see the music moving up from the back of the piano, that he’s trying to assemble this piece by sight looking for the solution in the melody.
The man at table dressed in black emits a aura of danger, that death follows him where he goes. He is a death dealer all he lives for in life is the continuation of order and balance in the world. He is not a naive idealist that believes that good will prevail. He recongises the necessity for evil and wrong doing in the world. He is unique in order to gain his attention you must either be completely evil or completely good.
The bar shutters swing open and a woman appears in the doorway, she looks troubled and travel weary. In a bar where everyone is so absorbed in their own thoughts no one notices when she falls down from exhaustion. Time passes and the barman notices and lifts her to a couch at the back of the bar. The woman never wakes.
Time passes and memory fades the storyteller leaves for bed and asks the man at the bar and the man at the table to leave. Outside the men lock eyes and the holy man asks the man in black.
Are you the one who came before me?
The man in black looks at the holyman for a while.
The next thing the holyman hears is the click of the hammer going back on the man in blacks gun.
Then The man in black answers the holy man,
No I’m the eternal one neither before or after, I just am
The gunshot rings out in the still night, the holy man falls to a silent death none will mourn or miss him, none will even notice that he has fallen.
The man in black turns and walks away, knowing balance has been restored.
