Hours Have Passed And You Are At a Pub on a Saturday Night

Ah, good you came in and put your coat down with your friends and asked them if anyone needed a drink – they all held up their drinks in a silent "I’m good" when you pointed to them all in turn – and now you’ve been queuing at the bar for: well, it’s hard to tell exactly, because you don’t dare look at your phone in case you miss your moment to make exact and precise eye contact with the bartender, so your concept of time – normally ticked through in precise minutes as you idly scroll through Instagram while you’re waiting – is completely out of whack. Have you been here… minutes? An hour? It is impossible to tell. Time has gone long and noodle-like and elastic. But probably like seven minutes now, at least.

Someone who got to the bar queue at the precise same time as you and has stood next to you throughout is trying to make a power play here: they are sort of leaning across you, despite you both still being three rows back from actual service at the bar, extending one hand to try to tag it onto the wood of the bar proper and drag themselves through the sea. You keep blocking this move with some tactical hip butts, but you’re getting a bit tired of them trying. Move forward, move forward. Somewhere, someone spilled half a pint of Coke on your new shoes. Lads who look precarious holding three pints keep revolving round in slow ship-like circles and, in the wake they leave, you are able to move quickly through the crowd. The bartender has made brief eye contact with you twice now. In many ways, senses-wise, this is as close as you will ever get to hunting an animal in the wild: reading the clues and hints, breathing shallow and faint, timing your final predatory motion to perfection. You swoop through the crowd. You are now at the front of the bar. The blood pulses vulgar in your ears.

Oh, fucking hell.

Oh, fucking hell.