By: Tom Ball

     I said to my lover, Jane, “I will write a novel of our times. I had written a number of sci-fi of flash fiction books, short story books and a few novels and now I am going to write my best novel in the mainstream.”

     I said, “I’m going to let the story come to me!” and I added, “I am starting an inspirational Virtual bar, ‘Harry Monaghan’s bar…’ It would be a classic case of coping with Covid-19. And I’ll chronicle it in a novel. Let the novel come to me as it were.”

     It didn’t matter where we lived, but in fact we were living in NYC.

     And I said, “I am a superfluous man. I am too clever for my own good. But there’s nothing, other than writing, that I want to do, other than drink! And make love.” My lover said, “You can do anything you want.”

    I said, “And I am bored with my creative writing classes I teach. You simply can’t teach someone to be a great writer. I’d rather spend my time drinking in my bar. So, I am quitting the job.

      And I said, “Even for those who are good writers, they often die in obscurity. They are outsiders, they are rebels.”

      And I said, “I am starting my own Online publishing house, with my best friend, Chuck, a handsome white man of 38. To speak to those on the lunatic fringe, the outsiders. It is called ‘Midas’ Sinkhole,’ we brought issue #1 out in February, of 2020.’”

     And I said, the Online publishing plus the Virtual bar should keep me busy…“

     “I expect,” I noted, “That people will come the bar with an image which is not their own, even altering their gender. But that is too far out. Everyone will have to show ID for an image of themselves in the virtual bar and will need to prove they are “special,” to get in. They will move the joystick to move around and will direct conversation in one direction or another. The software only cost me $10,000 USD, but everyone who wants to come and is approved will get their joystick in the mail for $40.

    And one of the features of the software, was you could disappear without a moment’s notice from the bar at any time. And sometimes characters were on the phone and were frozen in place on the bar floor with their Virtual arm raised.

     I added, “I won’t expect a perfect book to come from it, but it will be close.”

     And I was foolish enough to let my lover, Jane hypnotise me. And I found out later that she’d hypnotised me to be a success, and to love her.

     And on the Website, I put some of my books on for people to read before they came here. The door charge was $25.

#####

      Jane was Chinese and 45 years old. I was 52 and white. We were both very attractive.

March 2020

  #####

     My first customer I talked with was Jenny, a white, pleasant looking 40 something. And she said, “In the near future condos will continue to outpace income for most. Most people will be indebted their whole lives.”

     And, “Religion will die out soon.”

     And, “People will believe instead in Space and progress.”

     And, “Marriage is dead.”

     And, “Most future people will visit a shrink. It will be insane times.”

     And, “Everyone will be greedy for new loves.”

     And, “People will all be amoral.

     I said, “Your vision is believable. But who knows though what Supercomputers and Superhumans are capable of?” But everything we imagine will come true to some degree. But I said, “The future is not written in stone.” And I said, “I have given the future a lot of thought.”

#####

     Then I met a Burmese, man, William, who said, “These days people have far more time to contemplate life than previously and as a result, are all insane.” He said, “It’s a crazy World and it is getting crazier. The craziest sometimes succeed and do very well.” I said, “Just the very idea of life itself, is crazy.” “I agree with you!” He said. “But, craziness can be a lot of fun,” I added.

#####

     He, Carl, was white and said, “We will see new political parties crop up. The Atheists, the Alienists, the Love party, the Madness party, the Science party, the Imagination party, the Kind party, the High IQ party and a surge of the Greens. This left/right progressive/conservative situation today is foolish and unnecessary and cannot be sustained.”

     I said, “Politics is all about ass kissing, new or old.”

     But he said, “You are a would-be writer. You have to kiss ass with publishers.” I said, “Not the way I do it.” However, he said, “If you want to succeed you need to do it, I figure. All great writers work for money,” he said.

      I said, “At any time I could write horror novels like Stephen King.” But I don’t want to sell out and write like others have written. I want it to be in my own style. My own way. But I still believe I can succeed,” I stated, “Now that I am going mainstream with a tale of this bar.”

#####

       Meanwhile Jane had been painting sci-fi paintings of aliens and amazing landscapes. I praised her work, but I said, “You were down on me for writing sci-fi!” She replied, “Your sci-fi is too far out there. You need to bring it on home.”

     And she had shaved her entire body and said, “She wouldn’t grow her hair back until I succeeded.”  I was growing a long, long beard and told my love I wouldn’t shave it off until I was successful either. She said, you are 52, it is now or never.

##### 

      And then I met a man who said, “The World is becoming a giant suburb, and everyone would work from home and then soon, computers would do all the work.” And he thought that, “No one will go to bars anymore, it will all be Online dating and Virtual bars like yours.” I said, “Once Covid-19 is over, bars will rebound. But in the meantime, Virtual bars are where it’s at.” And I said, “That there didn’t seem to be very many of them. At least not in NYC.”

#####

      Then I was talking to a pleasant-looking local reporter, from the Middle-East, a woman of about 40. I said, “Watching the news during Covid-19, is a vexation to the spirit.” She said, “That’s the way it always is. It’s a life of tragedy. And she said, “She had contracted Covid in early March 2020, but was OK now.” I should have tried to love her, but I let her get away from me.

#####

     Then I was speaking with a stripper, Sugar a black woman of about 28. I said, “You must get a lot of sex!” She replied, “Not really, she had a boyfriend. However, she gave a lot of men pleasure, just dancing for them.”

And she said, “She earned tons of cash from her downtown strip club.” I said, “In Canada they take it all off including their G-string!” She said, “Maybe she should go there!” I asked her, “If they should legalize prostitution?” She replied, “It’s a good idea. It would take organized crime out of it and prostitutes could get tested for AIDS and herpes

#####

      Then, I was speaking with Jane again. She said, “You really ought to cut back on your beer. You have now a growing beer belly.” I said, “Whisky is less calories, at least.” She said, “You’ll get diabetes, like your father.”

  #####

       And then came the accident. I was carrying cases of beer down my stairs and I hurt my shoulder and could hardly move. It was a pinched nerve in my neck. And I was down and out for about six weeks, I was able to take codeine and sit up in my chair and write, before I finally was able to start to recover. I had been worried that I would never recover.

       In the meantime, the bar continued only with Jane as host. I was able to sit up in my writing chair for several hours a day.

#####

     And I wrote her a story, “About a girl who loved her man as much as she could, but finally he was dying, and she had a broken heart. She thought she had loved him too much and then she forgot about him completely, but finally she died of an overdose,” I wrote. She said, “This story sucked.” Try harder she demanded.

      And I told Jane, “At least I lost some weight!”

      But after about 6 weeks I was fully recovered and returned to the bar. And resumed loving Jane.

#####                                                      

May 2020

      And I was back telling all the people in my Virtual bar, that I had recently been writing, “Ice Beacon.” “I wrote, “It was about Alaska and being isolated in a small frozen village during the harsh winter of Covid-19.  It was a sense of total isolation, just like Space.”

       “And I knew the US military was testing new weapons nearby, including a disc-shaped ‘UFO.’”

      Jane said, “You’re writing sci-fi again.” I said, “No, it is all very plausible and contemporary.”

#####

      And then I was going on about a story about a rich man who is carried on a stretcher up to the top of Everest. With plenty of oxygen. At the top he drinks champagne, but on the way down several members of his party die of altitude sickness. I said, “It was golden to be rich.”

 #####

      Next, I was floating around the idea of “The Raymond Sisters,” who were best friends but kept a lot of secrets from one another, especially regarding cheating on one another with boyfriends.  Jane asked, “Can’t you write something nice?”

 #####

          Jane met a guy who said, “She was a queen.” But he bragged he had many lovers, dozens of them.

        She told me she had too much to drink and almost went for him. I was concerned I was losing her.

      And my shoulder flared up that night. But it was a false alarm.

     And Jane was saying, “I shouldn’t be afraid to write in the mainstream, it could still be deep she said, just like Ernest Hemingway.” I said, “Hemingway wasn’t deep.”                                                                       ######

     Then I met a pair of hermits, two Hispanic women, who said they were happy, being hermits. I said, “But surely your life is boring!” “Don’t you like people?” I asked. They said, “They had met and were lovers and came to my Virtual bar just for kicks.” I asked, “But as humans don’t you enjoy the nightlife and new friends and the latest movies etc.?” They said they wanted to cultivate their garden.

#####

    Then I met an interesting Taiwanese shrink who said, “She wanted to hypnotise me.” I politely declined. I told her, “Taiwan was my favorite country and I had travelled to 96 countries.”

     I told her, “I was hoping eternal youth would be discovered before I died. But I was 52 now and it looked like it would be 40 years at least before they discovered it.”

     She said, “Better to live for the day and don’t worry about it.”

     I said, “But I wanted to write a lasting novel.” She said, “Posterity will be so different there’s no way they will remember you, no matter what you write. Society will move on and people will become cleverer.”

       But she put a spell on me all the same and I was her slave. I met her at a downtown hotel, and she dominated me in love….

#####

     And we advertised for issue #2 and it produced a number of great works of literature that we would publish in our Online mag. My partner, Chuck, he was my best buddy, and was white and aged 38, but he didn’t care for my Virtual bar. But he said, “When it comes to literature, the more far out the better,” I said, “Chuck tried to be humorous on the website to lighten things up a little. It took a lot of time to read the submissions, so we hired some of the submitters to work for us as editors.  In particular I liked some of the science fiction we were taking like a story of a man who is cryogenically frozen and awakes in a bizarre Utopia. And another about people who are shrunk to just a couple of inches tall. And a story of android love dolls and so on.”

#####

     He, Maurice, white aged about 40 from France, said, “This kindred spirits thing is overblown. Talking with people who agree with everything you say is boring.” And he said, “He liked to go to the bar and randomly meet women. You never know what kind of lover you will find. Also, you never know what kind of friends you might meet.”

     He said:

Once there was a man

Who thought that he knew it all

But he was headed for a fall

But he had the gall

To say he knew it all

     I said, “It is a so-so poem.” He said, “He had thousands of poems.”

     He said, “I may not be clever as you. But at least I am trying.”

     I asked him, “What he thought about progress? He said, “We are going to Hell. AI will takeover and it will be chaos.”

     I said, “Well I am 52, I doubt I’ll live to see it.”

     He replied, “Better not to see it and leave it for others, in posterity, to deal with it.”

 #####

     Meanwhile my love Jane and I were growing closer together, not driving each other crazy with cabin fever like many. And there were no parties to go to during Covid-19.

#####

      But I concentrated on my Virtual bar.

#####

     Then I met a well-known architect, a sexy female in her 30s. She was saying how architecture in our city didn’t have the buildings blend together. The government of the city needed to force them to blend nicely together. And she said, “She wanted to be the urban planner for the city with special powers.

      And she wanted more tunnels in the downtown for people to escape the cold of winter. Decorated with modern art.

     I told her, “I wanted to love her.” She said, “She already had a lover, but thanks for asking.”

#####

     The next day I talked to a man, Jack an aging white man who had recently broke up with his girlfriend. He said, “He was trying Online dating, but most people there weren’t serious about finding love Online. He was sick of it and came here to the Virtual bar hoping for more luck.” I introduced him to a woman who was clever and ready to go and they hit it off.

 #####

      She was saying, her name was Christina, she was half Chinese/half white, aged about 45 and attractive in a weird sort of way, and she had just moved back to our city from L.A.

      I asked her, “How was L.A?” She answered, “She was sick of ass kissing to try and become an actress and wanted to settle down.” And she said, “She was a lawyer and could work anywhere.

     I welcomed her to “the bar.”

      And I asked, “For her love?” She said, “Sure let’s go!” So, I met her at a downtown hotel. And it was wild loving.

#####

      Bert, was white and about 60. He said, “He was a historical interpreter for various sites in the region.” I said, “Surely ‘history is bunk.’”

      He said, “In the past almost everyone was a farmer or rural dweller. And they worked all day into the night. And sickness and disease. And the life expectancy was very low.”

      He said sure, “Some regions were easier to live in than others. For example, Polynesia, they just picked the fruit off the trees and were free to love, but were cannibals. No society was perfect he said. But now we are approaching perfection in our modern cities. Utopias.”

      I said, “Happiness is just a state of mind.”

      He said, He’d written a story about the Wild West only he wrote it in the future, about a mad colony on Mars. The colony was full of desperados and violence and suicide.” He said, “The future will be full of desperate people.” I said, “Some will be desperate, but others will show grace under pressure. And those who go to Space will be closely monitored to be sane before they would be allowed to go!”

#####

      Then I met a girl, white about 45 from Quebec, Lianne who told me, “She was superfluous just like me. She didn’t know what to do with her time.” She said, “She was 60 and getting old and still hadn’t made it as a screenplay author. I read some of her works and they were brilliant, but had a lot of sex in them. I said, “Try and be more mainstream, for your last gasp, as it were.” She said, “We are both in the same boat. Let’s make a pact to both try and go mainstream! Covid or no Covid.”

#####

       She, Vivian, was Chinese and about 25, and she told me about a dream she had. “She was alone with her perfect lover on a deserted, tropical isle.”

      Everyone liked her.

      She was interested in living in the past and was helping to construct past worlds. They were movie sets. Movie set design was her job….

     And she was telling me about, “3 sets of triplets of which she was one. One group of the 3 were bisexual women, and the other 6 were straight with 3 males and 3 females…”

     But all 9 sang harmoniously in the chorus.

     And she told me, “She had a hard time relating to men. She felt more comfortable talking to her dog. She figured she was insane.” I said, “You’ve come to the right place. My bar is for lonely hearts.” And I said, “My love isn’t here tonight, why don’t we get it on?!”

       So we went back to her place downtown. And it was good loving. But I told her afterwards, “It was just a one-night-stand.”

#####

     I told the man, Juan, Hispanic, aged about 40, “It’s hard to play the game.”

     I said, “I am not writing for the common man, but rather the elite.”

     He said, “Hopefully one day everyone will be rich and there will be no elite!”

     I told him, “There will always be rich and poor. It’s just the way it is. Some lose, others win.”

#####

     And my love, Jane said, “She was talking to a man who was inspired by ‘Old Yeller’ and ‘Lassie,” and wrote a children’s story, “About a dog who was a seeing eye dog. And has adventures.”. She asked me, “Did you ever think about writing a children’s book?” I said, “I am a very serious writer, but I have written two books of fables as you know.”                                                                 

#####

       He, Jeremy, was indigenous and said, “He wrote about a prehistoric people who controlled an obsidian outcrop. The shaman of the tribe said they should set up camp around the outcrop. This allowed them to trade with other contemporary prehistoric peoples. And they inter-marry into the other groups.”

     I said, “History is bunk and I have no time for the past. The future is coming fast.”

 #####

      My lover, Jane, said, “She wanted to illustrate my book of the Virtual bar. Enhance the people to make them look like ‘saints,’ and ‘angels.”’ I said, “Good idea.”

     And she painted Covid-19 horror stories. Paintings of sick and dying and plague.

#####

     And I was having some boring guests in the Virtual bar. I contemplated requiring all guests prove they were very special, not just special.  And finally decided to do so. My friend Paul who was also our bouncer, would look through the applications every night and would sometimes sell the joystick at the “door.” The “door” was Paul’s place and customers could bring the joystick to cafes and play from there, with their computer screen or even smart phone.

     We, at the bar, got customers from all over the World. They would drink their own booze and just pay for a $25 ticket to enter the site.

#####

     My lover, Jane, looked to meet charitable people on the website. And she told me, “She’d met some really kind people.” And she said, “Many kind people have a kind looking, clever face. They were angels.” I said, “Yes, the future will hopefully be ruled by the kind, no matter what happens.

#####

     Then Beatrice, a white 30 something and quite attractive, writer of horror, she said, “It is a World of horror for the atheists and religious alike amongst us.” And she said, “She wanted to scare the hell out of people. Some people had little humanity left in them and to truly scare them was an achievement. Everyone is scared of something.” I said, “It can be a World of horror for those with a profound imagination.” She said, “Exactly.” I was curious about this girl so I arranged to meet her the next day in a hotel where we could swap horror stories and have a few drinks and of course I wanted to bang her. And I did and it was sensuous.

 #####

      Then I was talking to two poetesses, young and white from Holland. The first, Nancy, she said, “Poetry is not just pretty language, it’s the idea behind it that matters. True beauty.” And she said, “She wrote poetry about the future…”

      The second, Brittany said, “that poetry is improving worldwide as more and more fine people write it.” And she said, “That she, was trying to write poetry like Rimbaud’s ‘Illuminations.”’ I said, “You need good drugs to write like ‘The Illuminations.”’

     And I said, “Maybe in the future there will be no poetry. It is mostly just pretty language. Maybe just films for artists to make.”

     Brittany said, “No way!” And Nancy said, “Who knows?”

     Anyway, Jane wasn’t there again that night so I asked the two girls, “To meet me at my hotel for good loving.” It turned out they were bisexual and were really into it.

#####

     Then Jane was back from her family trip. I said, “In any case I’d like to devise a test of imagination. Of course, it would be largely subjective, but we could have different tests for different types of imagination. And different judges. And those who test the highest, would be VIPs in my bar…” She said, “Brilliant!” So, part of being very special for admittance to the bar was to show imagination, like to write a creative story ad lib. But I said, “Let’s leave it till after Covid.

       My love said, “Write like Hemingway and we’ll both be famous.” I said, “Hemingway wrote about fishing, boxing, bull fights, wars and parties, everyday fare.”

       She said, “It seems to me there was something more to it. In any case you are planning on writing about parties, just like, “The Sun also Rises.”

#####

       A lot of our customers were former bar owners who had gone out of business during Covid-19. And they were barflies. I talked with one woman, Renee, who was part white, part Chinese and who was smoking hot and I told her, “We are all pent up by this epidemic, and why don’t we let loose some steam and love one another?” So, I arranged to meet her the next day.

       Renee proved to be a good lover as I suspected. But I told her, “It was just a one-night-stand.” She said, “I know you are in love with Jane.

#####

      Then I was talking to an aging, white yachtie. He said, “He’d sailed around the World and had a real good time. But now he was trying to write about it. But it was hard. He had two daughters who were raised on his trimaran.” And he added, “He wanted to write creative nonfiction first and then move on to fiction.” He said, “Before he met his wife, he used to have a few sexy women with him on his boat.”

     And he said, “He’d met a lot of people who were backwards and primitive, but they were very interesting.”

      “But,” he said, “Covid -19 had freaked everyone out and so he was marooned on land.”

       I said, “But in NYC stories come to you and you can moor your yacht in the suburbs.”

#####

    Then one of our regulars, Betsy, Hispanic and sexy said she was changing into a man. Everyone was bummed out and depressed that such a pretty girl would do such a thing. She made a big deal out of it. And everyone had their say about it. And we wondered what kind of penis would she have?” She said, “There have been advances…”

#####

      Then I was talking to Karen, a white, 30 something god-looking nature lover who liked to watch wildlife. She said, “We need more wildlife parks. And some of them should not allow humans in, just have cameras everywhere and fence in the parks. I said, “Parks in the far north and the Antarctic coast are fine with everyone, but it is the parks near big population centers that are endangered. Or not considered as potential parkland.”

       We talked about “Greenpeace and other wildlife organizations and animals in Space as “pets,” and stem cell meats and so on.” And when the night was over, “I invited her back to my place.” And she agreed. We had great love, but I told her, “It ended here today.” She said, “Thanks anyway.”

#####

   Meanwhile the Online publishing company Midas’ Sinkhole. We were getting a lot of submissions. Hundreds a month and we were all overwhelmed. We were now on issue #3. Chuck said, “We’ve got a lot of play submissions in particular this issue and some are screenplays.” I said, “I especially liked the story about the end of the World.”

****

Tom Ball has written 67 books, including 2 screenplays, plus 2 game books and a short screenplay and a couple essays. Almost all of them have been published, at least in part. Many of the books contain a series of flash fiction, related to the title. There are books related to dreams, adventure, future love, madness, fables, future poetry, future politics, philosophy, future Gods/Goddesses, fantasy, future women’s crimes, books by future women, future epitaphs, future spies, future geniuses, original quotations, Space horror, Superhumans and Superandroids, Utopias and Dystopias. Most are science fiction… Also two prehistoric novels. Donations are welcome.