Techno Troubles: A Tale of Error and Redemption

I've got some money, so I'm going to drink tonight.

This is a bit like my New Years Resolution, but with more booze.

I walk into the bar and order a Jack and coke.

A woman in a white dress sits down at the other end of the bar. She looks familiar, but maybe it's because she wears white and has jet black hair like that actress in that movie... the one where she was an angel or something. But there's something off-putting about her face; it's too pale, like porcelain, almost like she's a doll or something. And her eyes are blacker than her hair, darker even than her dress. And they're staring right at me.

She motioned for the bartender to bring another glass of wine to my end of the bar and said "You look lonely." Her voice was deep and soft, unlike anything I'd ever heard before. It was beautiful, like music without even trying to be music.

"I'm not," I said, not taking my eyes off of her face. "I'm just waiting for my friends." As soon as I finished my sentence I went back to staring at this woman, looking for any sign that what I had said had been understood. Did she notice that I was lying? Did she care?

"Friends?" she said with that same velvety voice. "What if you didn't have any friends? Would you still want to be here?" She leaned forward slightly as she spoke and it took all my willpower not to stare straight down her dress as she did so. She had perfect breasts that were barely contained by her tight corset; they would have bulged out even more if it weren't for the presence of those two black eyes staring right back at me through mine.

"I don't know," I said after several long seconds passed by that felt like minutes. "Probably not." An image flashed through my mind of sitting alone in my apartment dusting off bottle after bottle of beer while watching bad TV shows on Netflix; I'd do whatever I could to avoid that fate tonight. When it passed I noticed that the bartender had left us alone again and we were alone at the end of the bar once more. "But I guess we'll never find out now."

"Oh, but we will," she replied with a smile that seemed too big for her face and too white for her complexion. "We will find out soon enough." And then suddenly we were no longer sitting at opposite ends of the bar; somehow we were standing on top of a cliff overlooking a beautiful ocean shoreline in broad daylight despite it being nighttime when we met only moments ago in a dark tavern under dim lights. There were people walking along the beach below us looking up at us as if they knew who we were and why we were there together; they waved to us and smiled politely despite not having any idea who we were or why we were there together either way. It was beautiful and peaceful, but also strange and unsettling at the same time; how had this happened? Was this real or was it just hallucination? Had anything happened between us at all or was this just some strange dream?

Suddenly she turned around and kissed me softly on the lips; before I could even comprehend what was happening our entire surroundings changed once again as though we had moved into some kind of portal that moved both space AND time around us: now we were standing on my street corner outside my apartment building in front of the dumpster where all of my old furniture used to sit before it got stolen last month by some equally indigent person; only now it wasn't a dumpster anymore but rather an enormous marble throne set upon a raised platform surrounded by drapery lined with gold rope among other things I couldn't quite make out from where I was standing but which looked pretty damn expensive if you ask me.

Behind me stood two shadowy figures dressed in cloaks similar to those worn by members of some kind of religious order or something who bowed down before this woman and addressed her as "Your Holiness" before turning towards me and saying: "And you must be Mr Peter Campbell!" But before I could answer they started leading me away somewhere by force while the woman watched them take me away from her with an expression on her face somewhere between sadness and anger. Our surroundings shifted again until we found ourselves inside a massive, stone cathedral, filled with thousands of people who seemed unaware of their own existence or each other's. A man in red robes led the congregation in a repetitive chant, ending with a proclamation that caused fantastical events to unfold above the crowd. He remained motionless for several moments before our world transitioned back into nothingness, leaving us to ponder the surreal experience we had just shared.