Hello, everyone.

Sometimes we might actually—unknowingly—be writing to ourselves. I discovered a particular quote from one of my stories and it goes something like this:

An elderly man stepped in from the rain, late one evening. He turned to his right and hung his coat and umbrella. Nothing unusual could be seen from where he was standing: the typical folks at the bar who wanted to either get laid or get wasted, sometimes both. This old man walked to his usual place at the bar where he could sit within range of the bartender, yet not too close to all the noise.

"What'll it be, Hank?"

Hank looked to the bartender and replied, "Two shots of whiskey and an ale."

Just as the old man had finished his order, a young man entered the bar and took a stool two seats to Hank's right. It was evident that this fellow had walked in the rain as his hooded denim jacket was drenched. Hank guessed that this kid was in his mid-twenties from his choices of clothing.

With his hood covering his face, the young man ordered, "Coors!"

Hank couldn't help noticing that this young man seemed to be disturbed. Keeping at a respectable distance, Hank moved one seat closer.

The young man threw his hood across his shoulders and looked Hank directly in his eyes, saying, "Got a problem, gramps?"

Hank threw his first shot of whiskey down his throat quickly and replied after swallowing the last drop, "No… No… Not a problem. Just noticed you seem a bit edgy, that's all."

"Maybe I am! What's it to you?"

Hank swigged his second shot of whiskey slowly, enjoying the feel of the bite go down his throat. While looking in the mirror across from the bar, he could see the look of tears about to break along the rims of this young man's eyes. The old man took his bottle of ale and turned to face into the crowd behind he and the young fellow. Hank looked to his left, "There once was a time when I knew not what I know now: it was a time of innocence, it was a time of joy—it was a time of both innocence and joy. There comes a time in life when each of us reaches the midpoint where white and black and right and wrong are meaningless; there stands a fine line that is so fine that a single strand of hair links the two making a gray—this gray is what changes each of us. Being made of all the primary colors and the neutral color white, it is unmistakable for its identity; yet it can lead you—just as it had led me—in circles as you search for the solution, the cure, the answer to all problem. Guilt… no other word defines such an ugly color. Each of us ask ourselves how we could have avoided our collisions… where or when should we have taken exits off the roads that have led us to where we are, today."

Hank stood to his feet and looked into the kid's eyes, "Not a day goes by that I don't regret my past. I can allow it to break me down or simply learn from my mistakes."

As Henry walked away from the bar, the bartender handed the kid his bottle of Coors.

The kid asked the bartender, "Who was that?"

"Father Hank. Former father, I should say. He turned from his faith that night his wife died from a drunk driver running a stop sign. The two would have had their first child that following June. He has held himself responsible for that dilemma."

-