Absurd Girl

I once had drinks with a yeti. It was late, a Tuesday evening. He was tall, more beige-white than pure-white, and surprisingly lean. The bar was a local place. The kind of watering hole I went to when I needed to escape my life. 

So you can imagine my surprise when I turned my head and saw a yeti sitting to my right. He must have slipped in when I ordered my last drink. Or I’d have noticed a yeti walk through the door. 

I glanced around the bar, sipping my drink. 

The usual low hum of voices. The benign chatter and clinking glasses. The occasional scrape of a chair. 

No one seemed to have noticed our new patron–except me.  

Crunching ice, I turned back to the yeti, spying him out of the corner of my eye. A slight scent of cedar hung in the air. For some reason, I was hesitant to look at him for too long. He was staring straight ahead, as if contemplating whether he wanted rail or top shelf. I wondered about his drink of choice. Would it be bitter and hoppy, or something sweet and syrupy like my wife used to get? I hoped I’d find out. My wife stopped chasing truth with me years ago.

Now, at this point, you must think me hallucinating, or mad, or just plain drunk. While it is true that I’d had a few drinks by then, I was not so in my cups as to be completely out of my mind. 

Long ago, I had accepted the possibility of strange phenomena and the paranormal. So you see, it wasn’t just that a yeti had walked into a bar, it was that it had taken this long for him to do so. 

I have spent countless hours, countless years, travelling the globe and searching for answers. The fountain of youth. The secret Amazonian gold. Loch Ness, naturally. And our new friend’s North American cousin, of course. 

But I had given up such pursuits. Though travelling the globe, traipsing through wild terrain, and interrogating locals had once been the pinnacle of my days, I was older now. More tired. 

Maybe if I had travelled to that little town, on top of the mountain in the Brazilian jungle, I’d have found the next clue, uncovered a great mystery. If only I hadn’t missed that ferryboat in Guatemala. If only I hadn’t fallen asleep that night waiting for Nessie. 

I shook my glass, let the ice clink against the sides. Watched a bead of water roll down the side and drip on the paper napkin in front of me. The yeti hadn’t moved. Neither had anyone else in the bar. It was as if nothing extraordinary had happened at all. 

This was my moment, wasn’t it? All I had to do was open my mouth and speak. Then I would be talking to a yeti. I could finally get answers. 

I gathered my wits. It had to be a really good question. I wracked my brain. I thought about my wife and all the hours away from home, the lost vacations chasing truth, seeking mysteries. Finally, I had it. Yes, this was it. I was finally going to know the truth about life. 

I turned in my chair, readying myself for this moment of moments. And I blinked. Not once, but three times. Hard, fast, and in a row. 

He was gone. 

It was all too real now. All too late. I slumped over the bar, playing with my drink. The minutes ticked by into hours, and I noticed three empty glasses lined up in front of me. This was it. This was my life. 

I scrubbed a hand down my face, nodded to the bartender, and headed out the door. The night was cool, the sky above dark. I traced the few stars with my eyes and started toward home. I learned one thing that night: It was time I apologized to my wife.